Build quality of cheaper basses

[ThomBassmonkey]

Just wondering what peoples' views and experiences are regarding this.

Basically (for example) you could buy a Fender US Jazz for £850 or a Squire Jazz for around £250 and stick on £600 of upgrades, which costs about the same amount of money.

Same goes for Warwicks and Rockbasses, EBMMs and SBMMs, ESPs and LTDs etc etc and all the 3rd party copies too.

To me the main pros and cons are that if you upgrade a cheap bass then it's very much more "your" bass, so the pickups, tuners, bridge etc will be your choice and also some of the components would probably be better than on an expensive bass. The biggest con from what I can see is the build quality of the wood should be better on a bass that's significantly more expensive.

Just wondering what peoples' thoughts are on whether or not the better build quality would be worth the extra investment in the first place? Is there really that much of a gap that after spending the same amount on a budget bass as a pricier version that you're still losing out? Any particular budget brands that tend to skimp on the electrics to save money rather than the wood (and so would be more suited to an upgrade project than one with better grade electrics that would be more likely to be replaced anyway)? That kinda stuff.

Just a food for thought thread, not really looking for anything (though I may take into account a few possibilities in the future).

(apologies for putting this in the off topic forum to begin with, got lost in transit)

[bubinga5]

I would say there is not a huge difference in say a Squire and a Fender tone wise...Squire are on there game.. ok the wood maybe better on the Fender and i do believe that the wood is the core of the tone, but who cares? Standard Fenders dont use master grade wood...

i have heard a Squire and Fender side by side and there aint that much difference....If i was on a budget (erm which i am at the mo) i would get the squire, stick in some Nordy's, an OBP2 with a BAII and finish it off with a set of DR's...

there you have one smokin bass...

[Grand Wazoo]

Yes you can buy a £250 Squier but you'd be crazy spending £600 on upgrade bits.

The most you should spend would be £100 on a pair of pickups and £15 on decent pots / input jack & wiring. Anything other than that would be madness, and you'd be better off buying Fender rather than Squier.

Edited February 19, 2010 by bass5

[ThomBassmonkey]

[quote name='bass5' post='751231' date='Feb 19 2010, 06:36 PM']Yes you can buy a £250 Squier but you'd be crazy spending £600 on upgrade bits.

The most you should spend would be £100 on a pair of pickups and £15 on decent pots / input jack & wiring. Anything other than that would be madness, and you'd be better off buying Fender rather than Squier.[/quote]

Depends on if you're getting what you want from it. If you want to get the best from it, new machine heads, bridge, pickups, custom wiring (coil taps and such if you wanted it) etc would all add up and if you spent the cash doing them all up, you could spend £600 and the individual parts would be better than on the higher end model.

I've seen some crazy things that I don't see the point in though, £300s worth of LEDs in a £600 bass's neck for instance.

[bubinga5]

[quote name='bass5' post='751231' date='Feb 19 2010, 06:36 PM']Yes you can buy a £250 Squier but you'd be crazy spending £600 on upgrade bits.

The most you should spend would be £100 on a pair of pickups and £15 on decent pots / input jack & wiring. Anything other than that would be madness, and you'd be better off buying Fender rather than Squier.[/quote]
You could be right B5 and im sorry you had a bad experience...but with a bit of tweaking, im sure you still got a good bass there though

[retroman]

+1 for a Squier with a decent set of pickups. Retro fitted the EMG J-Set into my Squier Jazz, and the pickups came with new pots, wiring, and jack socket....All switch craft stuff as well

Spending any more than £100 on upgrades, and you are starting to open a can of worms....... Fender Japan? Second hand USA? Future resale value?

I've used Squier V's Fender as an example, but same goes for Gibson V's Epiphone, Musicman V's OLP, etc

I feel that with top end "premium" basses, you are paying for higher labour rates, better quality woods, and better quality electronics.....Apparently

[Lfalex v1.1]

(From a personal perspective)
I'm enjoying my gradual, considered approach to upgrading my Squier VMJ. So far, all I've done is put a BadAssII on it and some nice Schaller control knobs (black)
As a next move, I may make it one volume and tone per pick-up.
Then maybe some better pick-ups and pots.
I'm taking it easy and enjoying the process.
I'm wholly unconcerned by residual value, and feel that I'm merely improving an already good bass.
I wouldn't spend a fortune on it, but I will have a unique instrument that does what I want it to.

Just my 2p.

YMMV, naturally!

[Grand Wazoo]

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='751245' date='Feb 19 2010, 06:48 PM']I've seen some crazy things that I don't see the point in though, £300s worth of LEDs in a £600 bass's neck for instance.[/quote]

That [b][size=3]is[/size][/b] plain crazy, people with more money than sense, for sure.

[ThomBassmonkey]

[quote name='bass5' post='751339' date='Feb 19 2010, 08:24 PM']That [b][size=3]is[/size][/b] plain crazy, people with more money than sense, for sure.[/quote]

He was a spoiled boy. Mummy and Daddy bought him a Trace combo and an extra cab, and a Warwick Corvette STD. Then he managed to persuade them that because he wore glasses, he needed the LEDs in his bass to see it properly so they did that for him without any questions asked (then just had them put in the front of his fretboard rather than the side) . So I'm not really sure that he fits in with normal common sense that would dictate this kind of choice.


I'm tempted to try and find a nice Rockbass or Squier 5 and slap some upgrades on it, that's what brought about this thread. Not really looking for suggestions, just wondered on peoples opinions. If I was going to do an upgrade, it'd be more likely to be a Squier Jazz 5 (so that there's way more things that'll fit without too much alteration) that's gradually done up over time (like Lfalex), just seems like it could be a fun and satisfying project without going to the extremes of building a bass from scratch.

[alanbass1]

The biggest con about upgrading a cheap bass, like the squire as you suggested, is that the resale value will not come close to the US P bass if ever you wanted t move it on.

[Bassassin]

If you must have it saying "Fender" on the end, remember that for US basses you pay a premium for the fact that it was made in the States - not for quality.

Buy a Japanese Fender & save £300.

Jon.

[Adrenochrome]

Ah but you shouldn't need to upgrade a bass you've paid decent money for. There's plenty of new £200-300 basses that'll slay most Fenders (for example) if you're willing to go beyond trendy brand names and 'tonewoods' that make next to feck all difference anyway.

[Annoying Twit]

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='751480' date='Feb 19 2010, 11:53 PM']Ah but you shouldn't need to upgrade a bass you've paid decent money for. There's plenty of new £200-300 basses that'll slay most Fenders (for example) if you're willing to go beyond trendy brand names and 'tonewoods' that make next to feck all difference anyway.[/quote]

Can you name some of these £200-300 basses?

[Cat Burrito]

I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with buying a Squire Jazz for around £250 and stick on £600 of upgrades as a reality but I do like the idea of spending a couple of hundred on a £500 bass. I think when you are spending more on the upgrades than the initial value of the bass you should maybe be looking at if this is the best way to spend money. I completely agree on making it personal and also agree you have to consider resale value. After all if you have to make that many alterations surely you should be questioning why you bought that model in the first place. Different if it's a project bass from scratch.

About 5 or 6 years ago I moved onto guitar and when I was AWOL from bass I got seriously into modifying teles. New pups, new bridges. I made them sound great but it made no real difference on re-sale value. Returning to bass, all my basses are stock now by comparison with the exception of 2 - one had parts wear out and the other was the result of a dirt cheap EBay bargain of a pickup that I'd have been a fool to pass up on.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='751466' date='Feb 19 2010, 11:32 PM']If you must have it saying "Fender" on the end, remember that for US basses you pay a premium for the fact that it was made in the States - not for quality.

Buy a Japanese Fender & save £300.

Jon.[/quote]

I'm not really too bothered what it says on the headstock but this was my view for years.... and still is to an extent.

[ThomBassmonkey]

Ok, so Squier and Fender has a pretty clear outcome on the opinion polls.

What about when the "budget" range are closer to the "proper" range?

e.g. Rockbasses can go for over £500 each compared to just shy of £1,000 for a (admittedly cheaper) German Warwick, or even closer, SBMMs and EBMMs. A SBMM can go for over £800 and an EBMM are a bit over £1300?

Especially with the SBMMs, I've heard they're not far off the EBMMs for quality and if they had a better pickup in (which you could do with plenty of change left over), surely there'd be an instrument to rival the real thing.

[Mr. Foxen]

The resale value bit is a poor argument. If you can put the bits into the bass, you can take them out again, put the originals back in, sell it all off separate, or stick the bits in another bass.

[JTUK]

Thing is you never know quite how it will all turn out and sound.

[Buzz]

I should point out that the price of basses generally defines the money spent crafting the thing as well as the profit margin.
Cheaper instruments will be built using cheaper parts, cheaper woods and cheaper manufacturing techniques (including QC) and normally dispense of nicities in order to fit within budget and return a profit. More expensive instruments outside of the "budget" range while perhaps seeking a greater % of profit, should also see higher manufacturing costs relating to quality of construction and parts.

In other words, you get what you pay for.

However, as we know in the real world for instruments, percieved value really does rely on QC, hence why no-one on here to my knowledge has picked up an actual bad Squier VM bass (maybe that extends to the CV as well), yet occasionally you hear of bad MIA Fenders (granted, not as much since early last year when the '09 models came out). With the high QC you find that while the instrument make lack the nicities and extras of the higher specced models, the important parts like parts fit, fret finishes etc... are of a good quality and so allow the instrument to perform to the best it can based on it's design.

Personally though, If I was going to spend £900 quid, I wouldn't buy a cheap version with it's cheaper woods and construction and spend the rest to upgrade it in just to reach a similar level of the one that's already at that level and available. Seems like a pointless exercise to do so when the costs are the same.

Sound is another matter but it sensible to expect that when you want a bass that is alive acoustically then higher quality woods would offer a greater chance of that happening.

Edited February 20, 2010 by Buzz

[iconic]

Getting away from Fender and Squier's....

By build quality as in 'build'quality' as I know it as an engineer, meaning quality of construction//finish/stability/consistancy I really don't think that you can get much better than Yamaha's.

OK, you personally may not like Yamaha's for what ever reason, but they simply ooooooooze quality, when you next get a chance take a look at the cheapest RBX-170 and try and find fault for the money...[i]if you can [/i]then you must qualify to be a beige nylon shirt and Farah slack wearing diesel trainspotting anorak with few friends, lots of 12ft long scarves, a garage with a board on the wall with outlines of every tool you possess and you certainly wouldn't/shouldn't have a girlfriend

[Annoying Twit]

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='751499' date='Feb 20 2010, 12:23 AM']What about when the "budget" range are closer to the "proper" range?

e.g. Rockbasses can go for over £500 each compared to just shy of £1,000 for a (admittedly cheaper) German Warwick, or even closer, SBMMs and EBMMs. A SBMM can go for over £800 and an EBMM are a bit over £1300?[/quote]

But you can pick up a second hand Rockbass for about a hundred, or up to £200 or so for an active Rockbass Corvette. But the main differences between the Warwick and the Rockbass seem to be the woods, and the neck. The hardest things to upgrade.

[The Burpster]

[quote name='iconic' post='751554' date='Feb 20 2010, 06:28 AM']Getting away from Fender and Squier's....

By build quality as in 'build'quality' as I know it as an engineer, meaning quality of construction//finish/stability/consistancy I really don't think that you can get much better than Yamaha's.[/quote]

I absolutely agree with this. Yamaha and Ibanez have a complete domintaion in QC and quality in sub £300 basses. Now I know some of you will argue that Squires are better but Squire is part of the Fender Emporium and therefore is/will/has been subject of shonky QC.

I would really like to like Fenders as I would Gibson but charging us mortals top dollar for a product they cant be ar5ed to check out before it leaves the factory goes against the grain with me. These 2 giants rely on the brand loyalty that comes from having teh history they do, and not on supplying market leading goods. I very much doubt I will ever buy from either of them again.

As to the OPs original thread opener, IF you have bought a budget bass and found deficiencies that otherwise spoil the bass or its playabilty then pimp it. Deliberately buying a cheap bass to pimp doesnt really make sense unless it is creating a complete one off. Starting with a GOOD quality bass and adding a few cheaper bits to iron out its rough spots does make sense. i.e. A Fender Highway with a D-tuner and upgraded electrics.....

Chucking £600 at a £250 bass is not at all sensible, especiallyin in this climate when you could buy a SUPERB bass 2ndhand for the £850 outlay....

[retroman]

[quote name='iconic' post='751554' date='Feb 20 2010, 06:28 AM']a garage with a board on the wall with outlines of every tool you possess [/quote]


I'll get me anorak then

[retroman]

[quote name='The Burpster' post='751556' date='Feb 20 2010, 07:24 AM']I would really like to like Fenders as I would Gibson but charging us mortals top dollar for a product they cant be ar5ed to check out before it leaves the factory goes against the grain with me. These 2 giants rely on the brand loyalty that comes from having teh history they do, and not on supplying market leading goods. I very much doubt I will ever buy from either of them again.[/quote]

+1,000,000 to that

Finally managed to get a full refund on a certain bass yesterday, made by one of the above, due to an absolutely shocking lack of care, and QC throughout the build process. Doesn't say a lot when the customer can easily find 20 faults........

I know where there is a guitar, hanging on a shop wall, made by one of the above, and the finish on the body is that poor, you could do a better job in your garage, at home, with a Halfords rattle can.....

We all know that a good guitar/bass made by the above is a joy to own, but too many bad ones slip through.

+1 for Ibanez. I have an IC200, and the build quality is stunning.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='Buzz' post='751551' date='Feb 20 2010, 03:40 AM']However, as we know in the real world for instruments, percieved value really does rely on QC, hence why no-one on here to my knowledge has picked up an actual bad Squier VM bass (maybe that extends to the CV as well), yet occasionally you hear of bad MIA Fenders (granted, not as much since early last year when the '09 models came out). With the high QC you find that while the instrument make lack the nicities and extras of the higher specced models, the important parts like parts fit, fret finishes etc... are of a good quality and so allow the instrument to perform to the best it can based on it's design.[/quote]

2 out of 2 VMJs that I tried, one in Manson's in Exeter and the other in Scayles in Edinburgh, were what I would consider 'bad'. Poor finishing on the neck and frets in particular. I've never seen that on an equivalent-priced Yamaha or Ibanez whose QC seems MUCH tighter. The Fender basses are incredibly simple designs, the Japanese have proved how cheaply consistently good clones can be knocked out. Having said that, the designs just sound 'right' and are incredibly versatile.

Despite my being unimpressed with the finishing and playability of the Squiers I tried, I think that if a good one could be found it would be a great starting point if you didn't have the cash to get the 'ultimate' j-bass straight off as the acoustic tone was very lively and satisfyingly warm. My tastes have evolved with my playing, and upgrading allows one to tweak to match these changes without the one-off expense and uncertainty that getting a whole instrument involves. It's nice to have an instrument that has been put together with lots of thought to match your own style and goals.

Carefully selected VMJ with pickup upgrades would still be my choice for a budget killer jazz at under £300. I've never tried bridge upgrades but frankly since the main contribution people talk about is more sustain I don't see the point, I mean I hardly ever let notes ring for more than half a second anyway! I fancy the VMJ over the Classic Vibes because of the maple.

[chris_b]

After you've gone through a line of half a dozen pedals a Squire will sound just like an Alembic, and vice versa, anyway!

Edited February 20, 2010 by chris_b