The pleasure of cheap basses

[Beer of the Bass]

I played at a private party last year where I brought my 100-year old double bass and wished I'd just brought electric bass instead. It was a party at your classic communal hippy dwelling, with a dancing audience who were in a whole range of altered states. The gig was great fun (as was the rest of the night), but mashed people kept stumbling into the "stage" area and I just spent too much time fielding people away from the double bass, which escaped major damage but did end up with a bent tuner and a couple of new scuffs.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Beer of the Bass

[Cat Burrito]

Having been through a few £1500+ basses, for the last 2.5 years I've owned just 2 Squiers. They are nice instruments that happen to be budget. I regularly receive comments about the tone and how good they sound and that's before I tell people they are "only Squiers".

[12stringbassist]

I'm happy to to take any of these out with any of these... I take the very same precautions at gigs with all of them.

[lojo]

^ 12 string , your lovely blue boy won't be safe if I'm around

I have a cheap Yamaha 5 String which I paid £120 for , It was meant to help me decide if I wanted s 5 string , it's so good I gig it all the time and haven't thought of upgrading it . Admittedly it has decent pickups and set up , but shouldn't all basses

[bigjimmyc]

Interesting thread this, so here's my £0.02.

My basses are not expensive or new or mint, but as a lefty I know they'd be tough to replace.

In my loft I have the hard cases for them all, but they're in the loft for a reason. Practicality is king! I use gig bags instead and that tells me the value I really put on these instruments.

I guess if my band was regularly moving gear by van from gig to gig those cases would make sense. So here's the rub: who puts "cheap" equipment into hard cases?

Ideally we would probably all have different gear for live, home, rehearsal and studio. And a roadie to keep it all nice too!

[ribbetingfrog]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1465419387' post='3068141']


I'm also a mediocre player - in fact I'm probably less able then most people on here when it comes to playing bass.

But... I also know that my expensive basses (Gus, Sei Warwick) are far easier to play than the cheap basses I've owned and therefore I sound less crap than I would if all I had was a cheap bass.

On the whole cheap basses are only fun if you are into self-flagellation.
[/quote]


If my Harley Benton is self flagellation than I'm kinkier than I thought!

It's a absolute pleasure to play .

[Dan Dare]

I built a cheapo P - Squier body, no name neck, s/h Kent Armstrong pickup. Cost about £250. Does the job and nice to play. Pleasant change from the vintage Jazz.

[gs_triumph]

I guess cheap is all in the eye of the individual.... an £800 fender might be cheap to some folks budgets.

I sold my Ibby ATK200 to buy an ATK800... the 800 is light years ahead of the 200 in terms of sound and playability... and should be, it cost three times as much new.

however, I am still hankering for the Ibby Jet King I tried when I was trying out basses and took the ATK200 home.. doh! bad decision. Regretted it ever since.

[leschirons]

Playing an eighty quid OLP 5 string on a dep tomorrow night. Plays great, sounds great and as I'll be outside in a huge wet and muddy tent in a field,(after the kids enduro motorcycle championships) it's the ideal bass.

Don't have any issues at all with cheap instruments as long as they sound and feel good. (Just for the record, yes, it still has OLP on the headstock)

[grandad]

I have 5 basses at the moment. All are 2nd hand. All are medium or short scale. Approx' prices paid:

Tokai SG - £150
Aria CSB 380 - £150
Epiphone Viola - £150

All 3 have been set up by my luthier and all have a good action. I'm working on the other 2 myself.

Yamaha Motion - £120 - undergoing restoration
Squier Mustang - £200 - more work needed to achieve a good action.

Each bass is very different in tone and 'feel-wise'. The Aria has a superb neck with the lowest action all the way along the fingerboard. The Tokai is gigged the most. All have dings but nothing to worry about.

I have gigged my brothers £1000+ P bass but felt very nervous about dinging it. If I owned a very expensive bass I'd be worried about bashing it and I think my playing would suffer.

I definitely feel more relaxed with cheaper models but it still costs the same to restring and set up. Some I set up myself, others my luthier does. I have various flats on each.

I tend to go for the looks and feel and weight of a bass rather than price. Put a bit of work into most mid/cheap models and a decent instrument can be had.

Ok, I'll admit I still have GAS for a Gibson SG.

Edited June 11, 2016 by grandad

[scrumpymike]

"I tend to go for the looks and feel and weight of a bass rather than price. Put a bit of work into most mid/cheap models and a decent instrument can be had"

+1

Here's my cheapy-but-goody (shorty), an Ibanez Talman TMB30. Just released in the UK and available in any colour as long as it's black (Thomann had the lovely ivory one last time I looked).

[url="http://[URL=http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/scrumpymike/media/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o598/scrumpymike/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg[/IMG][/URL]"]http://[URL=http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/scrumpymike/media/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o598/scrumpymike/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/url]

Mahogany body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard - made in Indonesia (I guess the relevant trees grow there).

[scrumpymike]

Forgot to say, at £145 it's the same price as the hand-knitted woollen throw (made and sold by the missus) that I photographed it on!

[Painy]

I'd never even considered the idea of owning an expensive bass and not gigging it before joining basschat. The most expensive bass I've owned was a Warwick Streamer Stage 1 fiver which would currently retail at well over 4 grand new. I owned it for about 7 years and during that time I used it for everything but 2 songs at every gig I played which would have been around 3-400 gigs. Never once worried about it and when I sold it the only mark on it was on the body above the front pickup where my thumb had rested.
I'm now gigging a Squier VM P5 which was about £270 new as my main bass. Not because of any concern about damage to a more expensive instrument but because for me personally it honestly feels more comfortable in my hands than any other bass I've ever played. I'd like to change the (perfectly functional BBOT) bridge at some point but only because I'm lazy and hate threading strings though so prefer quick release bridges. I'd also like to try upgrading the pickup at some point just to see if it makes any difference (again the current stock pup sounds pretty good to me anyway) but if I never change either of those things I still won't feel like I've had to compromise in any way by playing a cheap bass.

[grandad]

[quote name='scrumpymike' timestamp='1465641989' post='3069846']
Forgot to say, at £145 it's the same price as the hand-knitted woollen throw (made and sold by the missus) that I photographed it on!
[/quote]

I looked at these, the ivory one appealed to me but I resisted. How does it play?

[BrunoBass]

[quote name='scrumpymike' timestamp='1465641531' post='3069839']

Here's my cheapy-but-goody (shorty), an Ibanez Talman TMB30. Just released in the UK and available in any colour as long as it's black (Thomann had the lovely ivory one last time I looked).

[url="http://[URL=http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/scrumpymike/media/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o598/scrumpymike/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg[/IMG][/URL]"]http://[URL=http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/scrumpymike/media/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o598/scrumpymike/003_zpsd4rfyoav.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/url]

Mahogany body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard - made in Indonesia (I guess the relevant trees grow there).
[/quote]

I like the look of that. I've never played a short scale. I've always avoided them; as a broad chested 6.1ft lump I've always supposed that they'd look ridiculous on me!

[scrumpymike]

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1465653986' post='3069977']
I looked at these, the ivory one appealed to me but I resisted. How does it play?
[/quote]
Not bad out of the box, very good after a full set-up and change of strings. Had this done by my friendly local luthier, as I don't touch nuts (except pistachios) myself. He said it was a "nice little bass" - the highest praise I've ever heard him give anything he didn't make himself. He added that, if he was asked to make exactly the same thing, he'd have to charge his customer £145 for just the wood.

[tredders]

I just picked up a Steinberger Spirit (cheapie model cricket bat bass), with quite low expectations. I travel a lot with work and thought that this might be just ok for using for that.

It arrived today, I stuck a new set of strings on (Bass Direct had 3 different gauges to choose from!), and had a play, and..... it's actually great! Action is low, neck is nice, and there's a wide selection of tones in there. To be honest I'm amazed at how good it is.

Friend is lending me the next model up (Synapse) when he's back off tour, so I'm looking forward to trying that, as I hear that there's a big difference in quality between the Spirit and Synapse. If there is, I can't wait!

[grandad]

I tried a friend's Spirit I think. It felt very strange with no headstock and little body to speak of. My fingers didn't know where they were on the frets. The headstock must be a reference point for finger-memory.

Edited June 11, 2016 by grandad

[tredders]

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1465666193' post='3070107'] I tried a friends Spirit I think. It felt very strange with no headstock and little body to speak of. My fingers didn't know where they were on the frets. The headstock must be a reference point for finger-memory. [/quote]

To be fair, my fingers rarely know which frets they're on at the best of times

[grandad]

[casapete]

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1465666193' post='3070107']
I tried a friend's Spirit I think. It felt very strange with no headstock and little body to speak of. My fingers didn't know where they were on the frets. The headstock must be a reference point for finger-memory.
[/quote]
I had the same problem with a Hohner B2A. Think it was down to the postioning of the upper strap button which
caused the neck to sit a bit further away than I would have liked, resulting in a few one & sometimes 2 frets out moments!
Seem to remember a bracket for the strap that Steinberger used on their models which eliminated this, so guess it
must have been a common problem.

[steve-bbb]

i liked my squier affinity J so much i splashed out on a set of wizard hammers and a j-retro pre (both preloved from basschat) for it so does that make it technically NOT a cheap bass any more?

[6feet7]

I've gone from a £7000 GUS Active Retro (absolutely stunning in every way but I was afraid to take it out of the house) to a Chinese Warwick Streamer 5 (£400 - but I have replaced the internals with German Warwick MEC stuff) and a Korean Squier ProTone Precision 5 (£200). Very very happy with both and can't ever see the need for going for anything much more expensive.

[Trueno]

I used to gig German made Warwicks in rammy old pubs without much thought to the consequences. On the other hand I do think that the quality of most cheap basses is so good nowadays. I've begun to cast my beady eye over the Squier Classic Vibe basses. If it plays ok and sounds ok, what's not to like?

[BottomE]

Good thing about expendable basses is you can leave them out of their cases at home. With dogs, kids and a busy house its useful to have basses that you don't mind being "bruised". I have a great little Yammy BB1100s that is always "out" and its great to just pick it up and play. Funny enough, the kids and even the dogs treat it with respect (so far)...