Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Acoustic bass guitars, part II
Well, that was "easy." I went back into Dusty Strings today, and played around with the Tacoma again. After the experience in Guitar Center, I felt much better qualified to judge the Thunderchief's tonal quality and volume (although I do feel silly typing Thunderchief).
In a word, beautiful. Nice projection. Full tone. Really, quite beautiful. No fret buzz. It was even easy to play, seeming to be more compliant, despite a higher action than most of the other basses.
I came away from that thinking, "I should just get the Tacoma and stop worrying about it," but I wanted to check out the Epiphone that American Music had mentioned.
So I bided my time, and waited for 4:30 to roll around, which was when I was told to call. I dialed, and talked to Kim, the woman who'd helped me on Tuesday.
"So, did you get that shipment of new bass guitars in?" I asked after introducing myself.
"Oh, actually," she said, "I was wrong about that. There's this show that's happening in a few weeks, the [name of show] show, and we're probably not going to get anything in until then, or even after then. Look, let me take your name..."
I cut her off. "Actually, that kind of makes the decision for me. See, there's this Tacoma Thunderchief down at Dusty Strings..."
She went on to say that, oh yeah, the Tacoma pretty much blows the Epiphone out of the water anyway. That was enough. I was working on the nearly-paranoid assumption that there were 20 other bassists casing Seattle instrument shops looking for this very thing, so the thought of waiting weeks to check out an inferior bass just didn't make sense.
The Thunderchief (bad, bad Native American stereotype jokes keep occurring to me) really was the best bass I'd tried. It was too expensive (or at least more than I wanted to spend), but it was the best thing.
I restrained myself to a walking pace going back to Dusty Strings after work. As I walked in the door, the woman behind the counter asked, "Can I help you with anything?" I replied, "Yep, I'm here to buy a bass!" as I breezed past and to the corner where the Thunderchief was residing. I heard her excited sort of clucking noises in the background as I picked up the instrument, and plucked out a few halting blues riffs on it again.
Kristin came down (deeply needing an excuse to stop working), and I played for her, as she'd become my extra ears at Guitar Center. "Oh yeah," she said, "that's way nicer." I'm pretty sure she wasn't just egging me on so I'd shut up about it already. I also blew $25 on a stand, which is a luxury I've never had before, as I didn't realize they could be had so cheap. I even spent a dollar and six cents on some picks (why the guy behind the cash register didn't offer to toss them in after I paid nearly $850 for the bass and stand is slightly boggling). I've never tried using a pick before, and figured I might want the volume enhancement at some point.
Anyway, the group I've been playing with (no name, just two or three other people who like to mess around making music) met tonight, and I was able to put my new WampumBuster to work right away. It's pretty nice. I've wanted an acoustic bass guitar for... [counts on fingers] 14 years. I'm really glad I finally have one.
Posted at 22:30 permanent link category: /misc
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater