You could probably just keep the body as a starter for a custom build and throw away all the rest.
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Brand new basses for $30?
- Thread starter Hawk256
- Start date
Maybe I'll buy 4.7 gallons of gas with that money instead...
I've shifted to this mindset recently. Seen some folks on Facebook who have ~25 HardLuckKings style guitars because they're cheap and the finishes are cool...
These things are a blight on our resources and just crap up landfills because there's no market for them once the novelty wears off, so they just get tossed.
1 US dollar is worth 14,354.90 rupiah (as of the date of this post): indonesian rupiah to usd - Google Search
The median monthly salary before expenses for people.in indonesia equates to around $788 USD: What Is The Average Salary in Indonesia in 2022?
Posts like these are getting a bit old, in my eyes. The simple truth is that this is a product for a different market that we simply don't belong to. Because some people in the world don't enjoy the luxury of high income and purchasing power due to strong currencies, buying the thinga that we take for granted might require giving up essentials for many months. It sometimes just isn't possible.
A 30-dollar bass might make it possible for some people to own an instrument and create music without having to break the bank and sacrifice essentials. And that's not something that we, coming from a position of privilege, should make fun of.
The median monthly salary before expenses for people.in indonesia equates to around $788 USD: What Is The Average Salary in Indonesia in 2022?
Posts like these are getting a bit old, in my eyes. The simple truth is that this is a product for a different market that we simply don't belong to. Because some people in the world don't enjoy the luxury of high income and purchasing power due to strong currencies, buying the thinga that we take for granted might require giving up essentials for many months. It sometimes just isn't possible.
A 30-dollar bass might make it possible for some people to own an instrument and create music without having to break the bank and sacrifice essentials. And that's not something that we, coming from a position of privilege, should make fun of.
I don't think that EVERYONE should avoid these types of basses. Just that we, living in countries with higher incomes, shouldn't be tempted to "snatch" these "good deals". And then b*tch about QC like in another recent thread.
It's the constant need to buy the cheapest produced product from across the world that is slowly but surely killing off the planet. Buy local goes both ways. If someone in Indonesia can afford a $30 bass then more power to them. I hope it sets them on a musical journey. For us to say "ah what the hey, it's only $30 I'm throwing away" is completely different.
It's the constant need to buy the cheapest produced product from across the world that is slowly but surely killing off the planet. Buy local goes both ways. If someone in Indonesia can afford a $30 bass then more power to them. I hope it sets them on a musical journey. For us to say "ah what the hey, it's only $30 I'm throwing away" is completely different.
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Except nobody here has said that people in that region shouldn’t consider these. As you point out, just about everybody on TB is in a well-developed nation, mostly the USA, so of course that’s our perspective — which is what makes your comment so strange and frankly unnecessary. Nobody in Indonesia is going to be dissuaded from buying one of these things because of what we write here. The critical comments here are directed entirely at US consumers buying them with any expectation that they’ll get value for their money.
- Feb 5, 2013
- 1,686
- 2,281
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- Endorsing Artist: Used Fender Lead Sleds and Hartke cabs with bent grills
I see we've played the same clubs.
I kinda like to fight, so I enjoyed those days. But I'm getting kinda old and I heal more slowly. My last dust up, I actually won, and I still couldn't get outa bed for a couple of days.
Then what's the point? The entire thread is unnecessary. This hasn't been marketed at US consumers and the only reason we know of it now is this thread.
The truth is that we see these threads a lot on Talkbass. They tend to take various forms but they always devolve into what's "quality" and what's "not quality". But that isn't an objective standard. I'm pointing out that although people here may not think that this has value, its target audience very well might. The OP wondered, "what can you actually get for this price?" and stated that he probably would be disappointed even with the price point. My point is that the target audience may not be disappointed at this price point.
So you may very well be right that my post is strange and unnecessary, but I think it fits into the context of a strange and unnecessary thread, and it at least conveys useful factual information that clarifies the entire concept for the people who are just gonna bash on the bass. Note that I don't think this was the original intent by the OP, but most of the reactions are pretty predictable.
Consider this: a company can make a bass and sell it for $30. Now think about a $3000( or more bass). Can the cost to produce it really be 100 times more?
Uhm, no. I have some stupid nice wood here for building and for $500 bucks I can buy the entire tree.
I've seen blank wood for sale for 300, 400, or more. It's not alder, of course.
And then add some 350, 400 dollars Pickups.
Etc..
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Better wood. Better hardware. Better quality control. Not paying slave wages/paying for talent. There is a reason a professional race driver gets paid more to drive than the random Uber operator.
Again.. if you buy your wood from dedicated guitar suppliers you are getting ripped off. I can by grade A+ ash , birds eye , quilted, single roasted, double roasted, slabs Poplar burl and any other directly from the importers or locally for much much less like under $100 Canadian.
I don't build basses.
If you have that knowledge, I trust you are right.
But you can get crazy expensive on materials only, building a bass.
Yes you can spend heaps on building a bass but most of the cost is in time and labour, tooling and finishing hence custom work and MIA basses cost more and most manufacturing has been outsourced to Asia.
A year or two ago I bought a $83 no-name bass off Wish. It came with a cable (extremely skinny with almost no insulation) with a straight end and a right angle jack and was worth it. For $83 (delivered) it plays ok. It's certainly not garbage or firewood as some people have said, but it's also not going to fool anyone that it's an amazing instrument. There's a little fret buzz on the E string that I haven't worked too hard to correct and it's a bit of a muddy sound, but at some point I'll probably restring and do a full setup. Definitely not going to fool anyone into thinking it's worth $200+, but for less than $100 it'd be hard for me to get all of those bass components anywhere else. It will eventually be an experimental electronics bass as I attempt to make optical pickups.
