I love playing the bass guitar. It’s an endless challenge, for one thing - you have to know the song, you have to create the song - and you have to do it with a sonic palette that’s restricted compared to most other instruments; you also get to enjoy relative anonymity, as well, although you can certainly find bass players who’re front and center for their bands.
I always found the bass to be a lovely instrument: you feel it, and hearing it is almost secondary. It gave me a way to construct a “band framework” where I, as the bass player, was able to contribute and leave the “more attractive” band positions for people who wanted them, and most of those instruments’ positions are easier to fill, anyway: good guitarists aren’t a dime a dozen, but it’s a lot easier to find decent guitarists and singers than it is to find bass players or drummers.
The Early Years
I’ve not played that many bass guitars. I tend to find an instrument, identify with it, and stick with it for as long as I can. I played a Peavey Patriot bass for a while, then Jeff Ament changed what I wanted out of bass guitar: I switched to a Peavey Foundation fretless.
I never really “played fretless” as much as I played a fretless bass; I’d heard great fretless players like Tony Franklin, Tony Levin, and Jaco Pastorius, but I didn’t (and don’t) play like they do. But Ament’s sound on Pearl Jam’s “Ten” was mesmerizing - particularly on “Even Flow” - and that made me want something out of bass that a fretted bass just couldn’t provide - not the “mwaaah” sound that people associate with a fretless bass, but the tone and pitch of the actual notes. The imprecision and vibe appealed to me, and still do.
I still didn’t play fretless like a fretless - I’m far too influenced by players like Geddy Lee and Chris Squire. My musical roots are in progressive and hard rock, and country, not jazz, although I love jazz and let it influence me where it can. Fretless wants to glide like a ray through the water; I play more like a barracuda, slicing through the deep.
But I kept that Foundation until a fire took it away, and I still remember it fondly.
The “Replacement Bass”
A few years later, I found my “next bass,” a Cort Curbow 4FL - an inexpensive replacement for the Foundation (which probably cost about the same, really), and another fretless bass, although one that was more technology-forward. It had a Bartolini pickup and a fantastic fretboard, and it was honestly a joy to play, but I don’t think I really loved it the way I did the Foundation - it was always the bass I was playing, rather than “my bass.”
The Tenured Bass: The Jazz
I proved that to myself a few years later, when I swapped it for a Fender Jazz ’70s reissue model, made in Mexico. At least, that’s what I think it was; it was something in that range. It had a beautiful sunburst coloration, and a fretted bass for the first time since my Patriot.
I loved it. I hadn’t had a Jazz tone, ever, and it’s an iconic, flexible sound. The Jazz had the appeal of not only being fretted (which meant that the burden on me as a player who tended to keep his hands busy went down dramatically) but also the narrower neck, which meant I could transition between bass and guitar more easily, or so I thought. In any event, it was easy to play, and easy to record. Overall, it was an excellent bass, and I think it had the longest tenure of any bass I’ve ever had.
I’ve never regretted having this bass. Ever.
My Real Bass: The 4003
But one day I got the jones for my “ultimate bass” - a bass I’d sort of been hunting since I started playing bass, but could never find nor justify: a Rickenbacker 4003. I found “the one” in a catalog - a midnight blue 4003, just a beautiful look, really. I even played one in a store in San Francisco, but it would have required shipping, and it was horribly expensive for a cheapo like me. So I left it there.
But I kept thinking about it. And as fortune would have it, I did some extra work for someone and had a little extra in the bank… and I floated the idea of getting a 4003 to my wife.
And she agreed.
My wife and I have a simple rule: no big purchase unless we both say an enthusiastic yes. If she’d have vetoed the Rickenbacker, I’d have let it go. That agreement has kept us in tune for thirty-plus years.
So when she agreed to the idea of a new bass… well, let’s just say it didn’t take long to order a 4003. I wanted to get a Midnight Blue, of course, but that was a limited run. Rickenbacker production can be finicky, too, so sometimes you pick from a limited set of colors, and that’s how that goes - I decided I’d shoot for a Fireglo (a red burst) if blue wasn’t available. But Fireglo wasn’t around, either: Jetglo was what the store had. (Jetglo is the black finish; pretty much all Rickenbacker paint schemes are iconic, so you can’t really go from “iconic” to something else - they’ll all be iconic one way or the other.)
I was fine with Jetglo. Geddy Lee’s main 4001 was a Jetglo, and considering that that bass was the one that made me want a Rickenbacker in the first place… I was good with it.
That bass… when it finally arrived and I unboxed it, I was excited. I wasn’t really buying an instrument, I was buying a piece of art that I also might be able to play every now and then; I expected my Jazz to remain my “daily driver,” the bass I reached for, the bass I was fastest and smoothest on, but when I wanted to impress myself with the instrument, I expected the 4003 to be that bass. The crowd-pleaser, you could say, when the crowd was “me.”
It did not happen that way.
From the moment I picked it up, the 4003 ruled. It was definitely different; if I’d have been outlining the things I wanted in a bass, the Jazz would have checked all the boxes before the 4003. The Jazz had a thinner, narrower neck, and a “faster profile” - note quotes - and better ergonomics. It was also easier to seat in a mix, easier to record.
It didn’t matter. None of it did. The neck profile on the 4003 is definitely chunkier, it’s got a wider neck and wider string spacing. The ergonomics of the Jazz are probably a little nicer - more familiar to a guy who also played guitars. But I found myself able to play cleaner and faster on the 4003 than the Jazz - I’d expected the Jazz to play smoother and faster, but the 4003 blew it away.
The Jazz was easier to record, I think, because I was so used to it and because it had a readily identifiable sonic profile, while the 4003 just sounds so big and dominant that you end up working to find what to remove so other instruments have room. My joke for guitarists was that when I had the 4003 in my hands, they’d get heard when I wanted them to get heard.
The 4003 is also more responsive than the Jazz - which can be a negative as well as a positive. It means you, as a player, have to pay attention to how you play it, because if you vary the way you hit the strings, the 4003 will respond clearly. You can’t just expect the note to ring consistently if you’re lazy in how you play it, and for a guy who’d been playing a Jazz for as long as I did, that was something to get used to.
My beloved Jazz, boon companion for years, went unplayed for months. I picked it up once to do a direct comparison to the 4003: played the same song on both basses, just to get a sense for how I felt about the instruments, and… well, that was that. The Jazz just couldn’t hold up to the 4003 for me. It was a lovely instrument, and a sentimental one, but the truth was that I’d likely never reach for it when I wanted a bass.
An instrument wants to be played, so I sold it so that someone who wanted to play it would have it. I don’t know where it is now, but I hope it’s being played with the same love I’d felt for it.
The Wonky One: a Five-String Fretless
I’ve since been blessed with adding two other basses to the stable.
My oldest son, knowing I still enjoyed the idea of fretless, got me a gift certificate for the purpose of getting an ESP B205-SM fretless bass, my very first five-string and a fretless - just a complete change from the 4003. Fretless, five strings, and an active pickup system - the very things that go against everything I have in the 4003. It is a beautiful bass, too; it’s a little weird to play with the fifth string, but having the extra depth is nice, and it’s also nice having that fretless demand again, really. It requires a discipline that a fretted bass does not.
Low note access isn’t perfect; it really gets comfortable around the second or third position, because the nut’s a little high, but lowering the nut removes tone you want it to have. That’s part of just how the bass is set up, and it’s fine; it just means playing that low C requires hand strength that none of my other basses require. It also requires attention to pitch, being fretless, but it does have that sound.
I reach for the ESP relatively rarely, though; it’s when I want “that sound.” It’s a fine instrument, but it doesn’t have the attachment or flexibility that the 4003 does. It’s not quite a one-trick pony, but it’s definitely more limited than the 4003.
The Spare: the StingRay
I had the opportunity to play in a band a few years ago, too, and naturally I brought out the 4003. That experience highlighted a few minor flaws with the 4003, although it also showed off why the 4003 is such a dream for me to play: it played very well on stage (with some caveats) and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten the reaction from an instrument like I received from that bass. People notice it, in a good way. I’m used to being invisible on stage, but that bass stood out like a firework, sonically and visibly.
One problem, though, was the noise floor. The 4003 on stage was noisy, with it picking up the stage lights. That took some adjustment in my thinking about how to mix the bass (and adjustment to the bass, too, adding some copper shielding to the internals and replacing the neck pickup with something to suppress the hum)… but the biggest problem was fear.
What if someone tripped near the bass? What if it got knocked off its stand? What if it got damaged?
I don’t like thinking about things like that, so with another bit of a financial windfall (a very small one, thank you) I picked up a low-end StingRay bass, the Ray24CA, a butterscotch-colored single-humbucker instrument that leans heavily back to the Jazz in terms of how it feels and plays, although not in how it sounds. Another active-pickup instrument, it’s great for stage work.
It’s got sonic range going for it, too, as the active setup allows you to EQ very specifically.
I like the StingRay. But I realized this morning that if an alien came to me and said “you must sacrifice a bass,” the StingRay would be an easy choice. I’d shrug, hand it over, praise it for the memories it’s given me, and let it go.
That sonic range I mentioned? It’s fantastic… in theory. In reality, it’s certainly present, but means that I have to relearn how I think about the bass’s controls in order to set it effectively. In the band setting that made me get the bass in the first place, it was easy enough - I was filling a very specific piece of the sonic spectrum. In my own music, the StingRay sounds like an outsider, and it is an outsider.
Where They Fall
I have a feeling the StingRay is going to end up like the Jazz - an instrument I pick up every now and then, because it wants to be played, but it’s never going to have a pride of place. It’s always going to sit by the 4003 and the ESP, and be referred to with “Oh, yeah - I also have that bass over there, I take it out to play because it’s okay if it gets damaged.” But for everything I’ve recorded lately, it’s been the 4003 first - I recorded one song with the StingRay on a lark, and I can easily tell which bass I’d chosen. And since I’m still more or less working on that song, I’m wrestling with replacing the tracks I recorded with the StingRay, just because I think I’d be able to make them feel better to me with the 4003.
And if the 4003 isn’t the right bass for a song, then it’d be the fretless. (This has been the case for the current set of songs: one was the StingRay, another was definitely meant to be played on the fretless, and everything else has been the 4003, easily and happily.)
I wrote all this mostly to work through how I feel about each bass, and to sort of help myself reconcile a decision about the StingRay. I think it’s been worthwhile.
Thanks for reading!