Double Bass How do you acquire "your next level" upright bass?

[Hberm_cajunbass]

Hello, bass family. I've had a somewhat lower-quality bass for a decade now, and I've outgrown my bass within the past two years of studying advanced technique and thumb position. My current bass has a very rough time producing a healthy sound in T.P and is making it quite difficult for me to continue my studies in an efficient and professional manner. The bass I have my eye on is $6,000 and has been taken great care of. With having to pay for two more semesters of tuition, and living in an area where the economy has been struck hard (South Louisiana), I'm out of ideas for funding my next bass. What are some ways that you have purchased your "upgrade" bass? Quality is not cheap and that is something I'm attempting to take into account upon the purchase of my next bass. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and hopefully this is posted in the correct forum. ANY input will be helpful!

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

I only buy secondhand. I always buy low if I can and sell for close to market rate if I can. I buy wrecks, fix them and sell them. I scour the ads every day.

Mine is a fairly specialized method.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Put the word out you're looking and see what comes up. I'd been talking to my friend Jake de Villiers about wanting another bass. When TB mod TroyK came across on old Pfretzschner shop bass he thought was under-priced he told Jake, Jake told me. Since I couldn't get down to Seattle to make the deal in person Troy very kindly played it, took pics and then picked it up and kept it for me several weeks. It needs about $2-$2.5K of work but other than a quick setup/evaluation I haven't had anything done for the almost two years I've had it and I gig with it regularly. The work (fixing some old bad crack repairs, leveling the board, new tailpiece, bridge and endpin) could be spread over two or three trips to the bench spreading the repair cost out over time. Once all the work has been done it will be a $6-8K instrument I'll have around $5K into.

Are you going to keep your old bass?

 

[groooooove]

always buy used! always!

kungfu is on the money- watch the classifieds every day, scout ebay and craigslist, deals do come up.

theres something to be said for spreading the word, too. tell your friends, teachers, ext. a lot of people have an extra bass playing around that they could sell but aren't motivated to list it and deal with all of it. thats how i got my first good bass.

it's also good to know what you like and what you want. i play a lot of basses every week, but visiting the upton workshop taught me a lot- few other places have that many basses on hand for you to dig through. if you know what you want, you'll be more comfortable dropping "good bass" money. even better, you can get lucky and drop that money only once and find a bass you can play for a lifetime.

 

[Hberm_cajunbass]

Put the word out you're looking and see what comes up. I'd been talking to my friend Jake de Villiers about wanting another bass. When TB mod TroyK came across on old Pfretzschner shop bass he thought was under-priced he told Jake, Jake told me. Since I couldn't get down to Seattle to make the deal in person Troy very kindly played it, took pics and then picked it up and kept it for me several weeks. It needs about $2-$2.5K of work but other than a quick setup/evaluation I haven't had anything done for the almost two years I've had it and I gig with it regularly. The work (fixing some old bad crack repairs, leveling the board, new tailpiece, bridge and endpin) could be spread over two or three trips to the bench spreading the repair cost out over time. Once all the work has been done it will be a $6-8K instrument I'll have around $5K into.

Are you going to keep your old bass?

Was thinking about selling it to alleviate some of the cost. I'm guessing I can get around $2k for it.