If you could start again.. what bass..

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I'd get just a Squier Short Scale Candy Apple red Jaguar bass and a set of flatwounds.

Edited August 21, 2011 by Jean-Luc Pickguard

[chris_b]

If I could start again....

I'd have designed the 5 string bass 10 years before it was. You'd all be writing posts about me now, and I'd have got rid of those pesky 4 strings 20 years earlier!

Hindsight is a great thing. With mine I'd have bought lots of 1960 Jazz basses and kept them under the bed.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='merello' post='1347221' date='Aug 21 2011, 03:43 PM']I gigged the hohner the most and it was great for touring with but I guess I'd go back to the 70/80s P-bass and actually get it set up as opposed to thinking 'this doesn't play well!'[/quote]
I owned my '81 precision for over 20 years and for most of those thought it was a bit of a dog before learning to do setups & taking it to the gallery to get the frets levelled & crowned. It still weights more than John Prescott & Eric Pickles combined though.

[wombatboter]

I bought a new Wal bass in 1993 but at the time I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have (I was in a Mark King mood and Wal-basses didn't sound like Jaydees etc..). So I sold it too quickly to a fellow bass-player.
That person came home with his new Wal and wanted to play it but his wife insisted that he first took care of the grass in the garden which was too long.
While cutting the grass he cut off his finger.. they could put it back on but it took a couple of weeks-months before he could play bass again.
After a while he sold it to another bass-player who hasn't been using this bass for the last ten years.
The Wal just lies in its case in a cellar for more than a decade without being touched. I wanted to buy it back but the owner insists on keeping it although he never plays it (he is a heavy alcoholic and has extreme moodswings so if you keep on asking for the Wal he gets very angry).
Bidding a lot of money also doesn't help since he is very rich and doesn't need cash..it will probably never be played again.
I'm still working on getting it back but it doesn't seem to look that way..
I would love to have it back... this is the only picture I have of me and that Wal.

[acidbass]

I regret starting on a 3/4 scale bass, if I could do it all again I'd buy myself a Fender Precision and get stuck in!

[cocco]

I wouldn't have bought a 5 string Warwick streamer S1, that was an expensive mistake!

[4000]

Can't say I'd have been able to start on it (and am pretty happy that I started on a Ric seeing as I still play them) but with hindsight I'd have bitten the bullet a lot earlier and gone for an Alembic Triple O when my back could easily handle it. I'd probably have actually saved money spent on other stuff in the long run too. Broke my heart selling that bass because I simply couldn't wear it comfortably anymore (and they are NOT comfortable sitting down...).

Basses I regret selling? In some ways I'd like most of them back but the only ones I really miss, apart from my Alembic, are my Pedulla MVP (although I recently played another and it was nowhere near as nice as I remember mine being - not sure if that's the rose-coloured spectacles of memory or not!), my Rick 8 string, my Sei 4 headless and the recently sold Sei 5. I really liked my first Warwick Dolphin too (although again it was pretty heavy, heavier than my vastly-inferior second one).

Edited August 22, 2011 by 4000

[biro]

one of my biggest regrets is having waited so long before buying a jazz type like bass. I just don't know why and how, but even though i regularly fell in love every time i tried a JB it took me like ten years before eventually deciding to finally take the plunge. and even if it's just an SX (beautifully crafted and playing and all, but still an SX), I'm currently not playing anything else. I'm such a retard at times.

[Cat Burrito]

I started with this



Admittedly it was a 57RI but I switched the neck to a 62RI. I've since changed the pickup, addded the ashtrays, changed the nut, replaced the pickguard.... I can't think of another bass I'd like to have started out with. It's played all over the UK, and still goes out live with me now. The thing I'd change is not buying 300 other basses to come back to the original!

(ok, maybe not 300 but my point is there)

[paul_5]

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='1348282' date='Aug 22 2011, 07:22 PM']I started with this
I switched the neck to a 62RI. I've since changed the pickup, addded the ashtrays, changed the nut, replaced the pickguard....[/quote]Surely that makes it closer to your second bass than your first?

[BigRedX]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1347296' date='Aug 21 2011, 05:25 PM']If I could start again....

I'd have designed the 5 string bass 10 years before it was. You'd all be writing posts about me now, and I'd have got rid of those pesky 4 strings 20 years earlier![/quote]
Me too. Nothing like any of the basses I most often use at the moment existed back in 1981 when I bought my first bass. My oldest Overwater which was one of the very first 5-strings they made dates from late 1983/early 1984.

Of course I'd also have to have invented some decent amplification to go with these basses in 1981...

[12stringbassist]

I wouldn't change the basses I've bought over the years, even the ones I didn't use enough and sold on.
I would, however, change things so that I had presevered with the 5 string Fender Jazz bass I sold.
Having bought a Retrovibe RV5 recently and mastered it quite easily (better string spacing), I still wish
I'd stuck with that Fender. I hate it when an instrument defeats me!!

[Spike Vincent]

If I startedagain I'd just bypass the copies and go straight for thr Fender Precision.Except I'd have bought a black one first.

[Muzz]

I wouldn't change any of the early/crappy Hondo/Satellite types which got me going, but I wouldn't have bought the brand new 4001 Jetglo from The Guitar Player in Rochdale in 1980, I'd have bought the black and maple Precision next to it. Then, a couple of years later, I'd have passed on the Aria ZZB Custom, and bought the pre-EB black and maple Ray next to that...

Oh, and instead of selling them for peanuts when I stopped gigging a lot, I'd have held on to the SVT and the B15, and stashed them. Somewhere. Though I'm not sure where...

[Fat Rich]

Started out on a very cheap bolt Aria which played pretty well and sounded OK. Moved on to Aria SB neck-throughs which were great but then I wanted 5 strings.

Wasted some time and money on a couple of cheap 5 strings but they sounded rubbish and one had really tight string spacing. Went to the Bass Centre to buy a Warwick Streamer 5 and hated it, came back with my Status series 1 instead and still play it regularly.

The only real regret was not keeping my battered '62 Jazz, my Japanese '62 Reissue sounds and plays the same but the original would be worth a fortune now.

I suppose with hindsight I would have got started on a decent 5 string sooner and maybe not bothered with the 6 stringers as I just don't feel as comfortable on them.