Talkbass

Bryan r tyler takes time to appreciate the bass itself

bass – it’s the tool you use to articulate your musical voice. But does your bass say something about you? The range of customisation available is immense, maybe even surpassing guitar, and bassists can get downright obsessive over getting their instruments exactly how they like them.

When I started playing, I loved getting new issues of Bass Player magazine and checking out the ads for the custom builders. Six-string basses, headless basses, crazy body shapes – there were so many different styles and options I had never seen in local stores. As I became more familiar with bass virtuosos, I noticed their instrument choice was often synonymous with the player. Marcus Miller’s heavily modded 77 Jazz, Anthony Jackson’s Fodera contrabass, Stanley Clarke’s short-scale Alembics – basses so wildly different, but chosen by each player as their vehicle of expression.

It turns out that most of us love the instrument itself, and we love refining it to fit our playing style and create the sound we’re after. It’s always fun seeing people’s bass collections on TalkBass and how much they vary. Do you have a tried-and-true passive P-Bass that you stick with, no matter what? Do you keep an arsenal of widely different basses so you can cover anything that might come your way? Maybe you prefer a bass with a dozen different knobs and switches to give you a wide tonal palette without having to change instruments… I personally like to keep a fretted and a fretless Elrick, with the only modification being a ramp, so my collection is small and doesn’t change for years at a time, meaning I really get the chance to connect with it. On the opposite side, some TalkBass members love scouring Craigslist and pawnshops for inexpensive basses, then modding them out with new hardware and electronics, giving them a wide array of solid instruments for only a small amount of money.

Basses, and the modifications we can make to them, are as diverse as the music we use them to play. Some view their basses simply as tools. That’s fine, but there’s no shame in loving your tools either – there’s joy to be found in the bass itself.