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How are those Fleabasses?
- Thread starter Tupac
- Start date
I've never played or even seen one in real life, but after stumbling across this video on Youtube, they seem like some pretty well built basses. As for Jazz basses, I can personally vouch that they are almost perfect for slap-popping (you can mess around with the tone/volume knobs to change the overall sound of the slapping). Flea himself uses a Jazz bass.
Tonally, or structurally? Tonally, they are completely different. They're like Stingray's but not as bright and maybe a tad more focus on the lows and low mids. Structurally, MIM Fenders would win out pretty consistently. The Fleabass is cheap and feels cheap but that doesn't necessarily mean it feels bad... just cheap. The biggest issue abotu the Fleabasses is that every one seems to be completely different. I've played one, and I dug the sound (I actually liked it FAR more than any Stingray I've played) but I've heard, from others, that they can also be complete dogs. I wouldn't buy one without having played it first and I would definitely not buy one new.
Imo, i think a Fleabass is an beginners / advanced beginners bass. As Kwesi suggests, they are not that well made. However, they are easy to play, in terms of the weight and neck. So, to answer your question, it depends on where your learning is at. If you've been practising on a so/so bass for a year or two, i'd probably get a MIM for the same price. Yes, i think a MIM would be perfectly good to slap, in fact, there are plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating that point 
