Is low end gear too cheap?

[Twanger]

I just bought a Squier VM fretless Precision off Grangur on this forum, and it's quite extraordinary. It has a very acceptable sound, is very playable, has an astonishingly straight neck, for a cheapo, which is fast and responsive to adjustment. It's well finished, the tuners are efficient at keeping the strings in tune (which is, after all, what you expect from tuners) and the bent metal bridge is easily adjustable and stable. The downsides are an overly light body, which means there's a bit of neck dive, and a slightly bland pickup. This is not just an adequate starter instrument, which is why I bought it. It's a good, giggable bass. And these things only cost just over £300 new.

£300 is not a lot of money, really, for a musical instrument. £300 is what you can end up paying an emergency plumber (more in London). It's two months commuting, if you live in the city. It's three or four nights out. Six theatre tickets. Two tickets for the Rolling Stones. A third of an iphone.

Now, cheap end stuff in the past has been utter crap. Anyone who started playing in the 60s and 70s will recall the unplayable garbage we were expected to start on. So, here's the question: is this purely a result of improved design, tech and production methods, or is someone somewhere not getting paid properly for their work?

[charic]

I would put £300 at lower-mid level stuff.

Low end stuff I would place under £200 generally (beginner market, generally)

The squiers have been doing great in recent years though, you rarely hear a bad report

[bazzbass]

for sure cheap instruments now are way better than cheap ones from the 70s to 90s

 

I'm amazed at my $299AU SX Jazz bass. Even the cheap pups and pots sound OK to me, easily upgraded later on, if I can be bothered, perfectly useable as is. The neck is the thinnest of my 5 basses and easiest to play. I have three Fenders, USA and MIM and this thing is just as playable

[chris_b]

6 minutes ago, Twanger said:

Now, cheap end stuff in the past has been utter crap. Anyone who started playing in the 60s and 70s will recall the unplayable garbage we were expected to start on. So, here's the question: is this purely a result of improved design, tech and production methods, or is someone somewhere not getting paid properly for their work?

It's all CNC machines and cheap (abused?) labour. The Cort Factory moved from Korea to Indonesia because there was unrest about working practises and bullying the workers wasn't working. Google if you want to find out more.

[yorks5stringer]

Interesting that a 'too light body' is seen as a property of a cheap Bass. Usually it's a heavier body that is the issue. Certainly with the Harley Bentons that have passed through my hands but admittedly, they have been around £100 and not £300

[Twanger]

I remember SX coming out in the late '90s. This Squier outclasses any SX I played then by miles. So they've got better too? And, Chris_b, I was worried that this was the case. CNC is just fine. I'll get googling on the labour.

[Guest MoJo]

My Vintage V4 is my 'Go to' bass. Nicely finished, solid, good hardware. Excellent gigging instrument

Edited January 11, 2018 by MoJo

[Twanger]

3 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

Interesting that a 'too light body' is seen as a property of a cheap Bass. Usually it's a heavier body that is the issue. Certainly with the Harley Bentons that have passed through my hands but admittedly, they have been around £100 and not £300

The wood is light. I don't know how tough and hard wearing it will turn out to be. Obviously locally sourced. But it sounds good. Really, I can't see how it's possible to make a playable £100 bass. I really can't.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Twanger

[Marc S]

I saw that VM fretless, and think I may have commented on it. The gist of my comment was that I had indeed owned a Squier VM fretless Jazz....
I thought about upgrading, and got myself a US Fender P fretless, and sold the Squier Jazz

Although I really liked that US P fretless......  I actually preferred the sound of the Jazz!! Of course, that may have been because I preferred the J pickup config - perhaps I feel it's more suited to fretless?
Now I have a MIJ Fretless Jazz, and it's lovely.... but neither the US, nor the MIJ  were that much better quality than the made in Indonesia VM fretless

I wouldn't say that £300 is lower-mid level stuff - if you take inflation and rising costs / wages etc into consideration, it's comparable to the amount spent on cheaper instruments back in the late 70's / ear;y 80's.
When I started playing in the early 80's there were a lot of cr@p 2nd hand 70's instruments around  (but also some good ones too, don't forget)
These days, you definitely get much more for your money if you're buying a "cheaper" instrument. Of course, you still need to beware of "cheap & nasty" - I've seen some dodgy stuff in Cash Converters, for instance

But I wouldn't say it's "too cheap" as such - I just think you're getting a lot more for your money these days. And perhaps the step up to higher end instruments is less noticeable - so maybe manufacturers of such instruments need to up their game?
I started with a really nasty Kay (the catalogue company) short scale bass - it was dreadful, and quite hard to play, as you just couldn't get the action down - so fretting around fret 10, you needed a G-clamp! I'm surprised I wasn't put off for ever...

EDIT: In fact, I miss that VM fretless, and wish I hadn't bothered to "upgrade"

Edited January 11, 2018 by Marc S

[Barking Spiders]

All my electric  basses and guitars cost me less than £500 new the basses  being a Peavey Cirrus BXP, Cort B4FL, Cort GB74, Aria Pro II Integra and a Sub Ray 4. The build quality on all is excellent, the electronics are just fine, all are very playable and produce great sounds.  Now we can all argue to the toss about Cort's labour practices but we'd all be walking around naked if we were all really that principled. 

[musicbassman]

In my first band (1968) I was playing 'rhythm guitar' on a Watkins Rapier 33 and the bass player bought a brand new Domino bass. I think it was £75, and was an absolute bottom of the range beginners bass.. A take home wage for a manual worker would have been about £15 per week then, so equal to five weeks wages.

Obviously by current standards this instrument was almost unplayable, and now you can buy a perfectly playable instrument for less than one weeks take home pay.

Yes, there might be some slightly dodgy labour practices (viewed from our Western sensibilities), but I would guess it's more down to modern machinery and economies of scale than anything else.

Too cheap? Well that's the laws of supply and demand. But if beginners can start on good playable instruments then surely that's no bad thing.

[fretmeister]

Of course many people aren't getting paid enough. Why on earth do you think multi-national companies do their manufacturing in countries without adequate employment regulations?

 

Here's the rub though. Someone might only be earning 50 pence per hour to make a bass in a far off country. But that 50 pence per hour might actually be higher than the local average and without it they might starve.

There are no easy answers though. If you struggle to eat then underpayment is better than no payment. On the flip side 1 company "over-paying" for the area (in other words paying an acceptable sum) might destabilise the local economy.

 

You'll be wondering how Tesco can sell a whole chicken for a quid next.

[Lozz196]

I think it`s good that starter instruments are cheaper, back in 1980 when I bought my fist bass it was a Kay EB-O copy, and cost £45. The action was almost half an inch, and it really wasn`t that good an instrument - at a price which was the same as a working mans weekly wage (I started drinking in `83 when a pint was 50p, so working in beer, my starter bass cost me approx. 100 pints plus, same as around £400 today). Now for a working mans weekly wage you can get a much better instrument, surely this is progress.

[Twanger]

I like the beer scale. When I started playing a pint was around three bob. So my lousy first bass cost me - yes, 100 pints (£15 - it was from Woolworths). MY new Squier would have cost me 70-100 pints new, depending on the pub. So in beer terms it's much better value! Or is beer now overpriced?

[dlloyd]

The beer conversion rate works to an extent... but beer prices have risen slightly quicker than inflation, so while prices in general are around 50% higher than they were twenty years ago, beer is 60% more expensive.

[Barking Spiders]

52 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Of course many people aren't getting paid enough. Why on earth do you think multi-national companies do their manufacturing in countries without adequate employment regulations?

 

Here's the rub though. Someone might only be earning 50 pence per hour to make a bass in a far off country. But that 50 pence per hour might actually be higher than the local average and without it they might starve.

There are no easy answers though. If you struggle to eat then underpayment is better than no payment. On the flip side 1 company "over-paying" for the area (in other words paying an acceptable sum) might destabilise the local economy.

 

You'll be wondering how Tesco can sell a whole chicken for a quid next.

Too true. There are many instances where boycotts by western countries of others due to things like 'bad' labour practices have usually been counter productive. In places like Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and the Phillipines factory jobs at least offer relatively steady employment the alternatives usually being either unemployment and starvation or lives as subsistence farmers.  

Anyway it may be that higher end products, whether basses or anything else, are  overpriced due to the power of high profile or prestige brands rather than any superior intrinsic qualities. I do wonder at how come some hand made basses cost upwards of £3k, more than the cost of a relatively decent used car

Edited January 11, 2018 by Barking Spiders
not finished typing

[chris_b]

The argument that it's OK to give workers poor pay and bad working conditions because the alternative is worse wasn't acceptable in the UK in the 1800's and isn't valid anywhere else today.

Edited January 11, 2018 by chris_b

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, Twanger said:

Now, cheap end stuff in the past has been utter crap. Anyone who started playing in the 60s and 70s will recall the unplayable garbage we were expected to start on. So, here's the question: is this purely a result of improved design, tech and production methods, or is someone somewhere not getting paid properly for their work?

I think the answers to your final questions are yes to all of them.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Dan Dare

[fretmeister]

46 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

Too true. There are many instances where boycotts by western countries of others due to things like 'bad' labour practices have usually been counter productive. In places like Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and the Phillipines factory jobs at least offer relatively steady employment the alternatives usually being either unemployment and starvation or lives as subsistence farmers.  

Anyway it may be that higher end products, whether basses or anything else, are  overpriced due to the power of high profile or prestige brands rather than any superior intrinsic qualities. I do wonder at how come some hand made basses cost upwards of £3k, more than the cost of a relatively decent used car

I would be very surprised if a Fodera couldn't cut 50% off their prices and keep the same profit margin simply by moving away from New York.

 

New York rents are some of the highest in the world. If they moved to the derrière end of Kansas where it's all farmland their overheads would plummet. 

[fretmeister]

Wait!

 

Even 4rse is caught by the swearing filter now? What is this? Why is the forum turning into a middle aged Mary Whitehouse safe place when most of us are hairy 4rsed pub rockers?

[Barking Spiders]

8 minutes ago, chris_b said:

The argument that it's OK to give workers poor pay and bad working conditions because the alternative is worse wasn't acceptable in the UK in the 1800's and isn't valid anywhere else today.

No one's saying it's acceptable but poor labour practices in these countries is ultimately down to their governments. Boycotting never works as it mainly impacts the workers. If a business in Indonesia sees its sales falling cos western consumers are refusing to buy its goods, the workers will be the ones to lose their jobs. We can't demand  Cort or any other private company pays better wages. Even if they were to raise their prices who'll guarantee workers get a rise. The world is unfair and unjust. Always has been, always will be.

[TheGreek]

Rather than dwell on the cost of materials/labour I think that most of us will agree that the build quality of today's"cheap equipment" is infinitely better than gear we were buying back in the day. My first bass was a Westone Thunder 1A so I didn't really own any terrible gear but believe me I saw plenty of people who were using it.

I recently acquired a Harley Benton Tele geeeter - the build quality is surprisingly good - certainly close top that on late 70s/ early 80s Fenders which were notoriously bad. 

IMO the OP is probably right - gear is too cheap.

[Hobbayne]

I bought one of these last year as a back up, and also to get a different sound from my P basses. It is a blinding bass for the price. Only downside is its a bit weighty and the output was rather hot. (Sorted by now though)

I wish I had basses of this quality in the early 80,s when I was starting out.

https://www.gak.co.uk/en/sub-by-sterling-ray4-music-man-black/70599?gclid=Cj0KCQiAs9zSBRC5ARIsAFMtUXGvMET9DYR7dzc_KCGSWfZmKTDYKEj2VeE_mTl_sZQ-g9M2_-qe0uAaAj_LEALw_wcB

[Marc S]

As I'd said earlier, my 1st bass was so bad, it's a wonder I didn't give up....
I wonder how many people did actually give up, thinking that it was their playing that was bad, and not the quality of the awful instrument?
Several mates back in the early 80's did give up - maybe it was partly due to them having such awful guitars.... maybe partly because they weren't truly committed enough? Maybe, it was a bit of both?
Some of them really did own truly awful instruments - I know, cos I tried them (mind you, some of them were awful, but still better than my Kay bass!)

If the improvement of the lower end of the market means that more beginners will be encouraged to stick with it - then there's no such thing as "too cheap"... surely?

Of course, underpaid workers is another element of this equation, and shouldn't be ignored.....

[chris_b]

15 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

No one's saying it's acceptable but poor labour practices in these countries is ultimately down to their governments. Boycotting never works as it mainly impacts the workers. If a business in Indonesia sees its sales falling cos western consumers are refusing to buy its goods, the workers will be the ones to lose their jobs. We can't demand  Cort or any other private company pays better wages. Even if they were to raise their prices who'll guarantee workers get a rise. The world is unfair and unjust. Always has been, always will be.

Telling manufacturers that we won't accept bad treatment of their workers is exactly what we are doing to reduce child labour in the clothing industry. From what I see that is working.

We did the same with apartheid in South Africa, and currently the Russian athletics teams are being excluded from the Olympics. Boycotts work if they are well managed and properly targeted.

If you see something being created by "slave labour" stop buying it. The fat cats running those industries just love it when they see us shrugging our shoulders.