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Has anyone bought a bass on a whim just cos of its looks?


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I have, yesterday.😁. I already have three other basses, having sold four in the last 18 months. I'd only gone into the store to get some strings but it just looked so inviting I couldn't resist it. As I already have a Ray 4 single humbucker model I didn't even bother trying it out in the shop. Luckily it's great. Nice low action with no fret buzz and a great tone with the double humbuckers.

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Yes, a good few years ago I was in Coda Music in Stevenage and I saw a Mex Fender precision in white/rosewood, there was something about that bass that I just had to have it. I`m currently trying to resist the temptation with a bass up for grabs on here, same colour scheme.

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Yes, pretty much every bass I have ever bought. 

 

In my hands, in a band mix, most basses sound pretty much the same; so how they look is what differentiates them from each other.

 

If you play live it is, IMO, important to have a bass that compliments the image of the band.

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All the time, probably my main criterion for any bass purchase ever. And that's a lot of basses.

 

Couple of examples, one good:

 

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And one absolutely bloody awful:

 

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The Lottery Of Functionality aspect might well be a factor in the whole thing, but I don't know. I just like shiny stuff.

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Yup. They all sounded good too though, it wasn't purely a looks thing...

 

Hohner B2A was bought mainly for looks but the passive tone with EMGs was excellent. Only moved it because I found the string spacing a bit too tight and I was acquiring more basses than I felt I should have had. 

 

Washburn Status for a proper 80s style bass to front an 80s band with... Actually canned the project six months ago and the look didn't fit with the new band. 

 

Epiphone Jack Casady. Love the look, it's a stunner. But also I wanted to try a semi hollow for ages and it gets great reviews. My band also wants to do acoustic sets and I don't really want an acoustic bass. I've used the JC at a few "electric" gigs anyway, it's a great bass. It complements the other basses I have too giving me a really good range of tones available across four basses.

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1 hour ago, gjones said:

Yes, I bought a Fender MIM 70s reissue because it looked so purty.

 

I never play it, I just look at it.

 

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One of my students has one of these, I love the sound of it. Wouldn't mind one myself!

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10 minutes ago, Dood said:

 

One of my students has one of these, I love the sound of it. Wouldn't mind one myself!

When I first bought it, I wasn't so keen on the sound. I fitted a J-retro to it and still wasn't convinced. I then removed the J-retro and put a set of Fender roundwounds on it and, all of a sudden, I liked the sound.

 

I sometimes have days like that, where I one day I hate a bass and the next day I love it........

 

I'm weird.

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I'd like to think that as a sensible, logical engineer I would make all purchases based on the item precisely meeting a strict specification but I have got an Epiphone Thunderbird vintage pro and if I'm honest, I wouldn't have bought it if it didn't look so good. The headstock seems to be made of lead and the neck is a bit narrow for my gorilla hands but it does look good. 

It does sound amazing tuned down to C with a nice bit of dirt and my favourite DR DDT strings. 

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37 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

I'd like to think that as a sensible, logical engineer I would make all purchases based on the item precisely meeting a strict specification but I have got an Epiphone Thunderbird vintage pro and if I'm honest, I wouldn't have bought it if it didn't look so good. The headstock seems to be made of lead and the neck is a bit narrow for my gorilla hands but it does look good. 

It does sound amazing tuned down to C with a nice bit of dirt and my favourite DR DDT strings. 

front-300_600_6c5a3c3a-c4dc-4e00-87dc-96d2e6a632f0_1260x630.png

I too am supposedly a rational, logical engineer, but I'm a sucker for good looks...in general! There sure are a lot of fugly basses and guitars out there. Even if they play beautifully, I still wouldn't even try one in a store. After all, as guitars/basses spend more time hanging on the wall than actually being played it makes sense to have the nice lookers.

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