Nyet, Bass Is Fine
I've been playing electric bass since college. I do not call myself a bassist. I've never taken lessons, never watched a YouTube video on technique. I've lost myself in my favorite albums, fumbling along, listening and deciphering, often rounding down fractions and sometimes learning something. I'm a "bass player" only insofar as I play that type of instrument. I'm astounded and humbled by those who casually and fluidly weave patterns out of the fretboard, and my list of low-end heroes probably align with a lot of other folks' lists.
The very first four-string I got was a Peavey T-40, bought used with the original hard case for probably under $200, because even that would have been a lot for me then. It was a solid piece of varnished wood and chromed metal with a wide tooled leather strap, a boat anchor that went thunk when picked. I later got a Japanese-made Squier Precision, gave the Peavey to a friend who played it in the original band lineup of my ongoing musical project, Buddha on the Moon (JJ eventually traded in the T-40 for a vintage Fender Musicmaster - I think both instruments would fetch a pretty penny now).
At some point I felt enough at ease with the bass to do more than just hold down root notes. There's the time-worn joke about bassists being frustrated lead guitarists, and given the melodic inclinations of some of my favorite bassists, there's something to that dig. For me, it's like playing hopscotch on the fretboard, moving around in patterns, what RPG players might call a grid crawl.
I'm not sure what got me to bid on the 1974 Musicmaster on eBay in the early 2000's. Maybe I just wanted something vintage. I won the auction, got the instrument, and was a bit disappointed with its thin sound. The playability of the short scale neck hadn't added up in my head then. I later got a revived Steinberger a few years later – not the carbon fiber body, but another solid slab of wood that probably would have doubled well as a cricket wicket. Active pickups, extra frets extending into the boat paddle body, sounded firm through the Line6 Pod X3. And that's what I stuck with for a number of years.
About four years ago I bought a Fender Player Mustang bass largely on a whim at our friend's guitar shop. $500 including hard case. It came with flat wound strings which was something new for me to play, although I'd heard and loved the pillowy thump in the albums by Broadcast and the work of the Wrecking Crew's Carol Kaye. I had a Fender Player Precision bass as well (the Japanese Squier got traded in years prior), and that was the "rock" instrument, while the Mustang became the hauntology-adjacent paintbrush.
Almost two years ago, Nancy was invited to join the latest iteration of the indiepop band Rocketship. Dusty Reske, whom we'd met through a mutual friend, saw a video we'd made for a Maustetytöt cover and messaged Nancy: "Are you a bassist or bass-curious?" Nancy had been playing guitar and singing since she was a kid. She also took some bass lessons (using that '74 Musicmaster) a while ago, but that hadn't really stuck. The Player Mustang became her instrument with Rocketship, and she went on the road with the band in April, playing shows on the west coast for the 30th anniversary of 'A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness.' She bought an American Ultra Jazz bass in January, wanting to move to a full size instrument. A few months of practice proved that the nine pounds of active electronics and premium components was more than her shoulder nerves could handle, so the Player Mustang went on tour with her.
The Player Mustang (which I now refer to as the Brown Mustang) became Nancy's "weapon of choice under duress." It's had grounding issues, intonation problems, other gremlins that became visible after hours and hours of rehearsals and shows heard through in-ear monitors. Last December I picked up, entirely on a whim, a Squier Classic Vibe Mustang at a Christmas market at the Lloyd Center mall. A 2022 bass with flat wound strings and a pearloid pick guard, cared for by an artisan luthier who repurposes furniture into electric guitars. At $380 it was an impulsive no-brainer. Nancy tried it briefly as a potential touring instrument, but the difference in sound and playability (not to mention noisier pickups) had her going back to the Player.
A couple of months ago, our friend's guitar shop (the same one that got us the Player) had a "Made in Japan" Mustang bass in an eye-catching "Competition Green" complete with racing stripes, for around $1300. By the time we got to the shop, one of the employees had called dibs. "Would you like to try it anyway?" "I think it'd be too painful.... Okay, sure." Yeah, it was painful, as it played and sounded fantastic, even if that was biased heavily by having missed out on a "dream bass." And once an idea is planted, it grows roots and sprouts a need, eventually resulting in another CIJ Mustang bass (now referred to as the Red Mustang), purchased from a shop in Brooklyn, shipped cross-continent via UPS, and currently at the shop getting a proper setup (as well as having a loose grounding wire soldered).
Sometime last year at a guitar shop in Helsinki, we tried out a Vintera II Mustang, orange-yellow competition model. At 1300 Euros, it would have been silly to buy it there, although a €450 1960's Eko short scale caught our fancy... up until we learn that the cost of shipping would have been another €350. "You could detach the neck and stash both pieces in your suitcase," the proprietor suggested, which sounded absolutely horrifying to us then. Ha. We know better now.
A short while ago we got a Chinese-made Epiphone SG guitar with P90 pickups, plus hard case, for $350. It was the touring instrument for the owner of Eastside Guitar Repair, and the fact that Ryan went on the road with it and the band Federale made it another impulsive no-brainer. To say that I find it plays well is an understatement. My current belief that the factory of origin of an instrument is a minor detail compared to the hands that ultimately set it up is rooted in my experience with that SG. That Classic Vibe Mustang with the noisy electronics and the harder-to-play action spent a couple of weeks at Eastside and came home with upgraded Lollar pickups and a full setup. It now is my Carol Kaye paintbrush.
Lately I'd been mildly obsessed with an imaginary, garage-shoegaze pop combo that I've been role-playing with Logic Pro's artificial drummer. A Fender Jaguar through a Universal Audio Ruby amp simulator box provides the treble and overtones. A Fender Jazzmaster with a Keely Loomer pedal's reverse reverb and a Bassman emulation becomes the swirling mid-range. That American Ultra Jazz bass? Active pickups plus the Bassman emulator creates a satisfyingly menacing low end growl. And it also competes for oxygen with the ersatz kick drum.
While researching pickup upgrades for the Classic Vibe Mustang (now called the Blue Mustang), I learned that the Musicmaster bass used a six-pole Stratocaster guitar pickup, which explained everything about why I couldn't warm up to its sound. While on the road with Rocketship, Nancy noticed that the opening bands with female bassists all had vintage Musicmasters going through overdrive or distortion pedals, and they sounded fantastic. The clouds did not part, an angelic choir did not sing, nor did a ray of light from Saint Leo Fender shine down upon me with the divine directive, "Seek ye a vintage Musicmaster." Instead, Meta's algorithm placed posts from the Squier Sonic Bronco Bass Owners Group in my feed.
With a $260 retail price tag, the Bronco is, to borrow from 'The Big Lebowski,' Fender's most modestly priced bass (well, excluding the miniature Precision). It uses a six-pole Stratocaster-style guitar pickup. The fretboard is the same piece of wood as the neck. The tuners tend to make that neck dive to the floor. It is a hobbyist's playground for modifying and upgrading all those components that were in the bill of materials to deliver the most margin for the least cost of goods sold. The other day we saw one at a local shop and discovered to my surprise that it played quite well and sounded better than expected. Less than a week later, that Bronco came home with us, and has replaced the American Ultra Jazz bass on three tracks by that imaginary four-piece.
Yes, that Strat-style pickup lacks a firm low end. Yes, the factory setup has a good deal of fret buzz when played aggressively. Yes, when put through the Bassman emulator then spiced up with a blended distortion effect, it supplies a cantankerous grind that also lets the kick drum poke through. Based on what I'd seen in that Facebook group, I was planning on upgrading the stock pickup with a Seymour-Duncan Hot Rails humbucker and to have Eastside do a full setup. Now? Nyet, bass is fine, to borrow from Ivan Chesnokov's infamous screed on the AK-47, another mass-produced marriage of metal and wood designed for maximum output at minimal cost (yes, bullets and bass strings reside in categories light-years apart, and propriety is a casualty when one borrows a metaphor from 4chan).
Between the stock Bronco and the upgraded Blue Mustang, I've got two paintbrushes that a hypothetical Vintera II Mustang could have provided, at a lower price even after taking into account the Lollars and labor. Okay, it's an imaginary and arbitrary ledger balance. A bass is a bass is a bass of course, until one decides that a particular horse has an equally particular use case. Personally, the Vintera promised more instrument, while the Blue Mustang and the Bronco delivered more song.
I recently waxed philosophical over the Bass VI, Leo Fender's cryptid chimera that is both a bass and a guitar and simultaneously neither. "What if the boundaries between instruments were porous," one can imagine Saint Leo pondering at the drawing board. The Bronco? "What if the 'defects' were the desirable features," I ask.
The other day I saw a video that caricatured three types of bass players – one who plays octaves and fifths, another who noodles, and one who sticks to root notes – the root guy gets the gigs. Peter Hook, who arguably authored his own style of bass playing, recalled in his autobiography of catching flak from another bassist in the Factory Records extended family for not using his little finger. "How long must a man's legs be, Mister Lincoln?" went that joke. "Long enough to reach the ground."
If Hooky could do what Hooky did with Joy Division and New Order without his pinky being involved, then why argue technique? Yes, proper form can not only enhance playing but also help avoid repetitive stress injury. And one can also pick up a four (or five or six) string and play it in their own way that makes some sense and spark joy. That instrument doesn't have to have a 34" fretboard, come from a boutique workshop, or be old enough to collect Social Security. Pick up that paintbrush and spread some color.
I play basses. Well enough to do what I'd like to do. And sometimes I'm lucky enough to learn something when what I'd like to do exceeds what I can do.