Higher end production bass vs 'entry' level custom.

[hennessybass]

I'll also comment that I think $2K is probably low for a true "custom" - but you could build an exactly what you want Warmoth and have someone put it together and set it up right for you. You could do the Fender Mod Shop.
Kind of depends what you have in mind when you say "custom"

Just something to think about - sometimes "custom" can mean low resale vs a very nice production model that will hold it's value.

 

[nonohmic]

Meanwhile, if I had $2.5k+ burning a hole in my pocket, I'd be on the phone with Chris Hong when they open today.

Who is Chris Hong?

OP, you are going to be able to get a fabulous musical instrument, and IMO, something that punches above it's weight... especially if you wait for it to come to you and don't impulse buy.

Thanks, yeah that seems to be a recurring theme. Patience.

 

[steelbed45]

I guess that's my point. The features I really want are not available on production lines, namely 32" and possibly headless. BUT if I'm getting much more bang-for-my-buck by going for a higher end production bass, is it worth it to live with 34", for example?

I read this and immediately thought of the Status Graphite Streamline bass with the 32" scale option.

 

[Koshchei]

Who is Chris Hong?

Thanks, yeah that seems to be a recurring theme. Patience.

Chris is the guy I deal with at Kiesel.

 

[JRA]

nonohmic : "resale value" has nothing at all to do with buying a musical instrument. "resale value" is for folks who don't know what they like, or for those who say they know what they like but who are wrong about it, e.g., "...as it turns out..."! if you are even remotely concerned about resale value = don't spend 2k on either option!

if you have to 'hedge your bet' with the idea of resale value, i'd wager that you have 2k burning a hole in your pocket. the 'investment' you make in a fine musical instrument has nothing to do with that: it's about satisfaction, over and over and over again.

good luck with your investment!

 

[bhunt1]

Just my 2 cents, if I were making the choice, I would only choose a custom bass build if it provided something that a production bass could not provide. I know my preferences in terms of tone, ergonomics, etc so I would look over the offerings of the higher end production bass manufacturers, and if they didn't provide what I was looking for, I would go custom.

 

[31HZ]

If you're unsure about which way to go, I would hold off on the next purchase while you instead try to play as many different kinds of "nicer" basses as possible, in order to either hone your criteria or disprove your hypothesis that stepping up is the way to go. You may find that there are some smaller builders who make instruments that especially inspire your playing; you may find that there are mass-produced instruments that you have a new appreciation for. There are too many different kinds of instruments for there to be a simple answer to your question, and if you want an honest answer then you're going to have to put in the work. (On the other hand, if you just want to indulge in the quick hit of some candy-flavored GAS, we'll be the last ones to talk you out of it.)

I'd also consider used: there are some smoking deals in the TB classifieds these days. It's where I've bought all of my instruments in the last five years.

 

[Rib 13]

nonohmic : "resale value" has nothing at all to do with buying a musical instrument. "resale value" is for folks who don't know what they like, or for those who say they know what they like but who are wrong about it "...as it turns out..."! if you are even remotely concerned about resale value = don't spend 2k on either option!

The way I see it, "Resale Value" is only a consideration for players that factor in Real Estate as part of their purchase criteria.....My days of doing that are long behind me: These days I purchase based on what the instrument can do for me as a player without any other factors. My intent is to buy an instrument for me to keep, regardless if I sell it later. Inheritance doesnt factor in at all: If I want to leave something to my kids, I can think of plenty better investments than guitars........This gives me a lot of flexibility in what I buy,

 

[Eddie LeBlanc]

Been on the "Perfect Bass" hunt for decades, and been through most everything. (BTW started this back in the 60s) But I had never tried a Neck Through bass. Once I did I was sold on the design. Then went through the search of neck throughs.

Believe me, the neck through design has some capability I've never found in many other instruments.

Then I discovered the NS arched body design from Spector and was sold. Great basses, but hard to try one at a music store. Especially a USA model. You won't see this hanging on the wall at your local GC. Once you do, it is an inspiring experience.

 

[deepestend]

I was at that point a few years ago and spent $1000 or so on a Lakland hollowbody. All I can say is that it took a lot of fiddling and setting it up again and again and switching some things in and out (pickups/preamp) to get it just right. But now that it is as good as it can be, I think it's punching well above its weight.

I can say that, for the most part, a very high end bass, like a Sadowsky, will get to you in nearly perfect final stage condition (or should) so you don't have to do all of the fiddling. Before anyone says it, I know that everyone has a story about getting a poopy high end bass with a bad setup. While I sympathize and it happens to everyone from every company... a lot does go into making these basses as perfect as possible before they get to the customer.

So... in closing... I think that you can get a great $1-$2k bass but you may end up having to do a bunch of fine tuning and setting up to get it to be "perfect" for you. It can be done, just be ready for that journey.

 

[dkelley]

If I was going to buy a new bass, I would very very likely buy another Carvin.

It's kind of best of both worlds, and has a great return policy even though it was custom built to your own specs, and from my experience, only one bass so far out of several carvin's I've owned actually had what I would consider a manufacturing error (the action on my previous icon 6 couldn't get low enough to make me happy... and being neck through, it wasn't fixable... but that became a non issue and I love my current carvin and all previous carvins I've owned or played).

Carvin... erm, Keisel, are super high quality and truly beautiful.

It's been a LONG time since Carvin was sort of a parts bass kit company with arguably less than mainstream preamp and pickup choices.... they've been making basses that come, out of their shop, equal to the best competing basses I've played or owned. It's a company that pleks every instrument, you can choose all the features you want - it's not fully custom in that you have to choose from their vast assortment of body and neck shapes/options... not completely ground up custom builds.

But I'd consider carvin/kiesel instruments to be like custom shop instruments from ernie ball/fender.... but with MUCH more versatility, far more options, far more body styles, headless, anything you want really.... exotic coffee table designs (Which I personally prefer), or more standard painted finishes.

Anyhow - that's just me, but definitely go to the keisel website and build a bass using their online tool, it's free to play with, and see what you can come up with.

Doesn't hurt to play with a website.

Of bass brands I've owned, I put Alembic only a tiny line above the rest, followed by a tie between USA ernie ball, Carvin, and my personal experiences with german Warwicks. All have been amazing top notch instruments, perfect in every way, although the warwick and ernie ball had their own very distinct tones that one couldn't get away from too far.... for better or for worse.

 

[Lunatique]

I guess that's my point. The features I really want are not available on production lines, namely 32" and possibly headless. BUT if I'm getting much more bang-for-my-buck by going for a higher end production bass, is it worth it to live with 34", for example?

It depends how how adamant you are about that combination of characteristics, and whether that's the best way to spend your money.

I decided recently to go headless and replace as many of my basses with headless versions as possible, and now three out six of them are headless. The ones that don't have headless counterparts, I have no choice but to keep them, because going the custom route to get headless alternatives would cost way too much. If I was rich, I'd do it. But I'm not, so I have to draw the pragmatic line somewhere.

 

[micguy]

A custom bass or a Warmoth build (another way of getting a custom build) makes sense IF you know precisely the combination of parts that will make you happy. If you haven’t owned enough basses to know what you like, a high end production bass is a better bet, as its resale will be better.

My entire herd (not that many, really) is Warmoth builds. They’re fantastic, but I modded a lot of mid level production basses before I started doing builds with Warmoth parts, so I knew what I wanted, and what I was doing before I started shelling out cash for really good parts.

 

[luciens]

nonohmic : "resale value" has nothing at all to do with buying a musical instrument. "resale value" is for folks who don't know what they like, or for those who say they know what they like but who are wrong about it, e.g., "...as it turns out..."! if you are even remotely concerned about resale value = don't spend 2k on either option!

if you have to 'hedge your bet' with the idea of resale value, i'd wager that you have 2k burning a hole in your pocket. the 'investment' you make in a fine musical instrument has nothing to do with that: it's about satisfaction, over and over and over again.

good luck with your investment!

I don't agree. There are many legitimate reasons to prioritize resale value in the choice of a particular instrument. The main one being, the player's situation can change in any number of perfectly normal and legitimate ways as well: musical tastes can change over time, they have a new requirement in terms of tone that's not met by their current bass, they may want or need to go fretless/fretted, they may come down with an illness or injury that requires a different ergonomic design, financial disaster may strike, and so on.

Being able to swallow the full purchase price of a good quality bass with no or little resale value isn't the typical case for musicians in general. In fact, that's the exception rather than the rule.

Instead, in most cases, being able to recover at least some portion of the investment under some of the circumstances I just mentioned is often an essential part of the typical bass player's career. It's just a smart thing to do.

It's only in extreme cases, I would argue, that you should just not consider resale at all. If you have a very specific and unusual requirement where only a multi-$1000 custom bass that would take a huge hit at resale would do, then it might be the smarter thing to do.

But that's an extremely rare situation even among elite-level professional players who know exactly what they need and for how long they need it. And even some of them still need to get other basses for other uses too.

So, no attention to resale doesn't mean you don't know what you want and you're so rich you light your cigars with burning $100 bills. That's just not the case....

L

 

[lomo]

IMHO you're in the sweet spot along the price/quality curve somewhere in the 1200-2K window. In that range I'd get a nice production bass rather than a (relatively) low end custom. You can't return the custom if it disappoints (and that's entirely possible). It sounds as though you've taken a while to get to this point and want it to "count". Buying a really nice "factory" instrument will take most of the risk out of the equation.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

$2k is the lower end of the custom builds and you're probably going to get a lot more bang for your buck with a used $2800 new, but can get it used for $2k bass.

 

[MMiller28]

$2000 for a custom? Sounds more like pick-your-parts from Keisel or whatever Carvin is called now. I must be unaware of some options.

 

[JRA]

I don't agree. There are many legitimate reasons to prioritize resale value in the choice of a particular instrument. The main one being, the player's situation can change in any number of perfectly normal and legitimate ways as well: musical tastes can change over time, they have a new requirement in terms of tone that's not met by their current bass, they may want to fretless/fretted, they may come down with an illness or injury that requires a different ergonomic design, financial disaster may strike, and so on. Being able to swallow the full purchase price of a good quality bass with no or little resale value isn't the typical case for musicians in general. In fact, that's the exception rather than the rule. Instead, in most cases, being able to recover at least some portion of the investment under some of the circumstances I just mentioned is often an essential part of the typical bass player's career. It's just a smart thing to do. It's only in extreme cases, I would argue, that you should just not consider resale at all. If you have a very specific and unusual requirement where only a multi-$1000 custom bass that would take a huge hit at resale would do, then it might be the smarter thing to do. But that's an extremely rare situation even among elite-level professional players who know exactly what they need and for how long they need it. And even some of them still need to get other basses for other uses too. So, no attention to resale doesn't mean you don't know what you want and you're so rich you light your cigars with burning $100 bills. That's just not the case.... L

i think you offer a thoughtful counterpoint to my POV! your take is not persuasive to me, but i think it should be considered by the OP.

 

[TrevorG]

That’s a lot of money for one bass. I’d forget about the budget and play everything I could get my hands on. Good chance your dream bass may only be half that price. If you search according to price you may miss that special guitar.

 

[bassbully]

I buy higher end used and put the money I save in the band. But that’s me.