I find it hard to get excited about guitar since switching to Bass - anything I'm missing?
Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2023 11:45 am
A while back I decided I was struggling on guitar so I looked into picking up another instrument - I ended up landed on Bass and since Feb or March it's been going pretty great for me.
But I still have 3 guitars lying around and a bunch of effects. I like listening to guitar based music, and I really like guitar effects - the idea of playing music that's heavy in delay and modulation, while it's cheesy in of itself now, like goth rock or shoegaze still appeals. A lot of my effects work well on bass, and some really don't. Muddy analog delays for example, are hardly to integrate with bass.
My 3 guitars I have are a Fender Marauder(LPB), Squier VM Jaguar, and a Harley Benton PRS Semihollow I have tuned down to C - actually my favourite guitar to play now though I only play so much stuff tuned to C and it doesn't pair well with my Bass, having to get yet another bass to downtune it is a bit much.
I used to really love my Fender Marauder, it felt like *my* guitar, but now it feels like the least exciting of them. The colour was pretty when I got it, but now it feels kinda meh. The sound of the neck pickup is nice, but I'm not sure I prefer it to the neck pickup in my Squier Jag, and the Triplebucker is a lot less interesting than you might think, though it is good for a meaty chug tone.
With Bass, I find myself very interested by the different sorts of Basses and different sounds they have. At first I would have thought, since it's mostly low frequencies, they sound more similar. But if you're playing "bass forward" music or using it as a slightly more lead instrument, that's not the case. There's definitely a distinction between a Jazz Bass, P-Bass, Mustangs, Stingrays, Gibson style basses, Hofners, and between those categories they can sound pretty wildly different within them.
Obviously this is the case with Electric Guitar to an extent, but I just don't feel it anymore. Basically, no Guitar feels "interesting" to me. I'm drawn to Offsets as they do generally have a vibe I get, so part of me just wants to swap my Marauder for a nice Jazzmaster, but that could be cliché in of itself for the music I want to play.
Are there guitars I'm missing out on? I tried a bunch of Sire guitars the other day, and while they represented more generic guitars(Telecaster, Les Paul, Superstrat) and they all played and sounded better than my current guitars, so I almost considered a swap. But none of them felt dead on - I don't want to go down to a guitar without any trem for example, and the Les Paul was probably my favourite sounding but not having the option for Single coil sounds probably wouldn't be great for the music I play.
So where should I look? The Guild Surfliner Deluxe is pretty cool looking, but it might be at the higher end and not readily available here(the tremless ones are though). Revelation have some interesting guitars, particularly the RJT-60-m-tl. The ATN circuit seems pretty interesting. But again, nowhere has them and the feel is important for me.
Any other suggestions?
But I still have 3 guitars lying around and a bunch of effects. I like listening to guitar based music, and I really like guitar effects - the idea of playing music that's heavy in delay and modulation, while it's cheesy in of itself now, like goth rock or shoegaze still appeals. A lot of my effects work well on bass, and some really don't. Muddy analog delays for example, are hardly to integrate with bass.
My 3 guitars I have are a Fender Marauder(LPB), Squier VM Jaguar, and a Harley Benton PRS Semihollow I have tuned down to C - actually my favourite guitar to play now though I only play so much stuff tuned to C and it doesn't pair well with my Bass, having to get yet another bass to downtune it is a bit much.
I used to really love my Fender Marauder, it felt like *my* guitar, but now it feels like the least exciting of them. The colour was pretty when I got it, but now it feels kinda meh. The sound of the neck pickup is nice, but I'm not sure I prefer it to the neck pickup in my Squier Jag, and the Triplebucker is a lot less interesting than you might think, though it is good for a meaty chug tone.
With Bass, I find myself very interested by the different sorts of Basses and different sounds they have. At first I would have thought, since it's mostly low frequencies, they sound more similar. But if you're playing "bass forward" music or using it as a slightly more lead instrument, that's not the case. There's definitely a distinction between a Jazz Bass, P-Bass, Mustangs, Stingrays, Gibson style basses, Hofners, and between those categories they can sound pretty wildly different within them.
Obviously this is the case with Electric Guitar to an extent, but I just don't feel it anymore. Basically, no Guitar feels "interesting" to me. I'm drawn to Offsets as they do generally have a vibe I get, so part of me just wants to swap my Marauder for a nice Jazzmaster, but that could be cliché in of itself for the music I want to play.
Are there guitars I'm missing out on? I tried a bunch of Sire guitars the other day, and while they represented more generic guitars(Telecaster, Les Paul, Superstrat) and they all played and sounded better than my current guitars, so I almost considered a swap. But none of them felt dead on - I don't want to go down to a guitar without any trem for example, and the Les Paul was probably my favourite sounding but not having the option for Single coil sounds probably wouldn't be great for the music I play.
So where should I look? The Guild Surfliner Deluxe is pretty cool looking, but it might be at the higher end and not readily available here(the tremless ones are though). Revelation have some interesting guitars, particularly the RJT-60-m-tl. The ATN circuit seems pretty interesting. But again, nowhere has them and the feel is important for me.
Any other suggestions?
