Material cost aside, and you can go nuts spending money on wood and electronics, which fairly quickly reach a point of diminishing returns, though will have aesthetic appeal.
When it concerns slab type electric instruments, good solid electronics, well machined hardware and stabil woods make a great foundation. It's my opinion, based on experience building, that the single most important aspect becomes the skill and achitectual understanding of all aspects of the build and set up of the builder. Take the hand carved arch top jazz guitar Robert Benedetto made out of Home Depot Pine or the Dred built by Bob Taylor out of a scavenged oak pallet. An other significant factor is what the player's relationship with the instrument is.
I've played friends high end basses and no doubt they are great, but it would take me more than a few hours to really bond with them, others I can pick up and go "WOW", it's so subjective, another could pick up the bass I bonded with and give me a patronizing "It's a nice bass".
Years ago on rainy days, I would go down to a local guitar store and play boutique basses, basses I could never afford. One day I got a call from my guitar player, he told me to come down to his shop on my way home from work. He had this piece of Cuban Mahogany, he gave it to me and said "make a bass". He knew me better than I did. I've never made an instrument before, he was confident I would have no trouble at all. It took a few months, I can't do anything until I understand every aspect of the how and why. Jump to the end, I finished the bass with a nice mid level set of hardware, good US electronic components, and old P bass pickups I got off eBay. I built the bass for me, set it up the way I like, learning all of this as I progressed through the project. The day it was finished and strung up was a day I'll never forget. With out truly cognatant of my likes, dislikes, skills or intuition, I had made, for myself, the perfect bass. I could no longer take pleasure in rainy day trips to the boutique bass store, nothing measured up against the home made P. The first week it was completed, my buddy Albert Castiglia was hosting a blues jam at the Titanic in Coral Gables Fl. I took the new bass with me. That night I was offered $5,000.00 for it, I politely turned the guy down. I've learned much more since then.
I don't build a lot of instruments, but from time to time I cycle into making one or two new ones. I even enjoy taking really entry level instruments and hot rodding them. My most recent $149.00 Squier Bronco is one of these. I've been using it at gigs these last few months and I get a kick out the responses. It's a real sleeper. I upgraded the hardware, probably didn't need to change out the tuners but they were really second rate machines, bridge, strings and a Guild BiSonic pickup. It's 6 1/2 lbs, easy on the old shoulders, will it last forever, who cares, my major investment is the hardware and electronics and they can be recycled.
The Cuban, a little more road worn today than when this picture was taken.
The BiSonic Bronco with it's off-road 12 volt powered Rumble 40
By the way, I am entering into a new bass building cycle, yesterday I pulled out a 16/4 by 6" by 10' mahogany board and a 8/4 by 10" by 4' pice of Black Walnut that was milled over a hundred years ago. This will be a semi hollow carved top 30" scale bass when I'm done.
