How to choose your bass (cruiseship edition)

Ok so picture this…You’re about to go away for 6 months, play five times a day in a variety of styles and you don’t know what gear anybody else is bringing or the songlist. What bass do you take to that gig? What do you prioritise when selecting it? Here my perspectives on exactly that, with reviews of basses that have been at my side across my career. 

Firstly, a bit about myself… I started my journey on ships in 2016 and over the course of my career I’ve had fun trying new basses, buying pedals just to see how they perform and playing on different stages with different groups every few months. In established bands that play together regularly you get to tweak your choices together to make a blend that works for your individual styles.

One of the biggest challenges on ships is that you don’t know who you’re actually going to be performing with and what gear they have. You also might not even know what kind of repertoire is expected of you and so choosing the right instrument for the job can be difficult. Here’s some reviews about the basses I’ve taken out and situations where I noticed that they performed particularly well or times that they didn’t quite hit the mark. 

Regardless of your pickup choices one of the things that helped me across all my contracts was using 5-string basses. Now the low B string only technically only adds five extra notes, but that isn’t why I'm suggesting it. The real reason is that it allows you to maintain the original shapes of bass lines when transposing below the E string. Let's take a classic party band song and see how this applies to this. Chaka Khan - Ain’t nobody is a song that is in E flat minor. If you have a four string bass how do you play this? The two main choices you have is either detune your E-string and make adjustments to the whole bass line, or play the whole line up an octave using the E flat on the A-string. Now if you have a 5 string it’s very simple you get to stay in a position that allows you to keep all your hand playing in regular bass shapes that are more second nature.

Singers in bands you’re in are going to play songs in a whole variety of different keys so being able to seamlessly change keys is a must have for speedy adjustments. If you’re going onto a ship to play in the orchestra then it is usually assumed by the person composing most of the music that the player has a 5-string. Now it’s not the end of the world if you don’t have one or even don’t want one adjustments can be made and there are only a few songs where it really makes a noticeable impact that going up the octave has detracted from the “feel” of the song. 

Your choices for pickups really depend on what you like, what you’re playing and can also depend on what other people are playing. I had three main bass guitars in my career: A 5-string musicman stingray, 5-string Yamaha BBP35a and a 5-string Jazz ultra II. All three of these served different purposes and I would choose them for different reasons. When I was playing the stingray it was in party/rock shows that were punchy attention grabbing and needed to sound that way. The Yamaha sat in a similar category but was passive and its pickup configurations allowed it to be a versatile instrument capable of an incredible range of tones. Jazz was the ultimate mix of both. However I enjoyed playing my Yamaha the most followed by the Stingray and the Jazz while perfect for any job the neck doesn’t mix with my play style. 

Some other things to consider about the gig was the environment. To take this bass on a contract on a cruise ship I would need to transport it to the ship, maintain it over the contract and play it everyday in different venues. 

Transporting a bass like this comes with considerations. Do I try to travel with it as a carry on? I’d heard many nightmares about this and I just don’t have the personality to fight with airport employees on a day that is already stressful as it is. Do I use a hard case? Again, I had heard travel horror stories of TSA dismantling, damaging and losing musical equipment so I had reservations about this too. I never tried to bring my guitar as carry-on and I only once had an issue in Rome Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. In the end it just turned out to be behind a door that nobody had checked, but that didn’t stop my heart racing until I found it! 

There are a variety of hard cases available and most high end guitars also come in hard cases suitable for flight but I ended up having two favourites. Number one is a double bass case called the Enki which is a case that holds two basses. This became useful for a 6 month contract because I could bring one and then stuff the rest of the case with cables, pedals and whatever else I needed. The second case which I ended up using for the majority of my contracts was the SKB 44 RW ATA Bass Guitar Safe. This I really liked as it allowed me to travel with my bass inside my softcase, which is then inserted fully into the hardcase. This also still left enough room for some cables and a tool kit. It’s light and the wheels are encased in a way that prevents damage. This case did end up breaking after seven years of use and some might wish for thicker plastic walls. But for what I was using it for I think it was perfect. I would also say that If you have a five string bass and your G string tuner is on the opposite side it can bring some unwanted pressure on the machine head but again I’ve never experienced any actual damage using this case. 

After travel, the matter of maintenance also needed to be taken into consideration. The journey alone would warrant a set up of the instrument and ships have some pretty aggressive temperature changes. This is because you’ll be playing in the main indoor venues that are air conditioned but 30 minutes later you need to head up to the poolside and play in the humid outer deck. Over a series of weeks this is going to warp your wood and strings so you’ll need to be comfortable adjusting your instrument but also that the bass is built to a quality that can handle constant fine tuning. I’ve seen some bassists choose cheaper basses that they don't mind getting beaten up over the course of the gig. I've never done this but I do think it's a viable outlook. I was lucky that I never lost my £2200 jazz bass travelling and i'm sure i'd have a meltdown if that did ever happen. If it were to go down this route, reliably made low-end basses from Musicman, Sire and Yamaha all have fantastic build quality for their price point.

Lastly a big thing is about who you are going to be playing with. I was in my own band for 5 years where we very much moulded our sound to one another over time. After that I was very much a freelance bassist and I often took urgent fill-in contracts which meant I would be flying out in 3 days with no idea of the song list or if it was a quartet or partyband. They could be a band missing one member for a few weeks or everyone could be completely unrelated. So what do you do? Do you try and select the most versatile and relevant instrument or choose the one you’re the most comfortable on and use that connection to lay the foundation for working together. I’ve been in bands who wanted me to sound exactly like their previous bassist or exactly like the track regardless of whether the equipment was capable of it. I’ve also played in a band where we all just brought our own vibe to the outfit. Personally, the best band I was ever in I was in for 3 weeks and nobody had met, brought instruments that maybe weren’t considered the “most suitable” for the job and called songs onstage. The organic nature of the situation and the sounds actually made one of the best sounding outfits that i’ve ever had the pleasure of being in. I’ve also been in a band where if you didn’t sound like the track it was a problem and it was the most miserable time i’ve had playing music 

I guess the biggest advice I can say is that you should play and use the gear that you can get the most out of. On reflection I believe I bought the Jazz bass because lots of people said that I should have one but actually I know I'm more capable of getting consistent tones from my musicman and it was a sound that felt like me. I think that's important. Especially as bassists I find we are often the first element directed to play less and even sound how we want. This is a fundamental part of you as a bassist and by extension a person. As long as you are serving the song and considering all the parts and playing proficiently on your instrument that you have control of then I say take whatever bass you want to the gig. I’ve seen a guy use a P-bass with flats for all his orchestra shows and another using tapewounds on a sterling for rock shows and guess what? Everyone lived and the shows sounded fine. I think we are the ones thinking about our gear more than everyone else. 

If you have any more questions after reading this and want to hear more about my experience or my gear then please reach out either by my contact email or my facebook page!

Stay Salty!