What is the most you'd personally pay for a new bass?

[Rib13Bass]

6 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

 

This merely adds weight to my contention that all basses should be offered with a headless option.

 thats exactly how i feel about horseman

[Ander87]

I'm with 2 bands, recording and gigging on a rather relaxed schedule though... I don't think I can justify more than £2k these days, new or used! 

With that in mind, I rather buy 2nd hand, there's great stuff if you wait enough.

 

My AO Precision 60s was around 1500, my MM SR 4HH Special even less (banging deal) and now I've got a Ricky 4003 Ruby red inbound for 1800£ - and I feel a bit guilty about that one, but missus insisted for xmas...  

 

Ander.

[martthebass]

The most I’ve spent on a new bass is just shy of £3600, I’d come into a little money and decided it was my last chance to acquire the Status bass I’d been lusting after. Going forward, on gigging basses, I’ll top out around the £1500 mark.

Edited December 26, 2022 by martthebass

[Eric.C.Lapton]

For a bass I’d really want and providing the price was correct at the time, also considering  increasing value, then I’d pay what I had too excluding ‘named’ items that don’t really mean anything to me as a player and only really concern collectors. 

[bassbiscuits]

My three current basses all cost under £700 (£200, £575 and £660) and that’s about right for me.

 

I once spent over £2k on a bass and found that I preferred the sound of my cheaper ones anyway in a mix, so I sold it. 
 

I don’t have enough money to be a collector tho. Just working standard instruments will do me. 

[bassbiscuits]

54 minutes ago, martthebass said:

The most I’ve spent on a new bass is just shy of £3600, I’d come into a little money and decided it was my last chance to acquire the Status bass I’d been lusting after. Going forward, on gigging basses, I’ll top out around the £1500 mark.

That is lovely in fairness 

[martthebass]

1 hour ago, bassbiscuits said:

My three current basses all cost under £700 (£200, £575 and £660) and that’s about right for me.

 

I once spent over £2k on a bass and found that I preferred the sound of my cheaper ones anyway in a mix, so I sold it. 
 

I don’t have enough money to be a collector tho. Just working standard instruments will do me. 

To be honest, the 3 basses i gig are also the cheapest I have. The number 1, a Mikey Way sig Mustang was a budget bass. 

[12stringbassist]

In past years I have spent around the £2k mark each for two Warwicks.
I also got a Ric 4003W (the walnut bass) from France for about £1400, a few hundred quid cheaper than in the UK, where they couldn't be found anyway.

Would I ever spend that money again (even for the same basses)? No.

[MrDinsdale]

A £400-800 decent bass with a proper setup and perhaps a little tweak to hardware/electronics is the sweat spot for me. Enough for a solid sounding and very playable bass but not something that would be irreplaceable if it was stolen or anything like that. I tend to find diminishing returns on anything above that price range.

[Geek99]

57 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

A £400-800 decent bass with a proper setup and perhaps a little tweak to hardware/electronics is the sweat spot for me. Enough for a solid sounding and very playable bass but not something that would be irreplaceable if it was stolen or anything like that. I tend to find diminishing returns on anything above that price range.

I find spending more than £500 on a bass is the “sweat spot” if anyone found out 😛

[bubinga5]

I would pay £5000 + for an instrument if i could afford it. But to make great music and have a great sounded and feeling bass, a grand and below will get you one. Easily.... especially second hand. I have a £400 Squire Jazz and it is one of the best jazz basses ive ever played or heard and ive had a lot of high end jazz basses. i think the budget bass manufacturers market have it sorted. 

[Burns-bass]

36 minutes ago, bubinga5 said:

I would pay £5000 + for an instrument if i could afford it. But to make great music and have a great sounded and feeling bass, a grand and below will get you one. Easily.... especially second hand. I have a £400 Squire Jazz and it is one of the best jazz basses ive ever played or heard and ive had a lot of high end jazz basses. i think the budget bass manufacturers market have it sorted. 

I second that about Squiers. I used to look down on them, but picked one up literally for nothing (as part of a job lot) and it’s amazing. Had to swap

the pots but other than that, it’s banging.

[bubinga5]

14 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

I second that about Squiers. I used to look down on them, but picked one up literally for nothing (as part of a job lot) and it’s amazing. Had to swap

the pots but other than that, it’s banging.

Ive never looked down on instrument brands. All i care about is the music.  Im aware that your more likely to get a better bass the more you spend. Glad you found a great one buddy.

[josie]

The only bass I've bought new up to now was my Michael Kelly acoustic fretless 5 which was half price (£400 from memory) because it had been in the shop for a while and they wanted to get rid of it - and I wanted it. All the others have been second-hand £90 - £950. Apart from the 1966 Gibson EB2 ($2k) and the 1962 EB3 (not telling!) which are so much more than bass guitars, playing them is like an electric shock of plugging directly into history.

 

The custom build 6-string fan-fret I've commissioned from Jim Fleeting (https://www.jimfleetingguitars.com/)  he has capped at £5k, of which £2k is part-ex for two which did not cost me that much. I'm starting to feel a bit guilty about this, as the spec keeps going up (2,000 year old bog oak fretboard, my little dragon tattoo inlaid in mother-of-pearl on the back of the neck, ...) and his costs must be going up. It's going to be everything I could dream of in a bass, and I'll be closely involved in every detail of the design, materials, electronics, every stage of the build - so I'll be getting all that experience, that journey, and then the bass itself. Priceless for me, and I'm supporting a local independent craftsman of international standard.

 

Btw this is paid for out of a small occupational pension, a less than full state pension, and an extremely frugal lifestyle wrt anything other than music.

 

[Nebadon2000]

So far it has been my Fender Ultra Precision but I may be willing to buy what I have been wanting since living in Long Island in 1979 and heard about this company and got to handle one of their Basses a Friend Had.

 

What ever it cost for a mint used Sadowsky NYC P/J Precision Body

[Jono Bolton]

I think £400 for my Squier Bass VI might be the most I've spent on a brand new bass. I've had very few new instruments, they've almost all been second hand. I think the most I've paid of any bass is £700 on a MIJ Precision. My JV Precision was less than that but the work I've done on it puts the total cost of it higher than the MIJ.

 

[molan]

I think the most I’ve ever paid was £6,500 - I sold it for just over £12,000 though so it was a pretty good ‘economic’ purchase 😂

 

In recent years I’ve bought one at £5,000 but I’ve been recently looking at something that’s around £8,500. 
 

 

[Frank Blank]

Quote

What is the most you'd personally pay for a new bass?

About 40 drachma a week.

[Owno]

The most I have spent on a bass thus far is about £2300/€2600 (a Serek Midwestern) and I can't see myself buying more pricey boutique or vintage basses any time soon. I don't play enough to justify such a purchase and I tend to gel with cheap passive basses. 

[Burns-bass]

On 01/01/2023 at 01:52, josie said:

The only bass I've bought new up to now was my Michael Kelly acoustic fretless 5 which was half price (£400 from memory) because it had been in the shop for a while and they wanted to get rid of it - and I wanted it. All the others have been second-hand £90 - £950. Apart from the 1966 Gibson EB2 ($2k) and the 1962 EB3 (not telling!) which are so much more than bass guitars, playing them is like an electric shock of plugging directly into history.

 

The custom build 6-string fan-fret I've commissioned from Jim Fleeting (https://www.jimfleetingguitars.com/)  he has capped at £5k, of which £2k is part-ex for two which did not cost me that much. I'm starting to feel a bit guilty about this, as the spec keeps going up (2,000 year old bog oak fretboard, my little dragon tattoo inlaid in mother-of-pearl on the back of the neck, ...) and his costs must be going up. It's going to be everything I could dream of in a bass, and I'll be closely involved in every detail of the design, materials, electronics, every stage of the build - so I'll be getting all that experience, that journey, and then the bass itself. Priceless for me, and I'm supporting a local independent craftsman of international standard.

 

Btw this is paid for out of a small occupational pension, a less than full state pension, and an extremely frugal lifestyle wrt anything other than music.

 

There’s no need to justify your spending. You’re also supporting a local business during tough times and I’m sure that money will be spent locally. 
 

I’m visiting a local luthier next week to chat about getting a bass made. The amount of hours that go into it is incredible.

[Richard R]

On 01/01/2023 at 01:52, josie said:

an extremely frugal lifestyle wrt anything other than music.

 That sounds like an excellent way to live.

 

I own 2 2nd hand basses, one was £275, one was £450. Both are better instruments than I am a player.  There is an Ovation Magnum 1 that I would really like to own, at about £1600; but I'd probably hate it 😄

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Richard R
typo

[crazycloud]

On 20/12/2022 at 06:02, lidl e said:

Personally, i stick to the 12-1500 quid mark tops, but i think up to £2295/€2500 is reasonable for a high end bass that is special and different. 

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I'd spend more on and I've owned more than a few boutiques including a couple of Alembic Series. I love the tone, but they're an order of magnitude more than I would pay these days, and I paid little for them used >20ya. Maybe a Status if they were available again, or the right Modulus.

 

I play Ibanez SR and BTB these days mostly. They feel good to me, sound fine and are modestly priced. I used the SR206 at a gig in December and everyone was happy with my performance and tone. Not seeing a reason to spend more.

Edited January 10, 2023 by crazycloud

[NikNik]

£2k max. All the basses I bought over the recent years were all circa £1600. It would have to be something special for me to hit the £2k mark.

[asingardenof]

In general probably no more than about £7-800, but for a special one-off treat I think something in the region of £1800 would be my limit. Unless I won the lottery, in which case my order to the Sadowsky NYC workshop would be going in the day the winnings hit my bank account!