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XoSo

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…….two basses, but you need to have maximum flexibility. As someone fairly new to bass I'm thinking you'd want a four string, a five string, a fretted bass and a fretless so I'd maybe go fretted four string and fretless five string. I haven't a clue whether they'd be active or passive - I've only ever played passive basses so I have no idea what active basses bring to the table. Which way would you go, and I'm particularly interested to hear your reasoning. Hopefully goes without saying I'm not asking what make or model you'd go for.

Edited by XoSo
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Solid advice, and that is exactly what I've done for the last twelve months - however I'm not asking what I should do personally. I am interested in these sort of hypothetical quandaries and wondering how people would approach them. Their reasonings behind choices will also help me understand the function of basses better

Edited by XoSo
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Right so the rules are you can only have 2 basses? 

In that case you can have a rolling stock. Use one while selling the second, then buy another and play the new one while selling the old one. That way you constantly have new basses to try and only ever have two.

Isn't that what we all do anyway? (Except when we forget about the selling the old one part) 

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1 minute ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

Right so the rules are you can only have 2 basses? 

In that case you can have a rolling stock. Use one while selling the second, then buy another and play the new one while selling the old one. That way you constantly have new basses to try and only ever have two.

Isn't that what we all do anyway? (Except when we forget about the selling the old one part) 

Exactly this,  and upgrade each time only I didn’t sell the previous one,  so I now have 11 😀

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IMO if you're reducing your basses to the minimum 5's are the most flexible instrument to own. In the thousands of gigs I've played, I have never been asked to bring a fretless and when I turned up with one on 2 separate occasions, I met with total indifference! I'm a fretless free zone from now on.

My take on 2 basses that give the widest usable range is a passive PJ5 with flats (currently with foam) and an active 5 string Jazz with rounds.

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I don't play live these days so I only have one (a Seibass headless fretted 5), but when I was I had 5 or 6. Latterly however I found myself only ever using 2; the Sei and a lovely Roscoe fretless 4 that I got at a bit of a knockdown price from a guy in Florida. When I stopped playing seriously I sold the Roscoe along with eveything else, but I do still hanker after it occasionally. As it happens there's a very similar one for sale in the Lefties section right now, almost identical except that it's a 6. I don't need it of course and at this point would be very unlikely to use it in anger, but it's the first time I've been even a little bit tempted in years. Ho hum. :/

Edited by leftybassman392
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Honestly, I have over 10 basses and my only fretless is up for sale currently. I like playing it when I play it, but I really don't reach for it often, I never have an opportunity to gig it, and it gets less use than the 8 string.

So I will go for two 5s. An expensive one and a cheap one. OK, they both technically do the same thing, but I can take the cheap one into pubs I won't take the expensive one!

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1 hour ago, XoSo said:

…….two basses, but you need to have maximum flexibility. As someone fairly new to bass I'm thinking you'd want a four string, a five string, a fretted bass and a fretless so I'd maybe go fretted four string and fretless five string. I haven't a clue whether they'd be active or passive - I've only ever played passive basses so I have no idea what active basses bring to the table. Which way would you go, and I'm particularly interested to hear your reasoning. Hopefully goes without saying I'm not asking what make or model you'd go for.

Up until now I have gigged using a single fretted 5 string active J bass.  It was supurbly flexible!  The active EQ allowed for quick adjustments if I flipped between pick and fingers and for some old school Beatles covers I'd switch to passive mode and roll the tone off to get more of a vintage tone.  I went 5 string so I didn't need to worry about retuning to drop D like the guitarists for certain songs.

However, I've found the fiver feels like a battle to play at times, I have smaller hands and reaching round for the low B feels awkward.  I recently picked up a 4 string which I felt was just so much more fun for me to play.

So in future I think I will gig with 2x fretted Active PJ 4 strings, one with flats and one which might be in drop D tuning if needed for the set.  I love the PJ pickup config and Active EQ for the range of tones I can get without having to adjust the amp's settings.  I'm also thinking of something like a Radial Big Shot I/O (V2) for easy switching and balancing volume levels between the Instruments.

Edited by PJ-Bassist
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Once you learn your way around the fretboard on any guitar type instrument ,in standard guitar tuning, everything else is just a matter of adjusting your technique to suit the wider/narrower/longer neck and string spacing.

Edited by Cato
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If I could only have one, it would be my Ibby 6, which can do anything from growling on the low B in a 7-piece blues band to duo / solo using the high C. 

Of the six I hope I'll have forever, the second would be the Gibson EB2 (or, if I never get her back from my son in Nashville, the Epiphone Jack Casady). A (semi-)hollow-body bass just feels and sounds *different*. And the bass boost on the EB2 is a complete joy - press a button and you switch from a clear light musical bass sound to a monster. The tone switch on the JC is less dramatic but still effective.

Imho the difference in sound between a solid-body and a hollow-body electric is greater than the differences among solid-bodies. But there are others here with more experience and better ears than I have ... 

I still usually gig my GMR 5, just because she was my first and I'm totally confident playing her. The fretless (GMR 4) has been gigged a couple of times but for now is mostly a valuable challenge to practice with. 

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Yes, not surprising with 50+ year old instruments, but they vary so much with how they've been treated. I went shopping for an EB2 with my son in Nashville a couple of years ago. The first one I found was just dead wood. The second leapt to life in my arms and wouldn't let me put her down. Same model, same year (1966), same condition to look at. Chalk and cheese. 

Sorry, can't resist;

EB2.thumb.jpg.d7b27a03d427fb70bcc90cd062c7cac2.jpg

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Fretless 4, fretted 5 if bass guitars. I can do much less on the fretted 5, since I've been playing fretless 4s for upwards of 45 years and only got my first 5 last year, which was also my first (and only) fretted bass in around 35 years.

Although in truth I'd prefer fretless 4, acoustic upright 4. All basses active in any case.

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