I have a admission to make. I have never purchased a guitar or bass magazine. I have seen several, but they were always passed along from friends. The main driver for the music / bass equipment I purchased was what I heard people playing on stage. This was for many years. I will admit also that during the past 30 years almost all the magazines I read were photography related. I can see photography in a magazine, but music? That you have to hear. So when I went to see performers I got to hear the gear. That's how I knew what different amps and basses sounded like and which ones I thought I could use. I remember seeing loads of bassists I admired using Fenders and Rickenbackers. So I bought a Fender because I wanted to sound like Roger Waters and Geezer Butler and I couldn't afford to sound like Chris Squire and Geddy Lee. I bought a Peavey amp because I saw Robin Trower's bassist using the same model and I could afford that but I really wanted a V6B like the one George Biondi of Steppenwolf was using. You could hear it so well anywhere in a large venue. My brother and I shopped for stuff we saw other people using on stage. Same with my Marshall and Gibson SG. It was the combination Donald Roeser and Tony Iomi were using so I knew what the sound of it was. If I saw something in a magazine, I'd probably be skeptical until I saw someone using it. The first time I knew what an Alembic sounded like it was from seeing a fellow playing one at the Dothan Civic Center;- in the Cate Brothers band. They weren't famous, but the sound was something you couldn't help but notice. That bass sounded amazing. Then Joe Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult started using one and I was a huge fan of that band, so for a while I thought those were the ultimate;- until Joe went back to using his P. Still though, Stanley Clarke used one when I saw him and several other players began to use them. I thought the sound was phenomenal, like a grand piano. It was the first thing I heard that blew the Fenders and Rics off the map.
The first time I saw a Ken Smith was in a guitar player magazine ad. Later I saw someone playing one, but I can't remember who it was now. I remember thinking that this was a good thing, first Alembic and now Ken Smith. I thought they were something like Alembic in concept. It looked like Ken was taking the instrument well beyond the point Fender and Rickenbacker were and that these were going to be the thing to get. Also a bit more practical than Alembic and not as heavy. Sleeker. That was probably in the late 70's. During most of the eighties and nineties I bought only really odd hand made musical instruments. No basses at all. Of course for years I didn't buy much other than cameras and photo gear. I was a professional photographer so my Fender was enough for me all those years and I used the Peavey head for a couple of decades also. When I got tired of carrying the huge cab, I just trusted what the fellow at Clark music recommended, no magazines involved. I traded the huge Peavey system for a Fender RAD. Call it downsizing!
The recent gear I have purchased was mostly found on the internet, but not the basses, just the accessories. In fact I will be buying an SD systems condenser mic that I found on the web looking for that type of mic and then found two very strong endorsements for it on talkbass.
When I started playing in bands again in the late nineties, I was used to researching anything and everything on the web, and I turned to the web to locate musical instruments and accessories. It just made sense by then. The first thing I wanted was a double bass. I found Bob Gollihur's site ironically after I had already heard about the instruments he was importing through another player in Savannah. When I upgraded my bass guitar finally, I just went into the Atlanta Bass Gallery and bought the best 5 string fretless they had that day. No internet, no magazine. For better or worse, they did not have a Ken Smith 5 string fretless. I feel almost certain that if they had that I would have bought that one because I knew Ken from talkbass and had known about his instruments for years. Even though I had been reading and posting on talkbass, I never read the EBG side. Not once even;- until after I had already tried and bought two new basses. It was irrelevant. I could go into the Atlanta Bass Gallery and try a bunch of cream of the crop instruments. I must have tried half a dozen that I had never heard of. The only ones that I had any forethought about were Modulus and Ken Smith. Why? Because Phil Lesh was using both. My main electric gig is a Grateful Dead tribute band and I needed something that could get the kind of tone he is known for. And I really needed it then, not in six months. Here again, what are the people I want to sound like playing? For some odd reason I also was dead set on a fretless. Well, ABG had neither one. No Modulus 5 string fretless, No KSB 5 string fretless. So I played everything they had with 5 strings and no frets and wound up with a Ritter, which is a very good bass. I'd never heard of him until that day. It just sounded good. Very good in fact and I thought of what was there in 5 string fretless, it was the best. The best fretted bass I played that day (and the only fretted bass I even checked out) was a KSB Black Tiger. It was great;- but I wasn't there for a fretted bass. I know. It sounds strange but you couldn't have sold me Bridgett Fonda with frets that day.
Now that I have a matched pair of Ritter 5-ers (Yep, the next week I decided that on the safe side I needed frets just in case and wanted something as functionally like the fretless as possible) and I have the luxury of time, I can get the Ken Smiths custom, just like I want them, and wait for them. So I guess when I order them, they will be the first basses I have bought that I first saw in a magazine;- way back in the late 1970's (You see Ken, that full page ad was worth it!) But I would be buying them because of the players I've heard playing them and the sound.
The only magazine I still have a subscription to is Rangefinder. It is a commercial photography magazine. I learn about basses on this forum and the other one, but I still listen to what people are playing mostly or what I can try out at Atlanta Bass Gallery. Jim Rubio has everything that I would be interested in and he is a sole proprietor running his own shop. I don't think I would ever buy a bass guitar anywhere else now. Double basses, if I'm in the market again, will be very careful try before buy deals.
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