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"Beginner" bass?

hrodbert696

hrodbert696

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#1
I just dropped a comment in another thread, but thought it might deserve a thread of its own. Is there really such a thing as a "beginner" bass? I mean, are there particular qualities other than price that are desirable in a bass specifically for beginners, or anything that would make a bass for experienced players only?

As far as I can tell, it's just price -- a beginner usually doesn't want to have to spend a lot of money on a fancy bass. If a beginner wanted to drop a couple thousand on a Ric or a Sadowsky or something, I don't see any reason it would hold them back. The real question is what is a good-enough bass for someone with minimal funds, isn't it? Or am I missing something?
 
#2
hrodbert696 said:
I just dropped a comment in another thread, but thought it might deserve a thread of its own. Is there really such a thing as a "beginner" bass? I mean, are there particular qualities other than price that are desirable in a bass specifically for beginners, or anything that would make a bass for experienced players only?

As far as I can tell, it's just price -- a beginner usually doesn't want to have to spend a lot of money on a fancy bass. If a beginner wanted to drop a couple thousand on a Ric or a Sadowsky or something, I don't see any reason it would hold them back. The real question is what is a good-enough bass for someone with minimal funds, isn't it? Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

In the old days it was all about price. An "entry level" bass as they were called was total and I mean total crap. Happily those days are mostly gone. Today a "beginner" bass means a reasonably playing and sounding generic bass for not too much money.

The problem with a beginner is they don't have enough experience to actually know what kind of bass they really want. Once you know then you can go for it. And once an instrument starts to get specialized, it starts costing money to get just the right look and sound and feel out of it even though what you get isn't THAT much different from a generic. But if experienced players want a certain thing they are willing to pay for it no matter how minor the difference might be.

One reason the beginner bass needs to be low cost is so that if the beginner looses interest there is not a huge loss. On the other hand if the bass doesn't play/look/sound reasonably well in a generic sense, a nasty bass will discourage the beginner from continuing as used to be the case in the old days of bad cheapo basses.

I suppose a very directed and centered beginner who musically knows ahead of time what they want in a bass could just go for it, but almost always a beginner does NOT have the experience to make that kind of call.
 
#3
To me is all about if you are sure that you want to learn how to play bass or you are just curious about it, and of course how wealthy you are, I considered myself as a beginner bassist, mediocre will be a better description, but I have owned a very nice and expensive basses. I am sure there are people here that will buy a Sadowsky as a beginner bass.
 
#4
If cost isn't too much of an issue for you then don't let the price of a bass put you off as a beginner. Get any bass that has a reputation for being reliable, comfortable, and versatile. Usually these three qualities will cost a little bit of money; the low-end basses tend to sacrifice one or more of those elements to keep costs down.

And while a beginner may not have the skills or experience to appreciate (or need) the differences between an under-$1000 bass and a $3000+ bass, I think the quality that you get by spending closer to $1000, rather than trying to go cheap, is well worth it. I, for instance, spent about $900 on my first bass a few weeks ago, and I'm glad I did because it is of high enough quality that it never puts any obstacles in the way of my learning.
 
#5
My first bass was a squier jazz affinity bass... metallic blue made in 08 in indonesia

It's an excellent bass, and honestly other then a tiny bit of fit and a decent amount of finish it's the same as a $1000 american standard. Take that with a grain of salt... yes the tone circuit isn't as nice, yes it's not made of the same high quality hardware.

Is it $800 different? No... the american standards are not $800 nicer then my squier.

Now is every squire affinity this nice? almost none of them are... but thats the chance you take. I've played three or four different affinitys and mine is the nicest but they were all easily enough for anyone to cut their teeth on.


Summary: You don't need a $300 paint job, $100 pickups and a maple fretboard to learn on. A nice entry level squier or yamaha will do just fine.
 
#6
I see the biggest problem is well-meaning parents or an Aunt/Uncle who buys a cheap bass for a kid and then the neck isn't set up and the strings are junk and the amp is a Ken & Barbie version of a tiny-tinny-underpowered-and-farts all the time oversized pocket radio.

That is surely a disaster from day-1.

The kid comes away from the experience with his fingers to bleeding, the notes to sound badly no matter what he does or how he adjusts the 'amp' and generally just shoves the whole thing into the closet or takes it out to play with in the sandbox.
 
#8
If it were at all possible to change the world, every beginner bass would be of good quality and well set-up. I would say it's probably even more important than for an advanced player to have a playable, well voiced instrument, otherwise it can make learning harder. Of course, bad gear doesn't stop those who are truly into it, but it would surely make things easier.

Really, it doesn't make sense for them to be extremely high-end or too many bells and whistles, because the player doesn't know what he wants/likes yet.

I would suggest that a good 4-string Precision bass is the kind of "beginner" instrument that the player can keep even as he "graduates" to other instruments. If the player needed a short scale, it would again be something 1-pickup, like a Mustang.

Now, see how quickly this can be turned into another P-Bass thread? :p
 

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