Westfield Jazz - giggable?

[Adrenochrome]

Item number: 120334885212

Okay, so I'm after a very cheap passive backup bass. There's a Westfield Jazz on Evilbay currently standing at £30 which is only a few miles away from me so no postage costs etc. It finishes at 11:43 this morning. Anyone any idea if this would be up to gigging?
(I'd be happy to throw on a better bridge and strings and do action/intonation if needed)

Edited November 23, 2008 by Adrenochrome

[Annoying Twit]

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='334734' date='Nov 23 2008, 10:00 AM']Item number: 120334885212

Okay, so I'm after a very cheap passive backup bass. There's a Westfield Jazz on Evilbay currently standing at £30 which is only a few miles away from me so no postage costs etc. It finishes at 11:43 this morning. Anyone any idea if this would be up to gigging?
(I'd be happy to throw on a better bridge and strings and do action/intonation if needed)[/quote]

I wouldn't claim to have the background knowledge to answer your question. But one data point. I bought my son a Westfield 1/2 sized LP style guitar. Within the limitations of my knowledge, it seems a competently built instrument. But when I looked inside the control cavity the wiring and soldering was not good. In fact it looks pretty bad. I don't claim to know much about bass guitars, but I do no sufficiently enough about electronics to know that poor wiring work like that = potential problems. The Jazz bass on ebay may of course have excellent quality electrical work for all I know, but I put this data point out anyway.

[bassaussie]

Absolutely giggable!! As long as the neck is in good nick (reasonably straight, has movement left on the truss rod for adjustments), there's nothing else you couldn't fix with a small investment. The worst thing you might find is that the pickups/electronics might be noisy, so you could easily replace pots, wiring and even pickups with something quite decent, and still have a backup for well under £100.

Looks like a good buy to me.

[Adrenochrome]

Thanks for your thoughts guys. There are better basses for a bit more money but spare money is something I haven't got. My main bass is still at Peavey having the preamp fixed under warranty but I've got plenty of gigs in the meantime.

[WarPig]

They do the job for a back up bass, probably wouldnt tour with one. My friend had a Westfield P bass which sounded very good and felt well put together, very light.

[OutToPlayJazz]

I've had a couple of Westfield strats for rental to students & they're fine. So judging by the guitars, I'd say the basses would be fine.

Rich.

[stingrayfan]

Everything's giggable, we're just spoiled these days. Defo worth getting the action sorted so it plays nice.

[budget bassist]

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='334998' date='Nov 23 2008, 05:08 PM']Everything's giggable, we're just spoiled these days. Defo worth getting the action sorted so it plays nice.[/quote]
+1 Any bass is giggable as long as it's not literally falling to bits. You should see some of the stuff some of the younger bands around here play with! And for the record i know a guy who played many a gig with a westfield precision, and when it's in the mix i doubt you could tell a whole lot of difference between that and a fender tbh. Same with a lot of basses, whether it's cheap or expensive, when it's in the mix it's hard to tell a great deal of difference a lot of the time.

Edited November 23, 2008 by budget bassist