I just wondered how many of you were happily spanking your more affordable gear and being perfectly happy with it.
This is a bass guitar forum, and many many players here have top end kit costing many thousands of pounds. I've had some nice gear in my time too, as have many of my mates, but....last year, for Christmas, my Mrs bought me an OLP Tony Levin 5. I'm a bit of a fan and fancied his signature bass because it was cheap, and if I hated it, it wasn't the end of the world.
Now, out of the box is was very nice and comfortable to play with some nice meaty tones to play with, but the EQ wasn't great, noisy and cheap it had to go. It had a shocking nut and a flimsy battery compartment too. I tried a few alterations, different pups etc, but after a few changes it's come back from my techs with a John East 3 band EQ and a beautifully made brass nut fitted, also a good quality battery box has been slapped in.
I had the original pickup put back in after a couple of emails from Tony, who informed me that the design of them was intentionally meant to echo the tone of his alnico original.
So after the changes were finished, and it'd had a setup, I plugged it in, and fell in love with it instantly. NOT your typical Stingray tone you understand, but still it now has a voice and playability all of its own. Live it sounds immence, it plays great too, and with the superb EQ you can dial in almost any tone you like.
So the Fenders have taken a bit of a back seat because of this, allbeit [i]pimped[/i] budget bass guitar that I just love to bits.
I've spent the same amount doing it up that I did buying it in the first place, but I reckon it's now a much [i]much[/i] better instrument, and worth the effort. Worth it? You decide.