Whats your keeper guitar/bass?

Whats that one guitar/bass that your never gonna part with & why? Ill start off first, for me its my LTD Frank Bello FBJ-400. For along time, i was in search of a bass whose sound i could vibe with. For the most part i was using active basses & they were giving me a good sound but not from my own fingers. After notcing it at my local guitar shop & playing it for a solid 20 minutes, i decided to buy it. Looking back on it, I really should have connected the dots sooner that i loved this bass. However i didnt realise how much i did like it until i switched over to another active bass. After a few odd weeks of wondering why i sounded sub par & with a gig coming up, I decided to slap some new strings onto it & use it. Ever since then, its been my number 1 & i dont think thats gonna change anytime soon.

Oh man I love this question.

I would have to be my 1978 Fender Telecaster Custom, black finish, maple neck.

At the end of the day, it's a Tele with a Wide Range humbucker in the neck position. Fender produced it between 1972 and 1981, then reissued as the 1972 Telecaster Custom. Keith Richards kinda made it famous, so I guess there's that. But man, I love this guitar. If my house caught fire and I had 30 seconds to grab some stuff and get out, this guitar would definitely make the short list.

It's got Tele twang, but you can also get really smooth and creamy tones from the humbucker, and set to the middle position it's the best of both worlds. I never knew this until recently but apparently it's a couple lbs heavier than a standard Tele since Fender made it with denser wood at the time, but it still feels very light to me. It's just so easy to pick up and play.

It's like a sandwich. Even the best sandwich out there isn't exactly gourmet food, but this particular one is made with fresh baked ciabatta bread, aioli, sliced raddish, and sliced turkey breast from a turkey that was sniped from a helicopter just hours prior to consuming. That's how I feel about this guitar.

my favorite SG, just a heritage cherry Gibson SG standard from maybe 2005? has a few little mods like T-top pickups from the 70s and some pot upgrades, a treble bleed on the neck pickup volume control I think. Nothing special but it plays and I love it. I went through piles of SGs for a year before buying this one. It has a particularly good unplugged resonance that you don't run into that often and the neck feel is just right for me.

My Fender American Deluxe Precision Bass. Although it tends to be a little picky in the studio, nothing beats using it live.

Not that I had much to keep as I have played only four low-budget guitars - but my Danelectro DE59 is so lovely, I can't even describe how lovely it is. I also have my Da Capo acoustic, which I would keep. It's an extremely cheap beginner's model, but it has been with me on all my trips, through all of my mental states and all of my musical lows. It has a massive dent near the bridge, because a drunk classmate threw a stone at it because I wouldn't play her song. It doesn't sound good, but I love it because all of my musical attempts were written on it.

So basically the question is what's the one instrument you'd run back into a burning building to get.

My 1998 Fender MiM P-Bass, Midnight Wine with pearl pickguard (started off white, has since aged). It's nothing fancy or special to anyone but me. I've had it since I was a teen, it was my first "real" instrument, and why it matters is because of how I got it.

I'm not going into details, but it was a gift.

The fact that I've played it for 20+ years, and I know where all the "dead spots" on the neck are (you lot know what I mean) doesn't hurt matters at all, either. Such a nice instrument. Such a good sound. I love it dearly.

All that said, I am soon going to be buying one of those Gruv Gear Kapsul Cases that hold two instruments, and putting it and my 1966 Vox V241 Bulldog in the same case. So I never have to pick. Ever. I can just run in and grab the case!

amendment:

if we're talking bulding is on fire and it doesn'thave to be a guitar or bass I would try to save my 1962 AC30 first followed by my 1980s Prophet 600.... then go back in for the SG. I might grab my frankentele or my silver les paul while grabbing the SG. I don't love them as much but they're harder to replace being a 1 off homemade guitar and a very rare model of Gibson. Not particularly valuable, but you don't see ones like mine so often.

But yeah, my desert island, die rescuing it piece is really the vox, hard to replace these days for what I paid and I've never heard another one of that era that sounds just like mine. Even other ones with the Haddon transformer set and thebass value caps and resistors at a few key points. Mine is particularly spanky and clear even at 10. And I have a lot of emotional baggage with it. It has stories surrounding its adventures.... its caught fire.... I've lovingly maintained it for I want to say 18 or 19 years now. It wasn't my 1st 60s amp. It wasn't my 1st really professional big-venue stage amp even. I started on an ancient pricneton reverb as a kid and had been collecting marshalls since I was 18 prior to springing for the AC30. But this was the amplifier that I plugged into and went "holy shit, I love this! that's my sound." No control fiddling (there aren't a lot of controls anyway), just bang, warmed it up, turned it up and was happy with my tone.

If my house or the studio in philly caught fire I would be so fucked though. We're talking closets full of instruments and gear. Old guitar speakers, studio monitors... Can't save it all.

If I had to keep one of my guitars and one of my basses it would be my '67 Rickenbacker 4005 Mapleglo Bass and my Black '90 or '91 Guild Nightbird Standard Guitar. I love them both dearly, I play them all the time and they sound perfect.

I love my Rickenbacker because it was the very first bass I ever got and it sounds great! The pickups are as far apart as possibe so I get a deep growl from right against the neck and the bridge give the bass this 'drive' when i flick the switch and it sounds great.

And I love my Nightbird because its ultra-rare with only 20 made in 1990 and 1991, its got some kind of DiMarzio Humbuckers in it and the sound exellent, I like how simple it is to with one volume and one tone I can still get any sound I want.

whoa, 2 great choices

House on fire? Jazzmaster first. I gave up EVERYTHING to buy that guitar... when I had nothing. Out of my entire collection, this is still my DON'T TOUCH... friends or family inclusive. Sure it's only a '94 MIJ reissue, but that guitar is part of me, my history and what I do. My wife stated if we ever seperate, I can have EVERYTHING else... she is taking the Jazzmaster. (Been together 29 years now...) If I had time in the fire I would go back for my Strat... Maple neck can go flamed maple! Fire still raging? I would go back in, grab my Tele, and FIGHT THE FIRE WITH IT!!!

my 86 japanese p bass. or my rick 3000, guitar wise none.

ESP original FRX - best guitar in my life

K. Yairi is amazing, and even if I ever sell it, I'll just buy another K.Yairi

Wow, seems like we're reviving old threads, huh?

Well, my go-to bass and a keeper in my gear (at least, currently) is my Jazz Bass copy that I've customized to shit (Removed pick-guard, added a few stickers, most of which were torn off, etc) and has been with me since I was 8 years old.

I might clean that up, once I have the money (I grew sick of the stickers), but I'll definitively keep that one with me for as I live.

The headstock of your bass guitar looks very similar to a Bacchus