Styling cues you don't like

[CamdenRob]

Fender style basses without pickguards,

Fender style basses without fender shaped headstocks,

Gold Hardware (Breaking this with my incoming Smith),

Relic or battered finishes,

PJ pickup arrangement,

Lakland Oval bridges,

Finally... Not an aesthetic thing but the single (non playability or performance related) feature that puts me off buying a bass is if it’s someones signature model... I absolutely love the look of the spruce topped Mayones HF signature, but I can’t bring myself to buy it because it has some bloke I’ve never heard of’s name attached to it.

*edit - I forgot ramps and headless basses.

Edited March 31, 2020 by CamdenRob

[Roger2611]

Like others, modern single cut basses leave me cold, also high end basses that look plain, I have seen a couple recently on sale for many bucks that look similar to an £80.00 cheap Chinese starter bass, no nice swirly woods to entice me in. 

[Osiris]

Sunburst of any description

Tort scratch plates

Sunburst + tort = wrong²

Gold hardware

Millions of controls on active basses

[Newfoundfreedom]

I can't stand Fender P / J bass, Stratocaster shaped headstocks, and the big elephant ear tuners are ugly as sin. In fact I've never got the whole P bass thing. Bland with a side order of ugly. 

[alyctes]

1 hour ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

Not a fan of Fender shapes - P bass, J bass (body and headstock). Yes some of them are nice to look at - especially those not made by Fender, e.g. Sadowsky, Sandberg et al. - but there's so much out there that looks better.

I loathe pickguards, especially tort, especially on Fender-ish basses.

I really don't like 'burst' colours, although I'm stuck with them on a few of my basses because there was no lefty alternative.

I'm sure I'll think of something else!

I agree with almost all of that, except that a tort pickguard seems to go very nicely on a blue bass.  Weird. 

[alyctes]

Factory relicing.  Will not touch it.

[paulbuzz]

5 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

I can't stand Fender P / J bass, Stratocaster shaped headstocks, and the big elephant ear tuners are ugly as sin. In fact I've never got the whole P bass thing. Bland with a side order of ugly. 

I'm not sure I've ever seen a wronger post on this forum, though I admit that being nearly crushed to death in a sea of gob whilst standing directly in front of the first P-bass I'd ever seen (The Damned, 1979) probably qualifies as a formative erotic experience, so I may not be entirely objective on the matter! 😁

[Dan Dare]

Exotic hardwoods/coffee table basses. "Reliced" (another word for deliberately trashed). Weird shapes, especially angular/pointy. Dozens of strings and knobs. Stupid names/emblems.

[drTStingray]

1 hour ago, Graham said:

Better than the Stingray 5 pickguard, great instruments, but crikey, what an awful look

I was wondering whether this could be considered possibly the most appalling piece of unintegrated design - an afterthought with questionable functionality, and a bit of a marmite (or red wine puke) colour 😩 😬

 

 

 

 

 

[Bassassin]

9 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

I was wondering whether this could be considered possibly the most appalling piece of unintegrated design - an afterthought with questionable functionality, and a bit of a marmite (or red wine puke) colour 😩 😬

 

 

 

 

 

Not if you compare it to its equivalent on a Rickenbacker - and that genuinely is a slapped-on afterthought.

Roger Rossmeisl's original design followed the form of the instrument in a way the current "design" doesn't.
 

 

I think I've only seen a couple of singlecuts that aren't foul. I really have no idea why anyone thinks it's a good idea to add an extra 2kg of timber to a bass and make it look like this:

And once you see it, that's all you can see...

[yorks5stringer]

36 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

I was wondering whether this could be considered possibly the most appalling piece of unintegrated design - an afterthought with questionable functionality, and a bit of a marmite (or red wine puke) colour 😩 😬

 

 

 

 

 

I was led to believe that the P Bass was an icon of design in that it was machine made cheaply with very little hand finishing ( not the case now) and the scratchplate above conceals the routing necessary to install pickups and associated controls.

[AndyTravis]

Oh god. 
 

everyone hates sunburst and tort, p/j’s and Fender shaped bass which aren’t fenders...

looks like my 2 new additions are just 2 piles of firewood 🤪

[AndyTravis]

Oh and they’ve got dot inlays...swines.

[ead]

Not everybody Andy

[AndyTravis]

2 hours ago, casapete said:

Any pretend Fenders - that is, basses with all the features/shape of the original but not. Appreciate they may be better built / higher spec / more upmarket / expensive / boutique, but just make the whole thing more original. I’m looking at you Sandberg, Sadowsky, Lakland etc etc.

I feel so silly 😜 

[AndyTravis]

Just now, ead said:

Not everybody Andy

Well. I feel ganged up on 😂😂😂

[ead]

Things I'm not keen on:

Pointy basses

Not too keen on many of the iconic Warwick designs (apart from the one they stole from Stuart Spector and the Dolphin)

Weirdly sized pickups you can't swap out

Not a fan of green basses for some reason either.

[ead]

1 hour ago, drTStingray said:

I was wondering whether this could be considered possibly the most appalling piece of unintegrated design - an afterthought with questionable functionality, and a bit of a marmite (or red wine puke) colour 😩 😬

 

 

 

 

 

Nah, that would be one of these

 

[Maude]

14 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

Well. I feel ganged up on 😂😂😂

Well you shouldn't, I love an Encore bass. 

[AndyTravis]

2 minutes ago, Maude said:

Well you shouldn't, I love an Encore bass. 

You can pizz off with that kind of comment...😂

[BrunoBass]

One word: Dingwall. 
 

I’m sure they’re great instruments but I think they just look ludicrous.

[AndyTravis]

1 minute ago, BrunoBass said:

One word: Dingwall. 
 

I’m sure they’re great instruments but I think they just look ludicrous.

If Max Power did basses

[Osiris]

I forgot to mention F holes. An ashtray built into a bass is of little use to me. 

[TheGreek]

Some very wise words that I completely agree with....

Some absolute rubbish that, when I rule the world, will result in a slow, painful death for those responsible....

Long live single cut basses!!! 😍

[Skinnyman]

4 hours ago, Rich said:

Early P-bass/Tele headstock shape. Don't like it, at all. It looks like someone's had a bandsaw accident with a regular P neck and tried to make the best of it.

This. 

I’m also not a fan of the modern “coffee table” basses. Which, of course, reduces the demand for them (by, er, one), helping to keep the price down for those who do. 

It’s almost a public service.