Why do I have more than one bass?

[The Dark Lord]

[quote name='rOB' timestamp='1320764188' post='1431043']
True, most people on that thread haven't broken a string in years. I take a spare bass to gigs purely out of paranoia and nerves, same reason I turn up earlier than necessary for sound check and drive my band crazy with rehearsing new songs a million times before introducing them into the set. Anything I can do to reduce the liklihood of things going wrong on the night helps my nerves.

I'd never begrudge a collector from collecting. For me 2 is enough.
[/quote]

It's true I haven't had a string break for ages. Although, two or three times in the last couple of years if felt a string "go". Where it loses a bit of tension during a rehearsal and won't keep in tune no matter how many times you tweak it. It doesn't sound or feel right. My thoughts on this are that bass strings, being so thick and sturdy, don't break like guitar strings. They do that "go" thing .... and probably would break in a couple of days or so you ignored that signal.

Edited November 11, 2011 by mercuryl

[topo morto]

Basses can be very different to each other, even within the range of 'normal basses' - an active fretless 5 with a ramp, flats and 16mm spacing sometimes doesn't even feel like the same instrument as a standard P bass with rounds - different techniques are possible on each.

[chrismuzz]

I like to have one bass for each tuning I play in, and then one spare 'old faithful' that i can quickly put in any tuning in an emergency

[LukeFRC]

at the moment my peavey is stashed in a cupboard at church (not saying which one ) and the warwick is sat with someone else waiting to get taken away for the weekend, which I was playing but now I'm not.
So I'm left with the JV squire.
which would be getting all the playtime, except my amp is also in the stack to be picked up..... so it's not getting played!