Sticking to a Single Bass Syndrome (SSBS)

Gear
#1

Hello y’all!

I am proposing this thread to look on the other end of the spectrum of the “MBD” Where you enjoy one of your basses (or your first and only bass) so much that you don’t even want to touch anything else anymore!

I have been suffering from this for the last 3 months since my Fender Vintera 50s Precision Bass came home… At first the wide woody neck with a huge dive was challenging but …the tone… the tone got to me.

In the last 3 months I tried several times to go back to my quite modern and flexible Cort Artisan A4 but it felt more and more …“superficial” almost “toy like” in my hands… No matter what I dialed in the active bass preamp or my bass amp for that matter I couldn’t find that same taste!

I had it up for sale for about 1.5 months now and finally this week someone is buying it from me (fingers crossed). In Italy this is super painful because if your bass ain’t fender it looses ton of value on resell and I am selling that beauty to %55 percent of what I paid but that is another discussion…

Going back to this syndrome!

Since the P-Bass came home and the lockdown measures relaxed in Italy. I have been playing with other musicians a lot… I mean a lot!

Recently as some of you might remember I also picked up a study for Jazz Standards as well in parallel to my 70-90s Rock Cover band… and soon I might find myself running with a Muse Tribute band!

So what do you think is my P-Bass up to this multi genre challenge? Am I?

With the money coming in from Cort I am thinking to get my hands on a Dark Glass Pre/DI… Still deciding either to go for B7K ultra or Vintage ultra…

On the bass side I will change to heavier gauge flatwounds…I enjoyed a lot the round wounds but they are too shiny for the Jazz tones it seems and the Nylon wounds that I have been using lately do not feel very good (maybe La Bella is to blame)…

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You can only have one bass, what is it?
#2

Nothing wrong with sticking to what you like. I am the same way. I don’t want a lot of basses, I want one or two that I really like. I have two now and love them, both, otherwise I would sell one to just have one.

I’m not a collector - quite the opposite. Same is true for other gear. If I find I am not using something, or don’t love it, it’s out, sold, and used to fund other stuff I might want.

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#3

as a mostly-studio-guy, I find it’s useful to have different gear for different uses, and the most important for me is having different tunings. but I find it’s very elegant to have only one (or say, just a few) instruments and do everything with it.

I don’t see any problem with any of those situations, both work in my opinion.

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#4

Having a BEAD bass is indeed nice. Especially if you want to Drop A or something :slight_smile:

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#5

yeah and you just can’t switch from EADG/DADG and BEAD/AEAD with the same setup. so at some point, if you want different tunings, you need more than one instrument.

that said, I don’t feel the absolute need to have different instruments for different tones : I go from country to post-metal with the same Precision Bass, as with guitars where I play everything with the same Telecaster.

so, yeah, if there is no tuning issue/need, I don’t see any problem in the idea to have only one instrument.

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#6

I have been playing at home most of the last year all by myself for obvious reasons but now everywhere I go my “studio” is coming with me :slight_smile: I have my recorder/interface and camera for for everything I do and a preamp was really a missing gear since I never knew with what kind of bass amp I end up with anytime… You can do only so much with multi effect pedal or a headphone amp…

The different tunings thing would have been the only reason ever for me to keep a second bass but the guys I’m playing with specifically avoid that kind of complications…

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#7

I don’t think there’s anything wrong if someone wants to collect basses, either - it’s just definitely not me :slight_smile:

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#8

Yeah that’s pretty much where I am standing atm. Whatever I play would sound like me playing it…

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#9

Beyond a certain point, tone is one of the lesser criteria for me, now that I have gotten decent at how to use effects in the DAW.

As long as a bass has good pickups I can get a really wide range of tones out of multiband effects at this point.

For me it’s more about instrument feel and look now :slight_smile:

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#10

This is why I like preamps. You can have so many different tones with them so you should be good with a single bass.

Altho I do think it’s nice to have at least one p-bass and a j-bass in your arsenal. The difference between those two is noticeable imo.

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#11

I own two Basses.
A Yamaha TRBX 304 which I did not like the sound of after only a couple of weeks of use.
The idea was to sell the 304 and upgrade to the Yamaha TRBX504 however in trying to sell the 304 I was only offered 1/2 of what I paid. With only 2 weeks and about 10 hours of total use I said no thank you.
I will keep the 304 as a back up for now.

I ordered and received my Yamaha TRBX504 and could not ask for more in a Bass.
I have 0% interest in any other Bass and do not even look at the GAS areas of the forum :slightly_smiling_face:

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#12

I also have a Yam TRBX304 (Big Red) that I have updated the bridge on and put a set of half rounds on…. It makes a great practice bass and I learn most all my songs on it. The biggest downside to this bass is it’s weight! It weighs a TON compared to my other bass’s, but it does (to me) have great tone and is an easy bass to play and learn songs on…

My Ibanez SR504 on the other hand has one of the fastest’s necks I have ever played bass on…. It also has an upgraded bridge and with rounds, it has great tone and attack and allows me to more easily play those RHCP songs (along with many others)….

Although I do have several bass’s all set up differently, given the genre of music I like to play, I could “probably” get by with just a couple - oh, and one is my BEAD tuned TRBX174EW, but since I do play a variety of different music, having different bass’s set up with different electronics and PUP’s (and strings), gives me a lot of versatility.

However,…… Beware of the man who owns but ONE bass…… He apparently knows “how to use it”!!:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Keep on Thumpin’!
Lanny (a MBS king)…:rofl::rofl::rofl:

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#13

This is a fascinating subject on many different levels. How many basses do you ‘need’? The obvious answer is one, because otherwise you can’t play the bass. After that we’re into the ‘want’ category and that’s entirely subjective.
About 3 years ago I was pondering the same question, when I stumbled across Keith Williams’ fantastic YouTube channel ‘five watt world’. He’s gone on to produce a ‘short history of’ on lots of interesting subjects, including the P Bass. But he started out by asking the question. How many do really ‘need’? It resonated with me.
My thoughts are simple. I’d rather be really proficient on one bass. Owning 10 basses wont make me a better bassist (Spoiler alert - practice will!). However where you live is a free country (If it isn’t, don’t worry you won’t be reading this anyway) so as long as you’re not hurting anyone, buy whatever you want. I’m not judging at all.
So now that I’ve found a bass that looks good, feels nice to play I’m going to settle down and put some hours in on it.
Beware the man with but one bass as @Griff so eloquently puts it!

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#14

That’s pretty standard. This is why you should never buy new unless you have to :slight_smile:

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#15

I am very partial to a hollow body as well.
And a Music Man is great but it really is a very specific genre of tones let’s call it.
Oh wait, and a Rick, and a….ugh here we go again.

On the serious side, this is what the SIMs pickups do, they give you the P J MM pickup options in 15 different configurations. With a preamp, the possibilities are really wide. I really like my testbed bass and was def worth doing to see all the config options, but there is something about a straight P and J that I don’t think I would ever be without.

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#16

I’m pretty much a 2 bass person. Right now, I have the Hofner, which has proven itself worthy of several genres, and the ESP which is my BEAD bass for those songs that benefit from tones below the low E (songs in the key of Eb for example). I have the VTBass DI that I can use to play around with tones when I need to.
I have neither the desire, nor inclination to own a stable of different basses. At most, I may add one more at some point in the future, but it’s not something to which I give much though.
That’s just how I roll.

#17

With the limited supply after almost a year of Covid I really did not have a choice unless I wanted to settle for something else until they became available but I would still have been in the same boat only with a second Bass I did not really want from the start.

At least I have a good back up :slightly_smiling_face:

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#18

Yeah, sometimes you have to. I just did (the model I wanted very rarely turns up used here, people hold on to them.)

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#19

One of the delights of the used guitar / bass market is that you’re generally going to take more of a bath on a more inexpensive bass. It’s down to fixed costs. If you advertise on Reverb you’ve got a potentiality huge audience to sell your bass.
But the fixed cost is shipping (about $75-$100) plus the reverb fees. So if your new bass costs $500 with free shipping. When you sell it used you might get $400, deduct the fixed costs and you might see maybe $275.
You could try and sell it on FB marketplace, Kijjiji etc. But it’s a smaller audience and you have to deal with people!
The more expensive the instrument and combined with something with a (for some inexplicable reason) brand that holds it’s value i.e Fender, Gibson you’ll see a smaller loss.
Bottom line, used is the way ahead.
However this has been a strange year. My new Fender P Bass was $999. There’s a whole schwack of clowns on Reverb (thanks to Covid) who want the same money for their beat to shit used MIM Bass.
Hopefully when the supply chain is back up to full speed we’ll see a return to more sensible used prices. Maybe?

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#20

Wait… what?? Did you get a new bass??? Which one?? :exploding_head:

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