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Dollar Value

#21
It's a complicated question.

I used to work at a dealership. I advised my bass customers to play a lot of basses. Find the one that feels the best. To a certain extent the elwctronics can be swapped to totally transform the sound of most any bass. So find the one thay feels like an old baseball glove or a good worn in pair of shoes. Buy it and make it soind lime you want it to.

For me that ranges from a very expensive bass (to me anyway) to an '83 Japanese Squier with a street value of about $100. All my basses in varying price ranges speak to me in different ways.

Again it's a complicated issue. But it doea make for an interesting discussion.

Play lots of basses. Find (or just keep) what speaks to you.

If I owned my own one-man taxi company and drove for a living I would surely drive every kind of car I could. I would go to car lots and drive them just for fun to see what I like.
 
#25
A-Step-Towards said:
I can gig and I have gigged with a Squier Classic Vibe exclusively for months or a 80s Ibanez Roadstar. However since I have the extra cash to put into gear I rather buy nicer instruments used, take care of them and then when I sell them I recoup my inital purchase price, to me all I am doing is renting my used gear, I care for it and likely only loose money on 1 out of 10 basses I sell. The difference between my roadstar and a USA Fender is less then 1% IMO, neither is better then the other and a roadstar is 50-70% less used.
Click to expand...
Ibanez make great basses
 
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#26
I have a really cool Fernandes bass that I paid $100 for. I'd take it to any gig, but I don't regret buying my Stingray. My Stingray sounds good and plays good; you can feel the quality. I liked the bass and I could afford it so I bought it.
 
#29
When I started playing golf I was out one day with my 100$ wilsons that my wife had bought for me for christmas, I was playing with a club pro and after one particulary bad shot I turned to the guy and said" Maybe I need to spend the money for some good clubs".
The pro asked for my club,...dropped a ball, and hit a dead strait shot down the middle of the fairway. He handed back my 7 iron and said
" Theres alot of golf in these clubs your not getting out of them. One day, when you gain good technique you'll come to a place when you will know your clubs are holding you back".
A beginning Bass player will not realize the potential of an expensive bass but someone with certain level of mastery will feel like they cant live without it.
At some point, expensive becomes bells and whistles,vintage, collectable yada yada etc.
 
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#30
idk, maybe Im just desensitized but I cant tell you the difference between expensive and cheap basses. I can tell the way they feel in my hands, I can tell if they have too much mid, too little mid, too much high end, not enough high end. I can tell if I like the way they fit in my hands, if its comfortable to play it how I like to play it. So personally I dont care if its expensive or not, I care for resale purposes, I care for ego's sake because Im a human and my ego says "the more you paid, or the higher the perceived value makes it better" but in all reality, when I shed my ego, and my fear that says "you must have bigger, better, faster and more" that I grow as a musician. If a bass produces a certain type of tone and I can only pay alot of money for that bass i have to ask myself how bad I want that sound. For me, I love the sound of a wal bass, its been proven that its very very difficult to get the sound of a wal bass without one. I dont care if they are cheap or expensive. At a certain point, if I can justify the expense vrs. the want, then I will buy one.

Now with the ole victor will make a washtub sound like god....no, he wont. He will play it like god, but it will sound like victor playing a washtub better than most of us can. For you see, a bass is an object, it has a finite range of sound it will produce no matter who plays it. But again, we are humans with ego and irrational partiality so our tender emotions tell us that our idols are best and can change physics, that whatever brand of an item we have is the be all and end all, that how an item looks effects the sound and the value. Its all relative.
 
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#32
In the end, the value stored in your bass is only how much a buyer is willing to pay for it. Most instruments lose value after they're out of the store door, which reflects what they should actually be priced at imo. Buying second-hand is therefore usually a good way to get the maximum bang for your dollars.
 
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#33
Part of the question is, "What exactly IS expensive?". I'm sure that a guy makin millions a year wouldn't think twice bout spendin $5000 or more on a Wal, a Fodera, et al. Me? I could never in my life spend that on an instrument. I've found a real happy medium in the used market. Not just here on Talkbass, but Pawn Shops, CL and private deals tween friends. This method limits choices somewhat as I'm not likely to find a Fodera or Wal cheap in a Pawn Shop. Havin said that, I do find deals. $200 for a 73 Jazz, $800 for my American Deluxe 5. New. $650 recently for a Warwick Streamer Stage One 6 string. $900 for a Ken Smith CR6. And many others. I got lucky. And none of these basses may've been my first choice. But? They are expensive basses, nice basses that I don't have to feel guilty about takin into clubs and playin the heck out of em. In the end? It is the relationship you have with yer chosen instrument. Any instrument can be the "one". Does it make you wanna pick it up an play it? Does it inspire you? Sadowsky or Squier, Fodera or Fender. It ain't what you pay. Imho.
 
#34
Do we always just buy what we determine (or what others determine for us l) to be good enough?

Paying extra for a 5 bedroom house with steel beam construction, multiple zone AC unit, two story foyer, and 10 acres of lawn rather than far less for a 2 bedroom cape cod on a tiny lot with baseboard heat and in-window AC unit.

A hybrid 4-wheel drive with a 3 inch lift, satellite radio, back up camera and blind spot warning or a pre owned pick up truck.

A platinum health management plan with comprehensive semi annual check ups, full vision coverage, dental care, heath club membership incentives and nutritional consult or buy into the govt. care plan if you get sick.

A four year tuition at a prestigious private university or two years at a community college and transfer to state school.

We all make value judgements on everything we purchase with the money we have. Some are happy at different levels. It doesn't make anyone's values better than another's.
 
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#35
Quality is like The Matrix:
"No one can be told about Quality; you must experience it for yourself."
Until you have, you will not know.

And then there is Value, which is a separate proposition:
Is the difference in quality Worth It To You ?

Finally, there is personal preference -
If _you_ like your $200 Squier more than a $5000 Fodera, even if you can acknowledge that the Fodera is worth the money, then you'd be silly to play something you do not like.
 
#36
A more expensive bass should give you better finish, better electronics, better pickups, better construction, ect.. I don't know if that always means better tone. I find that the more I play and the better player I become I can notice the subtle differences more between cheap and expensive. I have a cheap, second hand Epi T-bird that I have spent many hours using and I really like it. It is definitely a very good sounding bass to my ears. Since I bought my Rickenbacker I rarely take it off the wall because the Ric is better in every department. But in the end the tones from each bass are just different. It's a matter of picking which one you like better.
 
#37
lastnotleast said:
What do you get when you spend allot of money on a bass contasted with a less expensive one?
I am perfecrly happy with my Yamaha BBN5s for which only paid $100.00 and $200.00 respectively.
My question is sincere and I admit ingorance in this matter but am confident that I will receive some (mostly) helpul feedback here.
Click to expand...
The differences that you are paying for are more expensive woods, (generally) better quality hardware with either more adjustability or more robust design (or both), sometimes fancy things like gold and expensive inlays (more expensive matierials, more labour) and more careful construction, often by workers in first world nations (USA, Japan, Germany, etc) vs. a third world one.
This means that as you go up in price - if you are staying with more or less the same bass style (say P bass copies through Fenders to boutique models for example) you will tend to get a bass that is easier to play, looks better (subjective, but generally true), has a "richer tone" (harmonics more pleasing to the human ear) and often more sustain and less extraneous noise.
BUT - all of these are just generalizations, as others have said, the "perfect" bass for you just might be your $100 Yamaha, but it could just as easily be that $4000 custom build. For most players they make a compromise somewhere in between where there budget and desires most closely meet.
ALSO musical instruments, like most things, conform to the law of diminishing returns - meaning that when you double your money form your $200 bass you will tend to get a pretty noticeable improvement in performance (the factors listed above), but when you double your money again it will be a little less dramatic and when you double your money again it will be even less difference, thus most players are happy with instruments in the $500-$1500 range as you can get a decidedly "good" bass without destroying your bank account. Thus a $400 is not quite twice the instrument in objective terms of a $200 one and a $2000 instrument is no where near 10 times as good.
 
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#39
I kinda look at basses like cars. You can buy a Lamborghini or you can buy a mustang or a fiesta. All can get you from point a to point b. but if you want that mustang or fiesta to perform as well as that Lamborghini your probably gonna have to work on it. Upgrade electronics. Maybe break out a file and fix a fret or few if needed. Oddly enough the indoor top speed world record for a car is held by Tanner Fousts ford fiesta rally car. But it's not your typical 15 grand fwd fiesta, its had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in it. You don't have to invest that much in a bass but you do need to be able to realize what do you like or not like about a bass and how to improve it or if its time to move on to something else. Btw of you buy a "Lamborghini" and you still have to modify it, you probably got ripped off.
 
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#40
Liam Wald said:
The difference between a $100 bass and a $1000 bass is far greater than the difference between a $1000 bass and a $5000 bass.
It is very much a case of the "law of diminishing returns" in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Just to clarify - that's what I was saying - I just did it in $200 jumps. (400 = almost 2x as good as 200, 2000 NOT 10 times as good as 200).
 
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