Yep in part its about taking your sound with you, though I was more interested in the reasons people take specific alembics to a gig. For example when I played more guitar live, some of the factors that determined what guitar I took was not about the sound of the guitar, more for security reasons, especially if I was touring I didn't want to risk losing a more expensive instrument or one that I had owned for a long period of time. When touring in certain countries I had to up my insurance to cover me in that country so in that case was better to take a cheaper instrument because minimum time period for the cover was a 30 days.
if I knew a particular venue was likely to be full of intoxicated punters, I would be concerned about the instrument getting damaged. Other times it may have been purely cosmetic because we knew the gig was being filmed and/or being photographed. But the guitars were always good guitars.
But after a while I decided that I wanted to enjoy playing a particular guitar regardless of the punters, because I loved the way it played and sounded so that became the primary reason along with the sound I needed for a particular gig.
Now that I haven't done guitar gigs with any frequency for years now, and I only have alembic basses to choose from for bass gigs, I'm trying to make decisions based which bass I feel is more appropriate for the music I will be playing on a particular gig. Yes you could feel that any individual alembic bass is going to fit any genre of music but some are more fitting than others for both sound and the ability to perform certain playing techniques without distraction.
Jazzyvee
