It’s a little strange, but I put on the Waza-Air Bass tonight and tried it with all 8 of my basses and I came away with the impression that my J Bass (the Poison Apple I built) had the best tone and low end grunt with the Yamaha BB G4 and Ibanez Mikro coming in behind it. I also found that the Steinberger E string was way out of tune. Ranking them in order:
The Poison Apple J Bass
the Yamaha BB G4
The Ibanez Mikro
The Turquoise Waters P Bass
Squier Affinity Jaguar
The Yamaha TRBX174
The generic PJ Bass (1st one I bought)
The Steinberger Spirit XT-1 (mostly because it was out of tune)
Now, this was just with the Waza…I haven’t tried them on the actual amps and I’ll tune the Steinberger before I try again.
My favourite has become my Warwick Thumb. It’s just a pleasure to play.
It’s very closely followed by my Streamer NT. Again easy to play and lighter than the thumb. The PJ pickup layout is very good tone wise.
After that would be my Corvette. It’s one I go back to and really enjoy. Definitely on the boat anchor scale though.
Then its a toss up between the Infinity and my Ibanez SR.
To be totally honest it’s pretty hard to choose between them all but the Thumb has a slight edge
I have been seriously messing around with my ugly green Hofner to some late Beatles tunes and I have to say I am loving it, a LOT.
So much so that I am now considering a higher end Hofner in its place.
When I first tried it at GC, I did not like it at all, but finding one for $150 I couldn’t pass it up, even if it isn’t easy being green.
But for getting that early or late Macca tone, its amazing.
Next cover will be on it, and with a damn pick!
For some reason, the little Hofner seems pick friendly to me vs. my other longer basses, not sure why.
My favorite bass has changed quite a bit since my earlier post. It is now, without doubt, my Kiesel-made Carvin X44 Xccelerator. So much so that - much like @PamPurrs above - I have a Kiesel hoodie on its way to me.
I did some digging and discovered what woods were used in the construction of my X44… it’s got a quilted maple top, a black limba and white limba body, a maple and black limba neck, and a birdseye maple fretboard.
Right now its definitely my American Professional II Precision bass. This thing has some thump. Great build and the neck is slightly thinner than a traditional P bass neck so transition from my Jazz was quite easy.
It’s interesting as since my original answer I have found that this answer changes over time. I picked up my favorite trusty modded Squier last night and thought I hated it, but…after playing a while liked it, but it wasn’t #1.
But also picked up my CS P last night and it was like magic, and some days doing that is not.
So today my #1 is the burst Aerodyne with the D’Addario tapes on it. Some magic there.
I’ve had the same issue @John_E mostly because I bought the Gretsch since I last talked about my basses and I’ve started playing on Yousician a lot more. The Gretsch is definitely number one with the Mikro #2 and the Poison Apple J bass #3. I like the Peavey Milestone IV but it’s not as good as some of the others, and the Steinberger has moved way up.
My knee-jerk reaction is to say The Beast. A Carvin/Kiesel Xcellerator X64 is certainly a very nice instrument. But the C-5 GT has been getting most of my playing love lately. If I could only keep one? Probably The Beast. I love purple, but it’s rare and excellent.
I have others I love, but all my playing time goes to these two. The Stream is like bass on easy mode, it’s so easy to play. It just fits.
The Charvel, sounds so beautiful. The pickups are so clear. Admittedly there could be some new bass syndrome, but I don’t think so. The tones are so pure, whereas the stream is a little raw. The Charvel is a little trickier to play in my hands, the neck is flat, the fingerboard is compound radius, and I’m not yet at home with it
The stream has a thin U neck, but the curve fits better than the flat Charvel neck.
If I feel this way in a month, another cull may be coming. I could live with these two.
I’ve gone through Epiphone, Yamaha, Ibanez, G&L, Carvin, Squier, Kiesel, and Fender. And I loved some of those basses hard. But through it all, one of them has emerged victorious in my “what’s your favorite bass” race:
I’ve never been a “Fender guy”. In fact, in days of bass past I actively avoided Fender basses. But I picked that Jazz up in a trade a few months back, and since then it’s grown on me more and more. Now I can’t picture being without it.
