Did a bass you played in a shop ever make you regret buying your main bass?

[DiMarco]

In a shop? Never occurred. My basses are always better then the shop's - I buy second hand because I won't afford the basses I play @ new price.

I also like to sell perfectly good basses after some time to try out something new. There hasn't been a 'main' bass in a looong time until the Fodera NYC Empire came in. Amazing bass that one!

 

I must add that most local shops here mainly stock cheap stuff like lower end ibbies, sires and squiers. Dutchies (northern region specifically) generally don't like to spend money on quality.

 

 

 

[Happy Jack]

18 hours ago, TheGreek said:

"Main bass"???

 

That suggests you don't own enough basses....

 

This ^. Absolutely this ^.

 

[Beer of the Bass]

I don't really try out instruments in shops unless I'm genuinely in the market for something, and that's not often. So it's not something I've had to deal with so far.

[Lfalex v1.1]

42 minutes ago, Beer of the Bass said:

I don't really try out instruments in shops unless I'm genuinely in the market for something, and that's not often. So it's not something I've had to deal with so far.

I can relate to this, also.

Given that I rarely purchase something without at least a quick plonk on it, a trip to a decent shop is almost mandatory. And how many decent shops are there left?

The reason may be different, but the net effect is the same; I don't try things i  shops very much, therefore no purchases are made.

 

[shoulderpet]

Thanks for the replies, looks like I have bad gas for a Thunderbird, just need to decide whether to move my Mezzo on to help fund one, I could probably do with having fewer basses so I think I will go ahead with it

[TheGreek]

I think one of the worst places to try basses are Bass Bashes. You can try basses in every price bracket and obscure gear that very few shops in the UK will have in stock. 

 

Though I love attending bashes to meet up with other members I often leave cursing so and so for letting me play their bass....I'm sure I'm not the only person who was plotting @Frank Blank's assassination to get my hands on his Mouse.

[Lfalex v1.1]

16 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

I'm sure I'm not the only person who was plotting @Frank Blank's assassination to get my hands on his Mouse.

If this weren't so literal,  it'd be the best BC euphemism ever! 

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

I think one of the worst places to try basses are Bass Bashes. You can try basses in every price bracket and obscure gear that very few shops in the UK will have in stock. 

 

Though I love attending bashes to meet up with other members I often leave cursing so and so for letting me play their bass....I'm sure I'm not the only person who was plotting @Frank Blank's assassination to get my hands on his Mouse.

Yes, but then I realised I would also have to assassinate other would-be assassins - I would all get very messy and I still wouldn’t be able to play fretless as well as the recently diseased Frank. 

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I can't remember the last time I played a bass in a shop

[Mastodon2]

My main bass is a golden age Ken Smith, so no, I've never played anything in a shop that holds a candle to it.

 

There's only one or two shops in the UK that stock stuff on a similar level and I've never visited them in person and I doubt they'd have any of my "holy grail" level basses which could compete with my Smith.

[Doddy]

At this point, I'm generally really uninspired when I'm looking at the bass section in most music shops, and I'm rarely interested in picking up an instrument unless it's something pretty special. I've played Fenders in shops that were probably nicer than my Jazz but I've had mine since it was new back in '95, and it just feels comfortable to me now. Other than that, most shops don't usually stock anything that compares to either my F Bass, Roscoe, Tobias, or Shuker.

[LeftyJ]

As a lefty, I very rarely find anything lefty at all in a music store, let alone a bass that trumps my main axes. 

That said, I did visit a few Lefty Bass Days held by Leftybass.com at CMS Music in Duisburg, Germany and they had some excellent lefty basses there. One that still haunts me was a LeFay Herr Schwarz 5-string I played there in 2012. Literally almost everything about that bass was custom made for or by LeFay. No two control knobs were the same size, they went from large to small but very subtly and hardly noticable. The pickups were custom made for LeFay. The neck profile was like no other I've ever held: wide, thin and flat, and just the most comfortable 5-string neck I've ever played. The body was beautifully sculpted too. I own some fabulous basses, but that thing blew them all out of the water. The only thing that wasn't really for me was the rotary pickup selector switch instead of a pan pot or two volumes + coil switching on the bridge humbucker. 

 

 

[neepheid]

Do I have a "main bass", now that I've bought one which cost more than my car?

 

No, I have never experienced this.  If I did try a bass which blew my hair back and cost half the price of my G&L L-1000 then I guess I would be a little rueful but it would have to be AMAZEBALLS.  Then I'd solve the issue by finding a way to own both of them

 

[bloke_zero]

Everytime I go into a shop and try something I get some aspect of this.

 

Fortunately/unfortunately most of the basses I've tried that really rang my bell were in the 2K region and pleasantly unobtainable right now.

 

But they did give me a lot of ideas about what I like, what is 'true' about different basses and what I might aim for in the future. The short scale oak blastcult bass I tried sort of opened the doors of perception bass-wise: fun, solid, quick great sounding and nothing like a p-bass or a stingray, or really any other bass I've tried. bit spendy though!

[OliverBlackman]

Basses I’ve played in a shop I wish I owned:

1967 Fender P bass at Wunjos

1963 Fender Jazz bass at New Kings Rd Guitar Emporium

30th Anniversary MM Stingray 5 at the bass gallery

Ken Smith bsr (I think) 5 at Bass direct

 

All big money basses, but not as many as I thought and not items you see everyday. 

[Rich]

There have been two basses I've played that I've desperately wanted -- a} Kiwi's old Smith BSR5 (oh my god, the sound it made through my Eden amp was properly gusset-dampening), and b} this incredible instrument at Jon Shuker's workshop. This is probably the best sounding 5 string bass I have ever played, it was just perfect.

Luckily for me, these two instruments were a} not for sale and b} out of my price range.

 

[thodrik]

It happened with a guitar to me but has never happened with a bass. I bought an American Deluxe Fender Toronado as my guitar in 2006 and really liked it. However, when I tried a Les Paul for the first time in  2016 my mind went 'my guitar feels like a toy' by comparison. I ended up buying a different Les Paul in 2018 and sold the Toronado to fund a Mesa Big Block 750 six months later. That was the first time I sold a decent instrument as I normally keep them, however I needed the cash, never played the Toronado and I really really wanted that Big Block!

 

[skej21]

Nope, but I’ve definitely made “main bass” purchases that were attempts to chase or find that one bass I played when I was younger and couldn’t afford that SHOULD have been my “main bass”. I really needed to just save up and buy one at the start! 🤣

[BlueMoon]

On 29/08/2021 at 10:34, DiMarco said:

Dutchies (northern region specifically) generally don't like to spend money on quality.

Zuinigheid??........or more locally specific 😉

[tauzero]

Sort of. I went into Musical Exchanges in Birmingham in 1988 because I wanted to try out an octaver, and they handed me a Warwick JD Thumb to try it with. I didn't actually regret buying the Fender P I had at the time, but I immediately part-exchanged it for the Warwick.

[White Cloud]

On 28/08/2021 at 21:55, Lfalex v1.1 said:

Nope!

There's been a bass I wish I'd bought (a Ken Smith 6- also in the Wapping Bass Centre, btw) but that would have supplemented my Vigier Series III  not replaced it.

Everything I've bought since the Vigier has been something different, sometimes wildly different. I've seen a few instruments that I'd like to try/acquire/buy, but they're quite obscure (Fender Roscoe Beck, BassLab L-bow etc.) But I can't see them making me regret the Vigier. I've had it for 26 years (!) now.

 

My Vigier Passion 3 is without a doubt the best instrument I've owned in over 40 years of playing. I owned an Arpege in the 80's ... a close second!

 

As for the OP's query, I'd say that although the grass is always greener on the other side, you really need the Thunderbird in your life🙂

[Lozz196]

On 31/08/2021 at 14:45, skej21 said:

Nope, but I’ve definitely made “main bass” purchases that were attempts to chase or find that one bass I played when I was younger and couldn’t afford that SHOULD have been my “main bass”. I really needed to just save up and buy one at the start! 🤣

That was def a tale that rang true for me too, for some reason rather than just buy a Precision I chased the sound with many others only to be dissatisfied all the time. Daft thing is over that period I spent more than a Precision would have cost. In fact my first “real” bass, a Yamaha BB1100s was £450 and at the time a US Precision was £325, but out of stock. Impatient me couldn’t wait, had to have a bass now!

[skej21]

3 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

That was def a tale that rang true for me too, for some reason rather than just buy a Precision I chased the sound with many others only to be dissatisfied all the time. Daft thing is over that period I spent more than a Precision would have cost. In fact my first “real” bass, a Yamaha BB1100s was £450 and at the time a US Precision was £325, but out of stock. Impatient me couldn’t wait, had to have a bass now!

Exactly the same. I saw the usual setups and thought I could go modern (and at times vintage) and it would somehow give me an edge or better sound than the ‘cliche’ setups. I’ve spent thousands doing it and just got back to an American Original Precision bass, Ampeg PF115HE and PF20T and couldn’t be happier. Could’ve saved myself a fortune and just bought that in the first place!

[uk_lefty]

I suppose my main bass is my US Stingray that I bought with a lovely tax rebate a few years back. I was very, very tempted by a US Jazz that was 4 or 5 hundred cheaper hut felt that the Ray would suit my live playing better, while I thought the nuanced tone of the jazz was better for playing at home and if I were to do recording. I always thought about that jazz though... 

 

Fast forward and the other week I tried out one of the new US Jazz basses. I didn't like it. GAS and regret dealt with. 

[BigRedX]

No.