yeah.. me too. but I went a little further by refacing them with mappa burl veneer and natural wood stain to make them look expensive.
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I love cheap basses!
- Thread starter bigdaddybass12
- Start date
love cheapo basses...they're fun to tinker with and breath new life into them if needed..
Ric5
Inactive
- Jan 29, 2008
- 29,772
- 30,452
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- I like 5, 8, 10, and 12 string basses
This thread makes me feel like a bad bassist! Of course I just started playing bass 2 months ago. The bass I am playing is a Lakland 44-64 custom PJ. It is a Skyline so for Lakland it’s cheap, but of all the basses I played in the local guitar store, nothing sounded or felt so good as the Lakland. I am fortunate enough to have the extra money to pay $1300, and I understand not everyone does. I am not better or lesser because I can.
What I am saying is I could tell the difference between the less expensive basses I played. FWIW... I love the openness we can converse in the forum. I mean no offense to anyone else.
Sprout
What I am saying is I could tell the difference between the less expensive basses I played. FWIW... I love the openness we can converse in the forum. I mean no offense to anyone else.
Sprout
I’m far from a gear snob. None of my basses cost more than $750 new, and I didn’t buy them new.
Mandolins, however, are a different story. In the mandolin world you have to spend 2x to get an instrument equal to an acoustic guitar. For instance, a $1000 mandolin would be equal to a $500 acoustic guitar.
And then there’s the law of diminishing return, which is such that a $5k mandolin does not sound 5x better than a $1k mandolin. How all this applies to expensive basses, I have no idea, because as I said, I don’t own any boutique basses, nor will I probably ever. But I don’t begrudge or scorn anybody who owns them. It’s their money, it’s their choice.
Mandolins, however, are a different story. In the mandolin world you have to spend 2x to get an instrument equal to an acoustic guitar. For instance, a $1000 mandolin would be equal to a $500 acoustic guitar.
And then there’s the law of diminishing return, which is such that a $5k mandolin does not sound 5x better than a $1k mandolin. How all this applies to expensive basses, I have no idea, because as I said, I don’t own any boutique basses, nor will I probably ever. But I don’t begrudge or scorn anybody who owns them. It’s their money, it’s their choice.
D
This is an Ammoon jazz that i modded. The pickups are cheap but they sound pretty good with a 5 way switch for different pickup selections and two tone pots.
I set the neck relief, string height and intonation myself...Nothing like saving alittle coin.
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I love my two Squiers and my Ibanez Blazer... which was cheap when I got it, but no more.
I had a Sterling Sub with a Bart in it that I picked up for $250 that sounded amazing. I disnt keep it that long but one of my favorite basses I own is a Yamaha BB404 that I bought for $100. Then I put a set of Agi's that cost me as much as the bass and it sounds incredible. It is in regular rotation with my German Warwick and my Yamaha TRB1004. Its been my mainstay for 15 years.
Most likely the reason it felt better was that it as a higher end bass had got a better setup and was equipped with quality strings from factory, unlike what you typically will find on cheap budget basses, add to that the fact that it by far most likely also sounded much better, because cheap budget basses has cheap and most often fairly crappy pickups in them.
Other than that higher end basses will have a fairly consistently high quality, whereas the quality of cheap budget basses is often quite inconsistent, more so than really consistently bad, meaning there will be a much higher chance to find a bad one out of a production, but also a chance that you might find a truly great one, in every aspect but it having cheap hardware and electronics.
However giving a cheap budget bass a proper setup costs nothing but a bit of time, and buying a new set of strings is also relatively cheap, and both those things would really be to be expected to do, even with a new higher end bass, and the first thing people who buy cheap basses with the purpose of modding them into greatness would do would likely be to upgrade the cheap crappy stock pickups for some of proper quality, and as far as goes the cheap hardware an upgrade might even not be all that crucial to turn a great budget bass into a great bass period that sounds great and feels great to play, all for far less money than a higher end bass of the same guaranteed quality as that of the upgraded budget one would have cost them.
So yes, a beginner who don't know what to look for and who don't know how to do the mods needed, and if they got the kind of money needed to spare, it is probably a good idea to start out buying a more expensive bass as their first one, but for someone who are not overwhelmed by doing the research needed to know what to look for in a bass to determine if it will be worth the extra work needed to get it up to proper standards and to do the mods needed to make such a great budget bass a great bass period that sounds great and feels great to play, or for someone already knowing this, the right cheap budget bass might end up, with a bit of work, getting them a bass fully on par with a higher end model, but for considerably less money.
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The $200 one is gone but there is a $300 one still going. That's Canadian Pesos, so about $230 USD
I've made a hobby of finding used squiers with black headstocks. lol I've got 4 that I've bought, a pro-tone, a couple of other PJ's from classifieds and an ADJ4. I take the time to do a nice fret job, hide any scars needed (having black basses helps) with black CA, and I usually go Geezers, and all Hipshot hardware. I've done a black tusq nut on 2. I've spent under 200$ on most of them, and they were under 300 to start. I feel like the end product is as good as any 500$ bass and I get the look and features I can't find on the Fender lineup.
If I was a decent bassist and gigging on a regular basis, which unfortunately is not the case, I would probably want a good sounding but cheap bass. For example, if someone threw a half-full beer can at me due to my poor playing and struck my bass instead of me, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. The dent or damage would add character to the inexpensive bass and provide a memory, maybe not the best one, but memorable nonetheless every time I saw the imperfection. I think having a back-up cheap bass, for this reason including the potential of a theft while on the road, would be a good idea. If the same incident involved one of my expensive basses, at least for me, it would be difficult to deal with.
Smooth_bass88
vaxx!
- Oct 31, 2006
- 12,122
- 16,793
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- have been on nationally released albums, charting on the Billboard 200
Yup. I just bought a '91 Japanese Fender P bass for a ridiculously cheap price.
NBD: re-claimed my old P-bass from 3 dacades ago!
NBD: re-claimed my old P-bass from 3 dacades ago!
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I have said that there is not much difference between a $1000 bass and a $300 bass other than the finish. Maybe a $75.00 active eq.
And in your experience this is true even if they have been set up properly and got quality strings equipped on them?
Also what kind of statistic material do you base this on, I mean how many basses in each kind of price category played do you base this conclusion on?
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$80 for the bass and a case (minus the liner of course). Took an hour and a 1/2 drive to another state to get it. Easy to play, and after I cleaned off the stickers and did a setup it was a good enough player that I'd occasionally take it instead of a Ric, Fender, G&L or a EBMM.
One day I'll make a truss rod cover for it. After coloring the hole with a black sharpie you can hardly tell it's missing.
One day I'll make a truss rod cover for it. After coloring the hole with a black sharpie you can hardly tell it's missing.
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Yes.
Every cheap bass I've evern owned or played in a store. Don't know the number.
