Cheap Bass Challenge

[skankdelvar]

6 hours ago, Paul S said:

I think we have a winner.

2 hours ago, Williams4S said:

I think you're right! Any advance below £39? 😜 Congrats @skankdelvar, you built an entire bass for nearly the same price as my 'budget' bridge cost me. 

To be fair, the big advantage was finding 90% of it at the dump.

Long story short, the Missus dragged me down there on the basis that some charity had a stall there selling 'antique' finds. I spotted a bass leaning against a skip and dropped on it like Luther Van Dross on a cream cake. Dump guy wanted a fiver. Brought it home, discovered it had a snapped truss rod, neck from Oli Foxen, new heads, strung it up, done.

Wish I'd kept it now 

 

 

[Paul S]

3 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

To be fair, the big advantage was finding 90% of it at the dump.

Long story short, the Missus dragged me down there on the basis that some charity had a stall there selling 'antique' finds. I spotted a bass leaning against a skip and dropped on it like Luther Van Dross on a cream cake. Dump guy wanted a fiver. Brought it home, discovered it had a snapped truss rod, neck from Oli Foxen, new heads, strung it up, done.

Wish I'd kept it now 

 

 

😂

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 4, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Delberthot]

On 15/04/2020 at 21:15, Delberthot said:

I bought a Harley Benton '75 Jazz bass last year and modded it using all parts that I already had:

• US Hipshot Ultralites including Xtender
• Six String Supplies CTS pots & PIO cap solderless wiring harness
• '75 bridge & '62 neck Fender pickups
• D'addario Prosteels

I also tidied up the fret ends and it's an incredible playing bass. The original cost of the parts was about £300 on a £140 bass which wouldn't have made sense had I bought the parts specifically but I already had them so it seemed a shame to have them sitting there not being used. So my bass is the opposite to the OP's in that I have about 200% of the value of the original bass in parts fitted

 

I think this is what they call a sleeper in the car world. It looks like any other HB jazz bass. The only thing that gives it away are the Ultralites from the back. I have a high mass bridge that I plan on putting on the next time I change the strings but that may be some time as only use this for rehearsals. At short notice or if playing a dive I am more than happy to gig this bass. If circumstances changed and I had to sell my Stingray and Precision then I wouldn't have any problem using this all the time

It looks like a 1 piece body - any time I think that I see a join it turns out not to be

 

[police squad]

On 15/04/2020 at 19:59, SamPlaysBass said:

Just before we were sent into our houses for the foreseeable (big shoutout to those key workers who are out making the world go round), I bought myself a Squier Classic Vibe 70s Precision bass. I had sold a Squier Chris Aiken bass last year that I had modified with EMG GZR pickups and really regretted it, so it was time for another.

I wanted a P bass that I could leave in the back of a van or not worry so much if it gets knocked or, to a lesser degree, nicked. I've got some great basses but it's hard to relax when you've got a couple of grand on a stage in a dodgy venue! I needed a 'cheap' bass. So here she is...

£339 from A Strings in South Wales. They had two in stock, this and a brown one. The brown one looked cooler on the Internet but the black looked better in real life and this one played better. 

 

I also wanted a bit of a project - I enjoy taking guitars apart and wanted my new bass to be different to everyone else's. So I decided to set myself a bit of a challenge, Top Gear style (but without the laughs and million pound budgets). A cheap bass challenge it was then.

I gave myself the challenge of spending 10% of what I paid for the bass on each upgrade - maximum of £34 per modification. I'd been looking at P bass pickups and the prices you can pay are crazy - you can easily spend 50% of what I paid for this bass on fancy pickups alone, so I thought I'd try a few budget conscious options out. 

 

First to go was the bridge. The bass played very well to begin with, but I've always had a problem with the thin, bent metal bridge that Fender supplies on its poverty instruments. I find they wobble a bit in the saddles and don't feel secure. So I ordered a Fender High Mass bridge from here -> https://mickleburgh.co.uk/shop/fender-jazz-bass-p-bass-brass-bridge-assembly/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItePq_P7q6AIVQbTtCh08ZgWEEAQYAyABEgISgPD_BwE for £34. 

 

I wanted to see if the age old forum rumour was true - does a bridge increase sustain and improve tone? To find out, I recorded myself before changing the bridge and after. (Soundcloud link at the end, and no it doesn't!)

The new bridge made the bass feel a lot tighter, and better screwed together, weirdly. It also added some weight to the very light body and helped it sit a bit more nicely on a fabric strap. It's a quality item, with well machined parts and no sharp bits. Intonation was easy to sort and it required very little saddle adjustment to get the bass playing nicely again. I'd recommend Fender's Hi Mass bridge. In terms of sound, I didn't hear any difference. See for yourself in the Soundcloud link below. The notes don't sustain for years like people say and the tone of the bass remained the same. I never understood why someone would want a bass that sustained for ages, I've certainly never found any use for 2 minute long sustained notes... yet. 

Happy with the bridge, I decided to try some new pickups. The pickups that came with the bass were a pleasant surprise - they had character and a nice output. The tone control was useful and helped tame some top end but it could also let the bass 'bite' when you wanted it to. I decided to change them just because I had some free time and I was curious. 

 

I had acquired a set of Seymour Duncan SDP-1 pickups courtesy of @shoulderpet. They arrived really quickly and I set about carving up my bass to try them out. They needed a little soldering, but I fancied a challenge. Unfortunately, I was only getting sound out of the E and A strings. Upon going through everything with a fine tooth comb (and a magnifying glass), I had realised that in trying to solder a connection from one half of the pickup to the other, I had lost the end of the winding. I had probably lost it when I put some heat on the solder point and it had slipped out of it's hole and gone missing. Bugger. I shelved those for now and I ordered a set of Entwistle PBXN pickups to see what the fuss was about.

Whilst I was waiting for them to arrive, I decided to shield the insides as per @la bam's awesome thread on his John Deacon bass. I had noticed a bit of noise when I wasn't touching the strings previously so thought why not. I got some aluminium tape and went to work on the gizzards. It's a surprisingly therapeutic thing, putting foil tape in the pickup cavity, but my attempt did look a bit like a 5 year old had finished it off. I put some on the back of the pick guard and we were done. This was the tape I used, a whole £4.09 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fixman-190288-Silver-Aluminium-Adhesive/dp/B00FHXA7TE/ref=pd_nav_hcs_rp_2/258-0320931-5931511?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00FHXA7TE&pd_rd_r=abbd6043-4e0b-4aae-9843-e48fde7dfe81&pd_rd_w=LHmq1&pd_rd_wg=TIXYi&pf_rd_p=12e82a50-703f-4e6f-ae56-e22f8e18f1f0&pf_rd_r=M0X9MJ3HJM004AQ0HFH7&psc=1&refRID=M0X9MJ3HJM004AQ0HFH7

The new pickups arrived from Pickupsplusmore on eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Entwistle-PBXN-pickup-for-bass-guitar-neodymium-designed-by-Alan-Entwistle/233364897542?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649). First thing's first, these pickups are DEEP. The screws that go through the pickup go pretty much the entire height of the pickup again underneath. I had to cut the foam that kept the original pickups secure in half and put them either side of the screws that hang down. After a quick test with a tap from a screwdriver and happy that they worked, I tried to refit the pick guard, but as is well documented on here, the 'ears' of the Entwistle pickup cover are bigger than the originals.   

IMG_3912.HEIC 900.9 kB · 2 downloads

Luckily, I had the Seymour Duncan pickups here which I salvaged the pickup covers from. Popped the Entwistle ones off, put these on, and the pick guard fit. Voila. 

I'm not a badge snob by any means (in fact I'm a bit gutted not to be representing a British guitar legend), but the Seymour Duncan covers look cool and the Entwistle pickups are superb. Using neodymium magnets obviously gives these pickups an increased output, but they can sound aggressive and menacing or they can chill out but keep a fat, smooth sound. There's more of everything - every frequency seems to have been turned up by 4 or 5 notches. Playing with these pickups reminds me of the first time I plugged my old MiM Jazz into my friends Fender Bassman 135; it made my bass sound higher in quality compared to playing through the shitboxes I usually went through. There were deep, rich overtones and each note left my bass beautifully. I feel like that is what these pickups have done to this bass. I'd be impressed if they were £130, but they aren't. They're barely £30. Honestly, a brilliant buy. 

 

I recorded this bass throughout the (admittedly limited!) mods. I've uploaded them to Soundcloud with a fingerstyle, a slap line and a picked blues tune to give a bit of a range. The fingerstyle pieces were played with the tone at 50% but the rest had the tone fully open. There is no compression, no touching up (oh matron...) or do-overs, or even a backing sound. Just the raw sound of the bass with all of my mistakes after each mod. 

 So in all, this bass has cost me:

£339 - bass

£34 - Fender Hi Mass Bridge

£29.49 - Entwistle PBXN

£10 - Seymour Duncans (that I ruined, sorry!)

£4.09 - Aluminium Tape

Total = £416.58

I'm really pleased with everything, and all upgrades cost no more than 10% of the bass. I've spent around 23% of the bass' new value modifying it. God, lockdown is fun, isn't it?  

I think the high mass bridge adds a little more depth to the tone, when played with a pick, or the original bridge has more treble

[Hodge]

A couple of years ago I aquired a Harley Benton Jazz for the princely sum of £60, just to see, really.

I had a neck I really liked from an old bass kicking about, so I threw that on and then spotted some Lindy Fralin Jazz pickups going for £90 for the set...  by that point it seemed a shame not to take it further.

Bought a set of CTS pots for £27 and a scratchplate from someone here on Basschat for, I think, £12.

I gave the body a bit of a light sanding to take the extreme glossiness off the finish.

I still need to get some knobs that fit the fatter posts on the CTS, some more screws for the pickguard wouldn't go amiss, and I have yet to do anything with the tuners or bridge.

Also, apparently, looking at the photo, it could do with a bit of a clean.

All in all it stands me at less than 200 quid and I love how it looks, how it feels and, above all, how it sounds.

Used it a lot in pub gigs where, as Sam said, you don't feel comfortable leaving an expensive instrument on stage while you nip out for a smoke.

 

I didn't really know what to put on the headstock. I ended up opting for something that looked vaguely Fenderish to the casual observer, but on closer inspection.... 

 

[kodiakblair]

This fella cost me about £32.

 

Paulowina body was £22 but the ebay seller fibbed about being in London and 5 days delivery.  After 5 weeks I got fed up and filed a refund, body turned up from China the day after refund 🤐 Neck was £18 from here. Pickup is an Entwistle PBXN, bought as 2 bobbins here for £10. Varitone pot cost £4 to knock up.

Bridge,knobs and scratchplate out the spares drawer.

Finish is black ink  and silver wax paste.

[SamPlaysBass]

Thread resurrection. I’ve had the Entwistles in there now for a few months and despite not being able to gig them, they are starting to become a bit... brash. They’re great, if a little characterless. They’re like normal pickups but LOUD. ALL THE TIME. EVEN WITH THE VOLUME TURNED DOWN A BIT. 
 

By chance, I’ve overpaid a credit card and find myself £99 in credit. I’m thinking about going against the grain spending this money on some snazzier pickups to see what the difference is. I’ve thinking along the lines of EMG GZRs, Fender P pickups (but not the custom shop ones because I only have £99 to spend) or even giving the guys at Creamery Pickups a bell to see if I can have something made up. The 58 sounds good. In fact, they all do. 

 

Any recommendations for nicer but not ridiculously overpriced pickups? Sort of a cheap-ish challenge, now! 

[andruca]

Great looking basses. But I think the definite test should be price vs. SOUND CLIPS, gentlemen. That's what gives a real idea of bang, don't you think?

Sincerely happy 4 all you guys who have a 300-400£ concept of "cheap". I live in Spain, plus I was born in Argentina, thus my concept of cheap is more "latin minded" 🤣

I got an unbranded Jazz Bass with a body probably cut & finished by someone on acid, and an unusable neck (truss rod did nothing) for 38€. Saved all other parts and got the cheapest (basswood) body and neck I could get from AliExpress (51€ more). Bridge is great, tuners are OK, but those pickups (unbranded, as everything in this bass) sound AWESOME. I've had 2 MIJ Fender Jazzes in the '90s and none sounded this good. Neck is thicker than I'd like (I'm a skinny neck freak) but it still plays nice. To be fair I added a Hipshot D-tuner, but its cost is more than amortized, that tuner has been with me for almost 2 decades in different basses.

That was my second DIY, early this year. My first, a thomann P-style kit (88€) I got as a present in 2016, has been reworked a couple times. It's now a reverse P + J fretless 5er. Still haven't spent 50€ over that original cost (+50€ more to equip it with LaBella LTFs) and it's provided me with MANY days of mod fun (links to several stages of it's history in YouTube description). J pickup is not the one you see in the video anymore, it's a 5 x big pole 16mm spacing cheapo' now.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by andruca

[Baloney Balderdash]

I'm a big fan of budget instruments, the quality might be rather inconsistent, but it is totally possible to find diamonds in the rough.

My main bass, that I really love, to the point where I named it, something I usually don't ever do with my instruments, "Dud Bottomfeeder", is a 4 string Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass from December 2010 production, so one of early ones.that were made in China and not Indonesia, where production later was moved to.

Even though it had what must be the worst factory setup on ever on a bass, with the strings hovering 20mm or something like that over the fretboard at 12th fret, the fretwork actually turned out to be close enough to perfect to get the action exactly as low as I prefer it, without any fretbuzz whatsoever, which is about 1,9mm at 12th fret low E strings side and about 1,3mm high G string side (though currently it is actually tuned 2 half steps above ragular 4 string, E standard, Tuning, so that would actually be respectively F# and A. For some songs I am working on for a work in progress solo progressive psychedelic stoner rock project, which main primary instrumentation will consist of just bass (always run through a polyphonic octave up effect, giving an effect similar to that of an 8 string "octave" bass, with pairs of respective bass and octave strings), drums/percussion (which will be both physically recorded and programmed), and vocals).

This bass also have the most stable neck I ever had on any guitar or bass and holds tuning exceptionally well, and as good as ever requires truss rod adjustments. 

I guess it is not as cheap as some of the basses displayed in this thread, and have had quality pickups installed, first a P/J set of EMG Geezer Butler pickups, and now just a Di'Marzio model P, wired directly to the output jack socket, with the J pickup from the GEezer set still sitting there, filling out the bridge pickup cavity, but disconnected and lowered considerably. 

Really love the tone the Model P pickup alone wired directly to the output hack socket gives me.

The bridge is taken from another Ibanez GSRM20B Mikro Bass, the version with black hardware from stock, that I wasn't as lucky with, as it buzzed all over the neck, and I suspect not only the fretwork but also the actual neck/fretboard being of just terrible quality was at fault, previously to that my main Mikro just had a cheap black clone of a standard Fender bridge installed though.

Mahogany body, exceptionally stable maple neck, with a 22 medium fret rosewood fretboard and a just 28,6" scale length, and the instrument I ever owned that I might have personally bonded to the most, love it to pieces (even if I have treated it a bit carelessly through time, the blemish on the body, near the neck (just above the P pickup), is a filled out failed attempt to drill an extra neck pickup cavity, which I later have dropped all plans about, as I actually love how it sounds, as it is):

 

Of other cheap budget instruments I also own a 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, with exceptionally great fretwork from factory, from last year, 2019, production and an Epipnone SG Special electric guitar, from the 2012 production, both truly great instruments, the 5 string Mikro I just wired the 2 stock J pickups in series, though I am probably going to upgrade the pickups at some point, even if I will likely still wire them in series, as well as done some visual mods on it, the Epiphone SG guitar I done some visual mods on as well, and upgraded it's 2 stock  humbucker pickups, swapping them out for some great budget IronGear ones just recently.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Krysbass]

This started life as a Stagg Fusion fretless – £99 new.  First mod was DiMarzio pickups to replace the original very low output, noisy items.  Then:

I shielded the electronics cavity with copper foil – originally this wasn’t shielded at all.

I shimmed the neck, as the string height adjustment at the bridge was about as low as it could go – the shim allowed me to raise the action at the bridge and gave more room for adjustment across the strings.

The rosewood (?) fretboard was originally coated with a black dye that came off on my fingers when playing, so was carefully cleaned to reveal the wood underneath, then oiled and polished.

The original Stagg branded tuning heads were typically bargain basement, so replaced with a set of Gotoh GB707s that were easily fitted with very little filing of the holes in the headstock.

The original headstock was annoyingly pointy, so I re-modelled it and sanded off the original Stagg logo at the same time.

The Stagg Logo on the neck plate was also ground off and the neck-plate re-painted.

This is my only fretless and despite its humble origins and still modest budget; it sounds and plays well.  Learned a few things too along the way.  Currently considering upgrading the bridge and control pots…..☺️

[NancyJohnson]

On 30/04/2020 at 12:49, Delberthot said:

 

 

When I see headstocks like this, I always wonder whether the first thing that goes through people's minds is to sand off the logo and re-shape it on a drum sander to something more Fenderesque.

[stewblack]

On 23/06/2020 at 10:41, NancyJohnson said:

When I see headstocks like this, I always wonder whether the first thing that goes through people's minds is to sand off the logo and re-shape it on a drum sander to something more Fenderesque.

Far from it . I'm headstock sensitive, some are literally bad enough to put me off the entire bass. 

I REALLY like the shape of the HB and am delighted to play them so the logo remains as well. Love nothing more than watching the confusion when I get gushing praise for the bass sound and they ask what make it is. But it's a Harley Benton, it can't be any good. 

 

[Woodinblack]

On 23/06/2020 at 10:41, NancyJohnson said:

When I see headstocks like this, I always wonder whether the first thing that goes through people's minds is to sand off the logo and re-shape it on a drum sander to something more Fenderesque.

I generally have the opposite feel - I prefer that to the fender which always looked oversized.

[shoulderpet]

On 18/04/2020 at 19:13, Jus Lukin said:

I picked this up a little while ago for £80.

I'm playing Gibson style basses a lot more lately and wanted one I didn't mind dragging out to smaller/boozier gigs.

I've just done one of my trademark almost good enough setups, with a layered cardboard shim (@KiOgon has already laughed at one when he saw it!) and the right gauge of strings, albeit roundwounds. It plays fine, but is a bit fretbuzzy. Par for the course- I'll take it to John when i get the chance! Really likeable little bass, even now, though.

I had one of those a while back, they are a tonne of fun to play, I wasn't crazy about the stock pickup but its simple enough to replace and the good thing is that if you are so inclined all of the parts are easily upgradable

[Stub Mandrel]

On 16/04/2020 at 12:00, Trueno said:

My Squier Jag SS... cost £170. Added Gotoh bridge (swapped over from my Mustang), rolled the fingerboard and smoothed down the fret ends.

My Jag SS came with rolled fingerboard as new and beautifully finished fret ends (Better than my MIM Fender Jazz), I've always thought that's one reason why it feels like a much more expensive bass.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

I've got a Harley Benton P-bass kit arriving soon after a long wait for restocking. £77 plus £8 shipping!

[jezzaboy]

On 22/06/2020 at 23:09, SamPlaysBass said:

Thread resurrection. I’ve had the Entwistles in there now for a few months and despite not being able to gig them, they are starting to become a bit... brash. They’re great, if a little characterless. They’re like normal pickups but LOUD. ALL THE TIME. EVEN WITH THE VOLUME TURNED DOWN A BIT. 
 

By chance, I’ve overpaid a credit card and find myself £99 in credit. I’m thinking about going against the grain spending this money on some snazzier pickups to see what the difference is. I’ve thinking along the lines of EMG GZRs, Fender P pickups (but not the custom shop ones because I only have £99 to spend) or even giving the guys at Creamery Pickups a bell to see if I can have something made up. The 58 sounds good. In fact, they all do. 

 

Any recommendations for nicer but not ridiculously overpriced pickups? Sort of a cheap-ish challenge, now! 

The best "cheap" P bass pickup for me is a Tonerider. They are British but make the pickups in China, supposedly they were the pickups used in the original Classic vibe basses?

Anyway, I have them in a NMendel  P bass with one of John`s wiring kit and it sounds great. £35 delivered.

[SamPlaysBass]

On 25/06/2020 at 10:27, jezzaboy said:

On 22/06/2020 at 23:09, SamPlaysBass said:

 

The best "cheap" P bass pickup for me is a Tonerider. They are British but make the pickups in China, supposedly they were the pickups used in the original Classic vibe basses?

Anyway, I have them in a NMendel  P bass with one of John`s wiring kit and it sounds great. £35 delivered.

I’ve got a set of Toneriders in my Mexican jazz and they are amazing. I’ve just ordered a set for this P bass!