Basses You've Owned and Hated

[NikNik]

13 hours ago, LITTLEWING said:

....I nearly cried, quietly rocking in a corner.

Been there, done that.

13 hours ago, LITTLEWING said:

 

 

[ebenezer]

Well, cut my tongue out ...but i too had a wal bass, a series two 5 string no less....was as heavy as a chippendale chair and although it had a lot of

sounds, only a few were usable, i could never really get on with the filter preamp ..... anyway, bought it new for £1400 and sold it for £800

beat me now !!!   

[Highfox]

30 minutes ago, ebenezer said:

Well, cut my tongue out ...but i too had a wal bass, a series two 5 string no less....was as heavy as a chippendale chair and although it had a lot of

sounds, only a few were usable, i could never really get on with the filter preamp ..... anyway, bought it new for £1400 and sold it for £800

beat me now !!!   

It's funny so many Wal's seem to of gone unloved. I know I had a hard time trying to find a fretted MK1 that someone was willing to sell.. waited over 6 months for one to come up on here. (maybe it was bad timing)

For me the awkward basses have been..stingrays (the preamp, never could settle on a sound I liked) great playability tho. Ricks, just find they dull and slow up my playing Jazz basses , necks a bit too narrow (on the ones I owned and tried) Most semi-acoustic basses because of the strap pin positions There I said it...

 

[thodrik]

I don’t hate it, but I have owned a a 1974 Gibson EB3 since 2000. 

I don’t like the three point bridge design. It is very difficult to set it up to achieve are decent action and intonation. Only two of the four pick up selections deliver a workable tone. It is heavy and neck heavy. Due to the tiny space between the string entry point and the string saddle and the short scale neck, it is very difficult to find strings that work well with the bass.

I have been thinking of selling it for ten years but have been too lazy to do anything about it, as part of my brain thinks it is cool to have such a unique bass and a bit of history as part of my collection. Also my brother thinks it is cool.

 

[stu_g]

I had an EB3 also I think it was a 1976,i always wanted one but the neck dive and tone made me sell it  in the end.

I had a Gibson victory quirky and didn't sound too bad,i also had another Gibson sg bass 2014 sold that too.

I also bought a Chinese lodestone it was awful so sent it back and managed too pick up a Czech made one with emg's for £60 and I still have that one looks are questionable but it plays ok.

[Dan Dare]

G&L L2000. Fabulous pickups, very versatile, well made. I didn't hate it by any means, but just couldn't get on with the neck (I've spent too long playing J basses). I persevered, but eventually sold it. Was sad to see it go, because it made lovely noises.

[Lfalex v1.1]

Oddly, none really! Hate's a strong term!

Maybe the Ovation electro-acoustic, but only because of the limitations of the type of instrument or the tiny likelihood of my ever being in a position to make proper use of it.

Had a Stingray 5 fretless. Looked, played and felt great. But I prefer the tone of an EUB.

Status Streamline;  Too light and sounded it tonally. The custom wiring (series/parallel) needed a buffer or trim pots to balance the output between the two modes. The limited choice of Double-ball end strings was a pain. Having sharp ends of single ball ends sticking out from under the clamps really was painful from time to time. Phenolic fretboard started to delaminate, so I got shot of it and lost a fortune in the process.

[Marvin]

My first bass, a Westone Soectrum II, was little more than firewood with strings on it. An awful bass in every respect.

Warwick Rockbass Corvette was another dreadful bass I owned. Heavy and really uncomfortable to play. It hung horribly so the 1st fret felt a million miles away. The neck was like a baseball bat, the thick end. I was absolutely relieved to get shot of it.

[WHUFC BASS]

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

Warwick Rockbass Corvette was another dreadful bass I owned. Heavy and really uncomfortable to play. It hung horribly so the 1st fret felt a million miles away. The neck was like a baseball bat, the thick end. I was absolutely relieved to get shot of it. 

Really? I had a 5 String Rockbass Corvette and it was an amazing bass for the price. Sounded superb when recorded, had a fantastic neck too for a 5 String - one of the best I've tried.

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, WHUFC BASS said:

Really? I had a 5 String Rockbass Corvette and it was an amazing bass for the price. Sounded superb when recorded, had a fantastic neck too for a 5 String - one of the best I've tried.

The one I had was one of the really early ones. It didn't have Warwick written on it, it was just branded Rockbass. It didn't have the Warwick bridge but a somewhat clunky chunk of metal. The pickups and active tone controls were good. The pickups were MEC's. It's everything the electronics were attached to I found really uncomfortable to play. It was very well made though.

[WHUFC BASS]

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

The one I had was one of the really early ones. It didn't have Warwick written on it, it was just branded Rockbass. It didn't have the Warwick bridge but a somewhat clunky chunk of metal. The pickups and active tone controls were good. The pickups were MEC's. It's everything the electronics were attached to I found really uncomfortable to play. It was very well made though.

That was exactly the same as mine, it was an early model. Agreed on the electronics, they really were good but I also found the bass quite ergonomic and reasonably light. The price was the clincher for me and I used it to record quite often. I foolishly sold it on and regretted it for ages afterwards.

[Chris2112]

17 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

Oddly, none really! Hate's a strong term!

Maybe the Ovation electro-acoustic, but only because of the limitations of the type of instrument or the tiny likelihood of my ever being in a position to make proper use of it.

Had a Stingray 5 fretless. Looked, played and felt great. But I prefer the tone of an EUB.

Status Streamline;  Too light and sounded it tonally. The custom wiring (series/parallel) needed a buffer or trim pots to balance the output between the two modes. The limited choice of Double-ball end strings was a pain. Having sharp ends of single ball ends sticking out from under the clamps really was painful from time to time. Phenolic fretboard started to delaminate, so I got shot of it and lost a fortune in the process.

Surely Status would have sorted the delamination? That sounds like a manufacturing defect.

[Lfalex v1.1]

2 hours ago, Chris2112 said:

Surely Status would have sorted the delamination? That sounds like a manufacturing defect.

I can't even remember if I approached them about it. That instrument was ultimately a big disappointment and I just wanted it gone.

Don't think I'd have another Status now, though.

[uk_lefty]

Hated: Hohner PJ. bought off eBay for next to nothing with a hard case. It was just a rubbish bass but think I made profit. I also got a Brice six string off Rondo music, that was completely characterless and a big heavy lump of woods that probably shouldn't be used in serious instrument making. I hold out hope that their SX brand is infinitely better.

Not hated but didn't get on with a Warwick Steamer LX. I wish I had it now just to check it wasn't my lack of technique at the time. Also sold recently my Hohner B2A "cricket bat". I had the version with active EMG's and it sounded amazing, and had the sexiest of 80's vinyl semi hard cases that zipped up! Now my band are playing more and more 80's tracks I kinda wish the string spacing on that bass had been wider and I'd still have it. It was just too narrow for me, much prefer fender string spacing.  Had I not recently fallen in love with and taken home a Stingray I'd probably be having a Status built to give me that headless fix.

[Muzz]

Not much hate, but lots of disappointment:

1. Brand new Rick 4003W - bought for my birthday on a wave of 'I had a 4001 as a kid'. Went back to GAK the next day. Awful ergonomics, but worse, just a badly built bass; a £300 bass with a £1600 price tag.

2. 78 Jazz - brown-sounding, 12lb boat anchor. Sold for a big profit (all original, spotless, case, etc, etc) to someone who'll (hopefully) never play it.

3. Alembic Epic. Again, I completely failed to see what the fuss was all about. Reasonably well built (but not in the £5k-plus bracket), sounded piano-y, but terribly heavy for a small-bodied bass.

4. A couple of Overwaters - lovely woods, well made, but very anodyne and polite. I even emailed Chris about the issue. He didn't reply...

5. Stingrays. 5 of them so far. I love them until I own one, then I just don't get on with them, so I sell them. Then I buy another one...etc, etc...

 

[WHUFC BASS]

11 minutes ago, Muzz said:

2. 78 Jazz - brown-sounding, 12lb boat anchor. Sold for a big profit (all original, spotless, case, etc, etc) to someone who'll (hopefully) never play it. 

I had a ’78 Jazz fretless which I bought back in the late 80s for around £300. It was the same, heavy as lead, very boring sounding and just uninspiring. I persevered for a good while until it was time to move it on. I also had a 76 Jazz which was the exact opposite, fantastic, light and with a huge sound - almost like ti was made by a different manufacturer

 

[ped]

1 hour ago, Muzz said:

 I even emailed Chris about the issue. He didn't reply...

Yeah he doesn’t ever reply. Don’t know why he gives an email address....

[Dan Dare]

8 hours ago, WHUFC BASS said:

I had a ’78 Jazz fretless which I bought back in the late 80s for around £300. It was the same, heavy as lead, very boring sounding and just uninspiring. I persevered for a good while until it was time to move it on. I also had a 76 Jazz which was the exact opposite, fantastic, light and with a huge sound - almost like ti was made by a different manufacturer

 

A lot of late 70s Fenders - guitars and basses - seemed to weigh a ton. I think they went through a phase of using heavy ash bodies. A pal has an ash-bodied Strat' from the time that could give you a hernia. My'72 Jazz is like your '76 - light, big sound and generally wunnerful.

[bassbiscuits]

Tokai Thunderbird - same weight as a Volvo estate and impossible to play for an entire gig. Lasted a couple of weeks i think.

Lull PJ4 - very meh, sterile and uninspiring, despite the price tag. Sold it at a £800 loss after a year. Ouch.

My first ever bass - a short scale Satellite made of plywood - was an absolute plank too, but it was £60 new so i can't complain. Tho it was rubbish.

 

[ForestPoetry]

ESP LTD B-205 fretless

Looked nice with the spalted Maple top (though definitely "I'm a £500 instrument trying to look boutique"), felt pretty nice too.

Tone was abysmal. It was like someone stuck a guitar preamp in a bass. I don't expect to have to turn the bass knob on the active controls ALL THE WAY UP for it to actually sound halfway like a bass. Weak, lifeless, no bottom end. 

Lasted about two days. I've played some cheaper passive LTDs that were pretty solid, however.

[onehandclapping]

Had 2 original jazz stackers that did not talk to me sound wise,they had more caps in than a vvt.The reissues don’t have the extra caps in,also a 65 car jazz it had an 02 cap in and sounded thin to me with the tone in the off position.Fender put the .02 cap in for a little while then went back to .05,maybe someone bought the wrong ones 🙈

[Cosmo Valdemar]

I've never actually hated any of my basses (none that I can remember anyway), but I've owned a couple that lasted about 5 minutes each -  the first was a Zon Sonus, a superb bass but I instantly knew I wouldn't get on with the neck. I also bought it for the Billy Gould connection and it sounded nothing like him, unsurprisingly.

Another was a Rickenbacker 4004. Massive, clubby neck, and dull tone with none of the Rick treble I was after. Exchanged it immediately for a 4003 - much more up my street!

I still lust after the 4004 as apparently the neck is far better these days, and I could swap out the pickups for something a bit more 4001-flavoured.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Cosmo Valdemar

[Bass Culture]

This will be sacrilege for many here - and hate would certainly be overstating - but I never really clicked with my ACG Custom Finn 4.  It was a bass I appreciated but never really loved and I always felt the filter pre-amp lacked a bit of personality and 'soul' (if anyone else wrote this I'd be shouting 'D**khead - how can a preamp have personality?!').  I tried, I really did, but I knew the game was up when it went back to Alan for a new neck to be fit and I picked up a Tanglewater Jazz which I added one of Kiogon's wiring kits to, to tide me over, and found myself unable to walk past it without playing it every time.  Never had that with the ACG, unfortunately.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Bass Culture

[Bass Culture]

Have sanitised the mild swearing in my original post after the profanity filter rendered it as 'Sir Richard head III'.  Brilliant! 😄

[Chris2112]

I really liked my old ACG Harlot S Type and I loved the electronics but they were a serious detriment to my playing. They were so flexible and full of tones that I regularly wasted playing time just fiddling and crafting tones or trying to dial in the sound I had played with for five minutes the week before!

 

That said, I'm maybe not as keen on the newer ACG designs. A lot of them seem to be made of very dark, almost muddy looking woods these days and the satin finishes tend to accentuate that because they don't reflect light like a clearcoat does. I would love to see Alan use more bright amboyna burl, sycamorr and flamed maple in future and put a bit of colour back into things. I suppose the choices are made by the customer, in the end. 

Edited January 5, 2019 by Chris2112