Do you tend to own basses with a similar price/quality range, or a wider spread?

[Bassfinger]

A bit of a spread. My Geddy Lee was nearly a grand, and my '69 Precision somewhat more, but generally my fleet hover around the £400 mark.  

 

The cheapest, a used Ibanez,  is the one the boys in the band love the sound of, so thats my main live tool with the added bonus of it not being heartbreaking if it were to get damaged.

 

So, going my my impartial bandmates, none of who play bass and have no axe to grind, the cheapest is the "best" sounding - no correlation with price there!  Conversely, I find the Geddy Lee is the nicest feeling to play.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Bassfinger
Too cheap to buy a proper post

[neepheid]

12 hours ago, Maude said:

A cheap bass can become an 'expensive' bass with an afternoon of fettling in all but monetary value. 

 

Agreed, or it can make an expensive bass become the expensive bass it was supposed to be in the first place... A successful tactic to stave off the GAS for me this month has been to perform some maintenance to my basses.  Solving little irritations like naff/non-existent shielding or things that rattle when you play certain notes is a very satisfying way to spend an afternoon and gives the instrument in question a new lease of life.  I'm certainly much happier to be playing my G&L Tribute LB-100 knowing now that it won't buzz like a nest of angry wasps if I dare use it near fluorescent lighting  

 

 

[neepheid]

double post ("is it doing anything?")

Edited February 24, 2022 by neepheid

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

I have a tendency not to let the price sway me. If I like a bass enough to buy it, I will. 

[NickA]

Two basses worth >£5k and one around £2k.  Why buy cheap basses when I'm fortunate / got lucky enough to own some posh ones. 

 

On the other hand, there are things even a Mk2 Wal will not do ..... an expensive bass sounds like an expensive bass and sometimes a cheap one is what you need .. I guess.  Should never have sold the BB2000 that cost me £200, probably the funkiest thing I ever played.

[BigRedX]

I buy the basses I want. So long as I can afford them the price is irrelevant.

 

I've spent anywhere between £35.00 (second hand Futurama III Bass in 1982) and just under £3k (Custom-order Sei Offset Flamboyant Fretless Bass in 2008)

[chris_b]

I buy the best sounding basses I can find.

 

In the last 20 years, the 5 basses that made it to #1 status have all been in the £1k - £2k range. I have been trying to find cheaper basses (I have too much money tied up in gear) but I'm not finding any cheap basses that are even close to knocking my current basses off their perch.

 

YMMV

[Skybone]

Most of my basses have tended to be "reasonably priced", tried and owned a few more expensive basses, but they always went on to be replaced by something cheaper.

 

Until recently.

[TrevorG]

I've never let the price stop me from buying something that's right for me. Which is why it took me ten years to save up £4,500 for my Spector NS5XL. Fortune's improved recently and I was able two get a couple more basses around the £2,000 mark each(a couple of years apart) but only because they worked for me just as well as the Spector. I can feel the difference in quality but the improved design of the cheaper basses mean they are even more playable. None of these outshine my Overwater Explorer which cost me £750 back in 85 or do the job of my £400 Washburn acoustic five string fretless. In my mind, if you get what's right for you they should all have the same value regardless of what you paid for them.

[Wilco]

My non-Westone’s were bought in the same price bracket circa £1000 -£1300. Two new, two used.

 

The Westone’s we’re much cheaper, but are equally as good as the others without a doubt. That was a sobering realisation…. 😆

Extremely happy with them all mind. 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Wilco

[zbd1960]

When I started my bass journey about 5 years ago, I was already an experienced cello and sax player and I know that by-and-large you get what you pay for with musical instruments in terms of build quality and components. So, my first instruments are all 'reasonable' in the £500 - £750 range. But I've commissioned two instruments, which should be with me over the next couple of months or so: they're both obviously much more expensive. I'm just grateful bass strings are significantly cheaper than cello strings...  

[Boodang]

Get a Cort A6 and that'll be a good compromise. 

I started off playing average instruments but eventually got a few customs. But despite that I still play Squiers and the like... in fact my favourite jazz is a Squier VM.

[OliverBlackman]

More due to circumstances more than anything I have a spread; Squier, Fender Mex and an Overwater. You can easily see why the prices differ and the Fender has needed a bit spending on it but I play all 3 equally depending what the music requires. 

[AndyTravis]

I’ve got a decent mix.

 

top end £2500 (new price)

bottom end £300 (new price)

 

3 main ones are “worth” £1000-£1800 used.

[LukeFRC]

It’s good to pull apart the question a bit - what do you get for the money? £2k spent with ACG or overwater would get you a very different quality level than the same money spent on something with Fender on the headstock. Likewise objectively fender and Squier are built to price points - where would something cheaper like Sire fit into that range? 
somehow I’ve ended up with basses that were £3k and £3.5k new, a custom built P that cost me £1.7k and a 80s ibanez that cost me £350 odd 

[neepheid]

3 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

It’s good to pull apart the question a bit - what do you get for the money? £2k spent with ACG or overwater would get you a very different quality level than the same money spent on something with Fender on the headstock. Likewise objectively fender and Squier are built to price points - where would something cheaper like Sire fit into that range? 
somehow I’ve ended up with basses that were £3k and £3.5k new, a custom built P that cost me £1.7k and a 80s ibanez that cost me £350 odd 

 

I'm all about getting more or less the same for less.  That's why you'll never see me with a USA G&L LB-100 over the Tribute model when A) it's basically a bloody P bass, how wrong can anyone get that these days and B) the quality improvements of a USA G&L don't justify the cost for such a garden variety instrument - in my opinion.  Now I have a USA G&L CLF L-1000 and it's very nice - you do notice the little touches like a nicer roll on the fretboard edges and the fact that the side dots are half way between the edge of the fingerboard wood and the neck wood (which could only have been done after the neck was put together ergo more labour intensive versus putting the side dots into the fingerboard blank first and doing that en masse), pots feel a bit more substantial (hard to describe but because they turn a little less easily they feel more solid?).  But if they did a Tribute L-1000 you can bet your life I'd have one of those because the extra £1000 isn't worth it (to me) for little touches like that.

 

I think the sweet spot for receiving a (new) bass and not feeling like you need to change anything is around the £400-500 mark right now.  Below that and something's going to have been compromised beyond some people's tolerance levels.  I had an Epiphone Embassy last year - really liked the bass but the tuners were godawful - not flimsy per se but imprecise in use with a lot of play.  They got replaced.  The aforementioned G&L Tribute LB-100 had a comically bad attempt at shielding and couldn't cope with our fluorescent lit rehearsal room so I had to copper shield it myself.

 

But as I am capable of doing these things (as well as doing my own setups, minor electronics work etc.) it only costs me parts and my time to do such necessary improvements to get a cheaper instrument up to an acceptable (to me) state and although I have been known to have a right good moan about the imposition of having to do such work/point and laugh at the comedy shielding, deep down I quite enjoy doing the work and really enjoy the satisfying feeling of having made something better.

Edited February 25, 2022 by neepheid

[ead]

On 23/02/2022 at 11:20, Jack said:

All over, and the prices don't always reflect the quality.

 

This for me too.  I seem to be settling down to being more comfortable with what I would loosely call the mid-range price bracket basses.  For me this is between £400 and £1,000 in rough terms, and these are the ones I most often reach for.

 

I have a couple of pricier ones too but these days they don't get gigged and I use them at home for my own enjoyment.

[LukeFRC]

I accidentally bought a cheap acoustic on eBay and it turned out to be a fancy luthier built thing that sounds phenomenal - it has that consistency of tone down the neck that I associate with quality instruments ... 

Now on an electric bass I don't think that it's as critical, and there are a few different ways you can get to a certain outcome ... but there's still something where some basses just sound better, more even and more predictable and resonate "right" whatever that means, it's often a quiet quality that ins't instantly recognisable, some scooped sounding basses sound "better" at first... If I knew what it was that got that magic I'ld be happy. It's not just cost - I've played plenty of expensive basses that didn't have it, and some cheap ones that did... I'm more likely to expect something like it off an expensive bass but... who knows what the link is...

[Sardonicus]

It's nice to own beautifully crafted and expensive guitars but I know that if I played Geddy Lee's bass, I'd sound like me and if he played any of my cheap basses, he'd sound like Geddy Lee.

 

I've owned various basses back in the day but for what I need right now, my`guitarsenal'  is currently made up of the following;

• Spector Performer 4 (£180 second hand)
• J&D Jazz Bass (£130 new)
• J&D `Les Paul' (£90 brand new)
• East Coast `Tele' (£110 brand new)
• Gear4Music Thinline cutaway electro-acoustic (£90 brand new)
• Gear4Music Thinline Dreadnought (£89.99 brand new)
• Washburn AB5-B Acoustic Bass, which I am selling on the very website should you want to check it out 😁 (£290 brand new)

I love budget guitars, there's nothing wrong with them.

[NancyJohnson]

In answer to the OP, no.  Cheapest bass is an Aria Pro II Primary bass (obtained as part of three guitar and practice amp job lot/Gumtree £50).  Most expensive is a Mike Lull custom build, nudging £6K.  I'm happy playing anything to be honest; I can afford nice kit, so why not. 

 

I'm not really drawn to commonplace instruments, so I don't own a Jazz or Precision, for instance.  I'm drawn to the different.

[molan]

I think my current cheapest bass is worth about £250 vs my most expensive being around the £7,000 mark. 
 

They are all playing instruments and I don’t particularly care how much they cost if they do whatever job I want from them. 
 

If I’m playing at home then I guess I’d normally grab one of the more expensive ones simply because they tend to be nicer to play. 
 

For rehearsals I like to grab whatever takes my fancy from week to week. Whilst gigging basses tend to sit in the mid-range somewhere. 
 

Mind you, I currently have way too many basses 🤦‍♂️

[Henrythe8]

I'm having a very wide qpread regarding bass values. 

ON the Top Shelf are my Stradi Custom made (and paid new over 4k€), a Warwick Dolphin Pr1 5 and two buzzard Bolt-On. (8 and 5-strings). 

OPn the medium shelf are a Sepctor NS2a (Kiorean), two ibanez (BTB Terra FIrma 5 and BTB675), a Korean Warwick Reverso.. 

And on the bottom shelf are a few modded Harley Bentons. 

I tend to messa round and customize most of my basses. 

I play all basses regardless of the price point, just having fun assemblign/dissasssembling them, putting different pickups and preamps.. 

They each have a distinctive personnality and I reckon it's good to have a cheap workhorse you don't fear to bring to this shady, greasy, WTF bar where we all sometimes play. 🙂 

[Bleat]

Currently I have one cheap bass and one even cheaper bass. If I could have afforded to keep my Gibson Les Paul just to sit and play at home and just generally admire I would have, but no use if it's not practical due to its stupid weight. Top quality all round though.

My £200 Washburn B200 might not have the price tag or quality but I love it more, and it weighs less. It is definitely "the one" and would have to be prized from my cold, dead hands. I think that having an instrument like that is worth way more than any monetary value. My backup bass is an Artist P type bass which cost me £50 and was a brand new customer return... nothing wrong with it apart from being boring. 

 

🤘

[lownote]

£10 - £650, over 40+ basses.  But there's no correlation with quality.  I have a £120 bass that's better made than my £650 instrument.  I've had mid range basses that were dead, and cheaper basses that leaped in my lap to be played. Overall my best squeeze was a £300 Fender P MiM.  With a 5 or 6 string I would strongly recommend a long think, and play if possible. With the 6 string spacing can be a major factor - too tight may not be your bag, for others tight may be OK. You don't know till you try. I am going thru a fun phase of seeing how cheap I could get and still have a good bass.  That's currently a Revelation uFL P worth £120, and a Harley Benton JB40 worth £140. 

Edited February 28, 2022 by lownote

[Cato]

My guitar and bass collection ranges between about £300 to £1750 new.

 

At the moment my most played bass is a fretless Sire jazz which I think was a shade under £400 when I bought it new.