Worst bass you have owned and why?

[WarPig]

I think ive been lucky enough to not own a bass i didnt like. But the worst one ive played was a stagg ''fusion?!'', a p+j with a ski-slope for a neck and what mustve been direct to the socket wiring.

[luckman67]

One bass which I regretted buying even on the bus journey home with it was a Hohner Professional J bass Fretless. It was heavey, neck never felt good to play & it never sounded that good.o I I was that gutted that I bought it instead of the good Sx precision that was in the shop at the same time,I hid it at the side of the wardrobe so I did'nt have to look at it. I saw it on Ebay about a month ago whoever bought it after me regretted it as well.

Here is a picture of the bass being played like an upright by my son.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

Epiphone Thunderbird. Good for low-slung rawk posing (if you don't look too closely), but nothing else.

I also had an Ibanez ATK, one of the ones with the 24 fret neck, no scratchplate and J pickup. Such a weedy sound, unless you just had the J pickup running but then you sacrificed any clarity or punch. And, the ferrules on the back of the body were too narrow for Rotosound strings.

[giblett123]

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' post='962181' date='Sep 20 2010, 02:16 PM']Epiphone Thunderbird. Good for low-slung rawk posing (if you don't look too closely), but nothing else.

I also had an Ibanez ATK, one of the ones with the 24 fret neck, no scratchplate and J pickup. Such a weedy sound, unless you just had the J pickup running but then you sacrificed any clarity or punch. And, the ferrules on the back of the body were too narrow for Rotosound strings. [/quote]
Warwick rock bass , I got one online for my daughter, it's horrid but the prize has to be a "cheetah" jazz bass, mmmmm..... Can't quite find the words for this one, it was all bad in every possible way, even for £20!

[leonshelley01]

I couldn't get on with an Ibanez SR300 I bought a while back. Great tone, friendly neck but just had nowhere to anchor my thumb due to the curved pickups. I suppose I could have learnt to "float" my thumb, but it was bought on a whim and only play my Jazzes really so I let it go. Great bass, just not for me.

[SS73]

[quote name='Beedster' post='908727' date='Jul 28 2010, 10:54 PM']Tie for first place with me, both Fenders and both Jazzes

MIJ Geddy Lee Jazz: just sounded puny as hell and the neck was so thin it was unplayable. Not a bass, just a long guitar really.
MIA Jazz, late 90's. Shocking QC and tone. Described as 'rattly' by my then bandmates. Could not be set up.

Both probably explain my ongoing negativity towards Jazzes!

C[/quote]

+1, I had a totally mint 73 Sunburst rosewood fret Jazz, just could never get a good sound out, the whole bass had no soul, in fact it was the deadist lump of wood i've ever had, sold it on for £200 and i couldn't give a stuff what its worth now.
20 years later I thought to give a jazz another go, forgetting the last one, I bought a Geddy Jazz, it all came flooding back, it certainly was not a bad piece of wood in fact it rang well but the bridge pup was the normal lifeless/souless sound I remembered, what an awful bass.

[chris_b]

Worst bass? Gibson EB0. Why? It sounded like a goose farting in a fog.

[TheGreek]

[b]Am I the only person to have owned a fretless Hohner headless "Cricket Bat"[/b] (as it was called by my friends)?
The [b]EMGselect[/b] P/ups ([i]don't know what they're selected for[/i]) hardly worked, tone was rubbish, little variety in the sound and a [u]Plastic[/u] fretboard ([i]they called it something flash but it was plastic[/i]). Guess what finally convinced me - playing my Westone Thunder 1A which had sat in the corner for months!!!Blew the Hohner away!!
I was recently reminded of how crap the p/ups were when I swapped a 5 string Warwick Rock bass for a Steinberger with the EMGselect P/ups - plays good, nice feel but sounds(if you can hear it at all) Pooo!

Off topic anybody know of a straight forward swap to active pick ups which doesn't involve chopping it up?

Edited September 21, 2010 by TheGreek

[janmaat]

crappiest bass I have ever owned was one i made myself

it comprised a plastic bucket, a stick and a string

used it for busking while homeless

but it was the only bass so far that has made me more money than it did cost me

i ended up improving it, adding a finger board and a pedal and a proper tuning peg, until it was actually quite playable - recordings on my band's website

now beat that guys

[leschirons]

A bright magenta Vester 4 string. (copy of a Bass Collection which are copies of Tune)

Absolutely unplayable. Took it back to the shop same day and Mr "I'll show off my slap technique to all the novices" picked it up, played 4 notes and told his mate to put it in the back and let me choose another bass. A used Hohner Jack. Great bass.

[markbass555]

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='908897' date='Jul 29 2010, 09:08 AM']Worst bass for me was a Squier P bass special 5 string. The neck was so wide i really couldn't play it and it put me off 5 string basses for a few years.

Biggest mistake, well that would be my DJ5. Never liked the tone of it, even with the pup's changed.[/quote]



LOL!!!! I am now the owner of said DJ5 and I absolutley love it!!! Now that its been returned back to a passive. Hated it with the audere but now its just in a class of its own. Funny how two peoples opnions can be so different lol!

[KevB]

Don't think I've ever had a real dog which is lucky as most of them have been bought untried and second hand. Probably the most underwhelming (and it was bought on a whim) was a Burns Bison. Not an original 60's one but one of the far east reissues that came out a few years back. It was black but a cheap looking matt finish and I never seemed to get a tone from it that I really liked plus the headstock end of the neck felt like it was miles away. It lasted about 6 weeks before being sold on but got virtually what I paid for it so no harm done.

[jasethebass]

Mine was a mid 90's mia fender jazz fretless. totally awful bass. Dead wood body, fingerboard had the feel of long dead elephant hide, pickups sounded like farts underwater whilst wearing a full face crash helmet. The pups wernt even alligned to the stings. Total disaster of a bass. And people pay 1000's for this crap! Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.

[mildmanofrock]

Status Matrix. The bottom strings boomed and the top ones twanged like elastic bands. No weight, no body, no punch. Makes me shiver just thinking about.

My Rickenbacker 4001 too. I was after the Chris Squire thing. It played like a garden hose and smelled like an old sideboard.

Edited October 8, 2010 by mildmanofrock

[Bassman Sam]

[quote name='mildmanofrock' post='981312' date='Oct 8 2010, 10:05 AM']Status Matrix. The bottom strings boomed and the top ones twanged like elastic bands. No weight, no body, no punch. Makes me shiver just thinking about.

My Rickenbacker 4001 too. I was after the Chris Squire thing. It played like a garden hose and smelled like an old sideboard.[/quote]


I bought a Rickenbacker 4001 fretless in the early '70's. The neck was twisted and would not tune and it too smelled strange.

[Lozz196]

In terms of quality it simply has to be my first bass - a Kay approximate EB-O copy. Action of abt half an inch. And it cost me £50 in 1980 - when a pint was less than 30p, so my bass with half-inch action and no-stop ground hum cost me approximately the equivalent of 150 pints - £450 today.

Thinking of the quality you can get from Squier/Yamaha on their entry level models, it seems unbelievable, however, once I`d learnt to play on that, any other bass played like a dream.