Well........I'm a bit of a gear whore, or at least I have been in the past. Things seem to have settled down lately, probably due to lack of funds more than anything else, but I think my Gear Whore status should be considered in whatever I say, so there you are.
Now then.
I have two really fine Jazz basses. In fact, I've had both of them for so long now that I have to consider them keepers. One is an Olympic White 62 Reissue. The other is a Custom Shop NOS 1964 Jazz. I keep the 62 RI because it was a gift from my wife. I don't play it, but it certainly is a good bass and it deserves better. The CS Jazz does get played, although not to the extent most people would play a bass with that kind of price tag, I think. Nonetheless, I love them both and sometimes even take the CS Jazz as a backup to the Bongo 5. (Never actually had to break it out, but it's my security blanket and no batteries.)
I also have a Reverend Brad Houser 5 in Lava Swirl that is a danged nice bass and has thump factor beyond the norm. It feels a little weird if I don't play it for a while because the horns are so short and it's a 35" scale, but still a great bass. Do I play it? Well........not regularly. I sometimes toy with the idea of offing it because I'd like to get some better PA speakers, but that seems so.....pedestrian.
If you can pull it off, I think it's great to have 7 or 8 nice basses hanging around, but the truth is that when I want a fiver, I go for either the black sapphire Bongo or Heinz, and my choice of a four banger is almost always that Desert Gold Bongo.
It took me the LONGEST time to figure out that the sound in my head was a Musicman bass, strung with flats, played through an old-school sorta Sunn head and a couple of run-of-the-mill Ampeg cabs.
If I had to choose one bass, if all of them but one were gone tomorrow, I would definitely choose either the black sapphire Bongo or Heinz, but it would be TOUGH.
We're lucky, aren't we?
