I don't frequently post in this section of the forums, as most of my professional music is in the bar and wedding cover band scene so I don't really have anything creative to show off (hopefully that will be changing shortly, but that's a discussion for another time). However, I finally found a reason to make my way back over here, although it's the result of me being At Wit's End (see what I did there?) with my search for my perfect bass. That's not an entirely accurate statement. You see, I found her, and it was true love from the moment I first played her. The problem is that after that fateful day in Guitar Center, she has eluded me ever since.
This story starts with John Myung. I discovered Dream Theater in 2008 through Panic Attack being in the rhythm game Rock Band 2. By this point, I had been playing bass for three years, and was pretty adamant about only playing a four string. I was learning my instrument quickly, with Cliff Burton and Flea my biggest influences at this point (Cliff still is and always will be, but Flea has fallen down my rankings quite a bit), but I knew nothing about the technological aspect of my instrument yet, trying to get that heavy Metallica sound with a passive Fender Jazz. I still don't know much about the technological side of things, but I at least know pickups.
Anyway, hearing the opening bass line of Panic Attack changed my life. I had a new band in my rotation, and for the first time, a bass hero who played an extended range instrument. In discovering this band, I also had my first glimpse at my bass guitar soulmate: the Music Man Bongo. As said earlier, I discovered Dream Theater in 2008, one year removed from when John Myung switched from Yamaha to Music Man. This bass looked nothing like anything I had ever seen before, and I was intrigued. Alas, I wouldn't come into contact with one for another ten years.
Fast foward to 2018, I am now an experienced bass player who had been using an Ibanez six string bass for the past two years, having fully embraced the world of extended range bass guitars. I also was making money as a musician for the first time ever, having joined a cover band earlier in the year. Unfortunately, at a gig in Manhattan, my Ibanez broke. It was a minor piece of damage, as the C string's tuning machine broke, but it was enough to put my main axe out of commission until my local music store could get the part needed to fix it. The biggest problem was that the six string was my only extended range bass I owned. I would have to reteach myself all three hours worth of my band's set on a four string, and sadly the only time I had to do so due to work was when I dropped off my six string about an hour before I was set to head to my next gig. With my Fender already loaded in the car, I decided to sit in the music store and relearn the sets there. It was then that I saw that they were carrying a four string Bongo. I grabbed it and immediately felt comfortable with the instrument, flying through the songs as if I wasn't making the shift from six to four at all. I was blown away by both the feel and the sound, it was everything I had ever wanted from a bass, except that I now needed at the very least a low B string.
It's 2019 now, and that bass is in my head. I have my Ibanez back, but I'm still thinking about the Bongo. I want one. No. I need one. There's only one problem. I make minimum wage and don't really have money to throw at a 1,000 dollar or more bass guitar. But I look at prices anyway. I start thinking about the three basses I own that I never gig with. Thinking about how much I can get for them. Then, my band has a double header. A street fair in the afternoon and a bar at night. In between gigs, my keyboard player and I go to Applebee's for dinner (the life of luxury) and in that same lot is a Guitar Center. We walk in and that's when I see her. Ernie Ball Music Man. Bongo. Five strings. HS pickup configuration. Black body with a rosewood fretboard. I walk right towards her, almost like she's a siren, luring me into my doom with her seductive call.
I grab her off the wall. I sit down. I plug her in. I start playing. And it's perfection. The fretboard radius. The pickup configuration. The feel. The sound. The look. The note range. The versatility. It's everything I wanted and more. The HS configuration was like a Fender Jazz on steroids, punchy attack with a nice meaty and sustained low end. The 5 string configuration with the 11" fretboard radius and 24 frets gave me the range needed to play my sets without my hand being stretched to oblivion like on my Ibanez. The look was sleek and menacing while not being overly aggressive. It could play anything, from the pop I get paid to perform to the prog and metal I write for fun. And the feel. My right hand rested perfectly over the strings, the single coil neck pickup the perfect place to anchor my thumb. My left hand glided effortlessly up and down the fretboard, me able to play things I had never dreamed of before. For the first time in my fourteen years of playing, it truly felt like my instrument was working with me. I came so dangerously close to financing the bass and walking out with it right there, but I knew that there were too many economic variables in my life for me to make that big financial decision. Walking out without that bass was brutal, but it gave me a goal. One day, I would own my perfect bass: the Music Man Bongo 5 HS in black. Or so I thought...
Music Man discontinued the HS configuration for the Bongo starting in the second half of 2019, and also offered limited color options. For me to buy the instrument I wanted, I would have to either shop used, or spend even more money on a now rare model. I played the HH setup since then, and it just didn't have the same level of comfort or the same sound that the HS had. I would constantly look on Reverb and Guitar Center to see what was available, and the number just kept getting lower and lower. I looked on Andertons and Thomann, but by the time rosewood fretboards were allowed to be shipped internationally, they too were out of stock.
That brings us to tonight. I got that itch again, and started looking. And there was nothing. Not on Reverb. Not on Sweetwater. Not on Guitar Center. Not on Musicians Friend. Not on Sam Ash. Not on American Music Supply. Not on Andertons, Thomann, Amazon, or even Ebay. My dream instrument, at least for now, is gone. And it leaves me with questions. Should I have taken a financial risk to ensure I would have the instrument when I first played it? Should I have walked away from the courts back in 2017, ignoring my fears of owning a gun with depression so I could have a career that I didn't really want, but would have had the money to afford the things that I DO want? Is it just not meant to be? Will I be stuck searching for my instrument soulmate for the rest of my musical career? Or will she resurface when I'm financially ready for her, bringing me the happily ever after that has eluded me?