All the gear and no-eye-dear

[Rich]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441317381' post='2857976']
So you mean it's all a conspiracy? BassChat is part of the new world order? Jet fuel can't melt steel beams? The government's testing speed-of-light drones for bombing completely undetected? The Chuckle Brothers are part of a secret government programme to teach kids how to communicate effectively when moving things?
[/quote]
You forgot chemtrails, crop circles and the Sasquatch. Apart from that, yes.

[chris_b]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441313907' post='2857922']
I find this "I sound great, therefore I play better" attitude quite hard to understand. [/quote]

I don't understand why you can't understand.

I guess you need to try harder.

[peteb]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1441319987' post='2857994']


I don't understand why you can't understand.

[/quote]
Neither do I...!

Some people are saying that the audience don’t care about whether you use mediocre or high end gear, but they do. They don’t know why one band sounds better than another, but they can tell the difference. A better bass sound is just one small component of that, but it is a factor – just not as important as playing / singing in tune and in time or having decent material, etc. Also, some audience members know a tiny bit about types of instruments and feel reassured that they are watching a superior band if they recognise the brands of the guitars on the bandstand.

Also, many band leaders have a certain preconceived idea of what a bass should look and sound like. Never underestimate what the appeal of having ‘Fender made in USA’ written on your headstock can be to some people. I recently watched an interview with a session bassist called Sean Hurley, where he says that for 95% of the time he now just takes Fender Precisions on recording dates as he knows that artists and producers will immediately be comfortable with them (both in terms of sound & pedigree). If you turn up for an audition with a Squier then the band leader may question your choice of instrument. Of course, if you can play like Jaco then he will quickly forget about any reservations that he may have had but if it is between you and a guy of broadly similar abilities with a US Precision and a decent amp then you are likely to lose out.

I would advise anyone thinking of spending £500 on a mid-priced bass to save up another couple of hundred quid and buy a secondhand Stingray (or something similar). For that you get a well-made American bass with a recognised pedigree that will play well as well as look and sound the part across a number of genres. It will probably satisfy the gear snob in any potential band leader / audience member and could see you right for your whole musical career! Once you have got a decent bass and a suitable amp I would then advise that you stop searching for ever elusive minor supposed improvements in tone and concentrate of playing the damn thing, which is the important thing after all…

[jonsmith]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441313907' post='2857922']
I find this "I sound great, therefore I play better" attitude quite hard to understand. I consider sounding great to be relative to the people you are playing with, not relative to other basses. When musicians are on the same wavelength with each other, they sound great. It wouldn't matter if you had the most expensive bass in the world or not, a great jam is a great jam.

I've never seen something that sounded musically pleasing and thought "It would be better if he stuck on a set of flat wounds, but never mind", and I doubt many people have. So why do we get so precious about what we use? I just feel that it's much more fleeting and in the moment than that, and generally, tonality matters very little to most.
[/quote]

Of course sounding great is made up of various components, some performance related (as individuals and collectively) and the actual sound (tone & timbre of the instruments and their relative levels in the mix). The thing is, bad sound on stage can be distracting, good sound is liberating. It frees you up to concentrate on the performance. If I really know my parts & so does everyone else then I can just get on with enjoying the moment. If my bass sounds like a goose farting in the fog, it's not going to coax the best performance from me.

That's without considering that most (although not all) pricier instruments tend to feel better, due to materials, construction and finishing quality. They tend to be easier to play.

[colgraff]

Twice in my playing career I have made significant steps up the price range. First when I went from Hohner to Yamaha TRB and then from TRB to Dingwall Prima.
In both cases, the improvement in quality gave an identifiable improvement in sound and (more importantly) required less effort to play because of the build quality.
Would the audience notice? Maybe, maybe not but I felt that my playing was enhanced which I guess is most if the point in retail.

[dand666]

Agreed. On stage sound can be horrible. From Jan to May I was made to play through a SWR and I just couldn't get a good tone out of it, no matter what setting I had. We play in different venues round the ship and all the amps in every venue were shocking. It really affected me onstage as I know my bass sounded terrible.

[ead]

I think it's very much the job of the band to entertain the punters. The gear you entertain them with is personal choice (imho) driven by many variables including things like budget, look, personal preference, external influences etc. My personal thing is to try to buy UK manufactured gear. Massive fail on an amp that I like the sound of so far

[darren]

I like owning nice stuff and I like being in a band but our drummers kit cost ~£90 and the guitarists both have inexpensive gear so it's difficult to justify the expense of top end gear.

[cheddatom]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441295565' post='2857706']
Drunk people and the happy bride and groom (other combinations are also available) won't notice a jot of difference between the Faith and the Gibson.
[/quote]

Yep, fair enough, but in your OP you seem to be saying that the discussion of which instrument is best for (gigging and) recording is pointless. Well, this discussion has informed you that if you like a lot of bass from your acoustic guitar, then a Gibson J45 is superior to a Faith. Therefore, the discussion isn't pointless.

There were two prongs to the OP: 1, is all this discussion about gear pointless? 2, do weekend warriors waste their money on nice gear?

I was answering the first prong, but to answer the 2nd, I would guess that a lot of "weekend warriors" also do a bit of recording, and for that, the right sound is very important. Sometimes you can get the right sound for £20 off Ebay, sometimes you have to spend £2000 in a shop. So, if they've gone to the effort/expense to get the right sound for recording, why not take it to the pub gig at the weekend?

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441299278' post='2857753']
Looking purely at the facts, spending £2,000 on a guitar to play 15 £200 gigs throughout the year doesn't make business sense.
[/quote]

You might break even on year 1 after expenses. Year two will be a big boom! Although if you're getting £200 per gig you're probably playing more than 15 per year

[Twigman]

One thing I'll add is in my experience higher quality basses are easier to play because they're easier to set up properly.
Because they're easier to play it's easier to improve your technique and everyone's a winner.

[ubit]

Pointless argument really. Some people like expensive, known brands, some people can't see the point. Everyone's different.

[bonzodog]

Wonder if there has ever been blind tests done where people have been given guitars to play without being able to see the make and play through amps without seeing the brand. Be interesting to see if the expensive ones were the better sounding and feeling

[4-string-thing]

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1441356791' post='2858158']
One thing I'll add is in my experience higher quality basses are easier to play because they're easier to set up properly.
Because they're easier to play it's easier to improve your technique and everyone's a winner.
[/quote]

I have to say, in my experience it's just the opposite. For me, my £50 no-name jazz is easier to play than my 1977 Fender P. Both are set up well, and the build quality of the Jazz is easily on a par with the Fender. The quality of the woods and hardware probably isn't as good though, but the Jazz neck just suits my hands better and makes it easier for me to play stuff that I would struggle with on the Precision. Budget instruments really have improved that much over the last 20 or so years. I'm not knocking anyone for owning high end basses, I would say my Fender and my Warwick are both high end (some may not) Each to their own etc. Thing is, if I am playing the Dog & Duck on Saturday night and some drunken punter pours a pint down my Jazz and kicks it off it's stand, I'll be annoyed. If he did it to my Warwick or Fender, I'd be devastated (after I'd finished beating him to a pulp) And if the BAND sounds good with me using a cheap bass, then I'm happy.

Edited September 4, 2015 by 4-string-thing

[dlloyd]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441291151' post='2857633']
I think it's entirely unjustifiable today to spend £2,000 on an acoustic guitar. The sheer quality of some instruments at the £500 mark is incredible (check out Faith Naked series - absolutely beautiful!). There are low-key artists out there who play signature Farida guitars and basses, and they're far from Gibson money, but they sound great. And besides all that, the punters in the local pub still don't care about the minutia of tone, so setting aside issues of tone, why do we do it? Why do we laugh at some entry-level gear, when that could be what spawns a great career for a great musician?
[/quote]

I used to own an acoustic guitar that would cost more than £2,000 new. It was a hand-built Le Voi D hole gypsy jazz guitar. I sold it to buy a double bass that I thought I needed.

The guitar I have now cost a fraction of that at around £400 (A Cigano GJ15). It looks very similar, makes a similar sort of noise, but I would have picked the Le Voi every time if I had to choose between the two. I doubt many guitarists even could tell the difference between them from a distance, but there was significant difference in quality of build and tonal quality that reflected in your playing.

[TimR]

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1441348618' post='2858065']
Twice in my playing career I have made significant steps up the price range. First when I went from Hohner to Yamaha TRB and then from TRB to Dingwall Prima.
In both cases, the improvement in quality gave an identifiable improvement in sound and (more importantly) required less effort to play because of the build quality.
Would the audience notice? Maybe, maybe not but I felt that my playing was enhanced which I guess is most if the point in retail.
[/quote]

I totally agree.

A cheap bass may not sound any different but the playability is what counts.

I'll select a bass on whether it feels right as well as how it sounds.

Inevitably some basses that feel better cost more and the is a price point at which two things happen:
1. I can no longer tell the difference.
2. I can no longer afford the difference.

Those points are different for different people and depend on many factors but I'd suggest they are the crux of what it boils down to for everyone.

[bassbiscuits]

[quote name='jonsmith' timestamp='1441310408' post='2857877']
Some of my gear is quite expensive, one or two items are really quite cheap. As a few people have said, the audience does benefit from the expensive gear as most of it feels better and sounds better to me, which means I enjoy playing more and give a better performance. In my opinion it does also sound better and it becomes easier to give the audience a more pleasing overall sound (I think they do notice this, even if they don't always know why). Although I play better with a decent sound, I can cope with poorer sound, but I have worked with a few guitarists who went to pieces if their sound wasn't right - good players besides that too.

Having said that, we live in a time where budget equipment is available at not massively higher prices than when I was starting out over 30 years ago. The difference now is that most of this budget equipment plays and sounds passable now - perhaps with a few rough edges - compared to back then when most of it was painful to play and often to listen to as well. When asked to go to the US last year I picked up a Squier P as I was worried that the airline might crush one of my 'decent' basses. As it turned out, this cheap bass was easy to play and sounded just fine for the music I was playing and by the end of the trip I was thinking I'd be upset if it got damaged too. It wouldn't be the first bass I'd pick up, but it still sees regular use at multi-band events with crowded stages where I don't want to risk something more expensive.

I don't think there's any such thing as an unjustifiable purchase - if I can hear or feel something that attracts me to that instrument then I'm afraid that's all that matters and the purchase is entirely justified. Business sense doesn't enter into it, otherwise I wouldn't even be in a band in the first place.
[/quote]

This ^^^

[bassbiscuits]

As a footnote to all this, personally i find the build quality, wiring and hardware on cheap basses less reliable than on better built, more expensive ones.

I've gone thru an awful lot of cheap bridge saddles which have worn thru to the cheap allow beneath, and chewed up a lot of frets (usually from playing a cheap, weaker sounding bass in the hope of getting more welly out of it.) I've also had cheap necks which needed regular tweaking to try to keep anything like a decent action.

I eventually gave in and bought a secondhand USA precision, which i've used for 90 percent of my gigs over the last 10 years. It's still got all the original hardware, has needed one fret dress, and the neck has been stable and buzz-free all that time. Oh yeah, and it sounds loud, lovely, fat and full.

To me, that's enough reason to play the extra.

But that's me - I gig regularly, for functions and weddings as well as pubs, and I play quite hard, so I want something that's reliable and good.

There are many people for which a cheaper bass will do perfectly well, and that's cool too. I use a couple of acoustic guitars for occasional gigs, and they're all sub £300 Far Eastern ones, which are good enough for me.

Edited September 4, 2015 by bassbiscuits

[tauzero]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1441361225' post='2858219']
A cheap bass may not sound any different but the playability is what counts.

I'll select a bass on whether it feels right as well as how it sounds.
[/quote]

I was just about to say the same thing, seeing as absolutely no-one else has.

The most playable (for me) four-string I've ever played is my Warwick JD Thumb. I bought it in 1987 for £900, because it was so good I just had to have it. I had never imagined playing that sort of money for a bass, my battered 70s Fender P had cost me something like £175 and to me back then, £500 would be a stratospheric price let alone £900.

Nowadays, I play 5-strings, and gig with one of three basses, two worth a bit over a grand apiece, the other which cost me about £250 and which was my main gigging bass for a few years. Playability has always been a key point. You can (within certain limits) mess around with pickups and electronics, changing the feel of a neck, while not impossible, is a rather different ballgame.

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='bonzodog' timestamp='1441357895' post='2858169']
Wonder if there has ever been blind tests done where people have been given guitars to play without being able to see the make and play through amps without seeing the brand. Be interesting to see if the expensive ones were the better sounding and feeling
[/quote]

Yes, I know that Lee Anderton and Rob Chapman did that once - A blind test between Squier and Fender Strats. One thing I seem to remember is them finding it very difficult to tell the difference.

[TimR]

I wonder how much of it is Music shops spending more time and care setting up expensive instruments.

In the days of 'Loot'. I went to look at a second hand Aria for a beginner. The neck was slight out of true, the frets were gunged up, the pickups were wonky and the bridge was all over the place and it was practically unplayable.

I said to buy it (£70) and we'd see what we could do with it. If it turned out to be a dog I said I'd buy it off him.

I spent an hour on it and we put new strings on it. He spend half an hour on it with a toothbrush.

The thing came up beautifully and was a dream to play. I'm sure we all have similar stories.

It's certainly something to think about.

But there is definitely something else when you pick up a new instrument and it just feels right and I don't think it's all in the setup.

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1441363704' post='2858252']
I wonder how much of it is Music shops spending more time and care setting up expensive instruments.

In the days of 'Loot'. I went to look at a second hand Aria for a beginner. The neck was slight out of true, the frets were gunged up, the pickups were wonky and the bridge was all over the place and it was practically unplayable.

I said to buy it (£70) and we'd see what we could do with it. If it turned out to be a dog I said I'd buy it off him.

I spent an hour on it and we put new strings on it. He spend half an hour on it with a toothbrush.

The thing came up beautifully and was a dream to play. I'm sure we all have similar stories.

It's certainly something to think about.

But there is definitely something else when you pick up a new instrument and it just feels right and I don't think it's all in the setup.
[/quote]

I once bought an Epiphone Thunderbird in a similar condition. It was an absolute dog, but I only paid about £50 for it. Took it apart and tidied it up, put a new set of strings on it, and it was grand. Unfortunately there's no real cure for the neck-dive on those bad-boys, so I quickly moved it on.

[amnesia]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441290376' post='2857617']
It seems that most of you are saying that it's generally just an act of hedonistic consumerism. Interesting.
[/quote]

Thats me.

I don't need the gear I have. I could get the sound from much less expensive equipment I'm sure.

I am an unashamed brand-snob. Absolutely no doubt. Not that I look down on people who don't have the most expensive kit - I don't - , I just choose to set my budget a little higher and I'm lucky enough to be able to do that and still pay the bills.

Can I justify what I have spent on equipment? In a business sense? No. Not even slightly! But I don't have to...which is quite nice.

[ubit]

Obviously, you are going to consider how a guitar feels just as much as how it sounds but I also consider how it looks as one of the most important factors! I mean a Hohner violin bass might feel and sound amazing, but I'm not going to even think about buying one!

[dand666]

You should ^^ Hofner basses are the shiz!

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='amnesia' timestamp='1441367741' post='2858302']
Thats me.

I don't need the gear I have. I could get the sound from much less expensive equipment I'm sure.

I am an unashamed brand-snob. Absolutely no doubt. Not that I look down on people who don't have the most expensive kit - I don't - , I just choose to set my budget a little higher and I'm lucky enough to be able to do that and still pay the bills.

Can I justify what I have spent on equipment? In a business sense? No. Not even slightly! But I don't have to...which is quite nice.
[/quote]

Can I just say how refreshing it is for somebody to be so bluntly honest about their consumer choices. This has put a smile on my face Thank you, Sir.