Most Disappointing purchase

[thabassmon]

Bass related, toss up between an Ibanez AEB10 acoustic bass guitar, a MXR Bass Distortion, Boss GEB7 or a Boss ODB3. I found all of them were really underwhelming, the Ibanez sounded weak, felt uncomfortable, and was a regrettable purchase. The MXR sounded average on bass at best, it does however sound good as a guitar distortion when I plugged a Les Paul into it. And the Boss pedals are rubbish, the overdrive is awful, and the EQ is inadequate for a Bass Equalizer, too many wasted band on very high frequencies which could of been assigned to more mid frequencies to shape the tone, after years of trying to get it to sound good, I eventually just used it as a boost.

 

[KevinDBassist]

Every Indonesian bass that I have purchased and very quickly got rid of . 1 Lakland 1 Sterling by Musicman Stingray and 1 Fender Squier Precision . There was a issue or two with every bass . Crappy electronics , fret edges were razor blades , and sub par quality control . Hate to say it but when I see that a bass is made in Indonesia now I pass .

 

[Old_Noob]

Ibanez GSR200 for my first bass. I just hate it. I keep picking it up and making adjustment to TRY and like it....but I just don't. I have it up for sale locally but no takers so far.

 

[LadyLoveStingRay5]

Every Stingray . 4 string neck was just too chunky. 5 string spacing too tight and close to edge. Can’t make them sound good in my hands .

MTD AG. 35 scale was not for me.

Sire V7 Vintage. I do not like fretboard radius smaller than 9.5 or vintage U shaped Jazz necks.

I have realized that I prefer more vintage Fender family sound. I enjoy TI Flats, Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats, and Slinky’s .

 

[redstrand]

Aside from quality the biggest disappointment would weight, I had a Squier P that came to me and must have weighed more than a T-40. Sent it right on back. Sounded great but weighed far more than advertised

 

[A9X]

Hate to say it but when I see that a bass is made in Indonesia now I pass .

I have 6 MII here from a cheap shorty to 2 Ibanez SRC6s and a near new BTB846v. Not a thing wrong with any of them, and the BTB was my most expensive new purchase in >20y.

 

[KevinDBassist]

Cool I have heard Ibanez does have their own factory in Indonesia and does demand high quality . I am lusting after a fretless lately , maybe Ibanez will not disappoint .

 

[Hano Rokpony]

For me: Hofner Club Bass. It was a Chinese one that I only spent $200 on at Old Towne Music in Portland while visiting a friend. GREAT shop BTW, check it out if you're ever in Portland. Serious neck dive issues. The tone and the feel were good considering that it's not a hand made German Hofner. But I have zero tolerance for neck dive. The Beatle bass, which I also have, does not suffer from that.

Cool shop indeed

 

[A9X]

Cool I have heard Ibanez does have their own factory in Indonesia and does demand high quality . I am lusting after a fretless lately , maybe Ibanez will not disappoint .

The shorty is a Samick, but who knows who really builds what?
I'm after a 5 string fretless and the SR375EF has me interested as I got a 370e in trade a couple of weeks back and I really like it. Not imported here though by the look of it, so I'll have to import.

 

[juancaminos]

A few for me. I bought an Ampeg in the mid 90's . Don't remember much about it except that it was a piggy back set up with maybe two 15's. That thing sucked so much I gave it away. Next was the Eden WT 400 and 410 XLT around 1999 which I still love. However I bought an Eden 210 for something a little lighter, thinking they were all the same. Turns out it is a D210T which I am really disappointed in, it just doesn't work for me.

 

[MustangWally]

Don’t tell me... the van burned up because the radiator got clogged up with love bugs and the engine blew up?? If so, you wouldn’t be the first person that ever happened to... South Georgia/North Florida has the worst bugs on planet earth.

God I remember that - used to live in Augusta GA and if you drove anywhere around dusk the front of your car would have an inch thick layer of bugs that stuck like cement!

 

[wncBass]

Orange crush 50...that thing was the weakest sounding bass amp I've ever heard. A rumble 40 sounds like a svt 8x10 stack in comparison.

 

[SubliminalKid]

Rickenbacker 4003. Purchased new in 2003.

No contest really. I still get angry thinking about how much they charge for that piece of poorly engineered junk.

The foam mute system broke within the first couple of weeks. It was impossible to fix, even when removing the bridge. It seemed more or less designed to break.

The entire bridge needed replacing after about 10 years due to the dreaded tail lift. I obviously didnt' want to pay a fortune for more junk Rick parts so I got the Hipshot drop-in replacement. It's about a million times better than the stock bridge.

The neck is now twisted to the point where the bass is barely playable. I can still use it thanks to the better adjustability of the Hipshot bridge but it's probably firewood in a couple more years.

The binding har started to come apart at several locations.

Of course there's no help from RIC as they (and their rabid fanboys) deny the existence of most of these VERY common issues with 4003s.

Never again.

That's horrendous; got any pictures?

 

[Bringindafunk]

I love coffee table basses and I love striking wood grains, so when a beautiful, natural zebrawood bass with an ebony fretboard came up for sale on Reverb, I started gassing hard. The price was reasonable for a hand-built bass so after looking at the photos at least six thousand times, I pulled the trigger.

The bass was absolutely beautiful and well made, but I simply couldn't make it work. I replaced all of the electronics and still couldn't get a tone I liked. I had it pleked and setup to my specifications and playing style and still couldn't jibe with it. I felt like I was fighting against it every time I played it and the tone only made it worse. Ended up taking a loss on the sale just so I wouldn't have to see it taunting me on my wall every day.

 

[ElectricBass72]

Every Indonesian bass that I have purchased and very quickly got rid of . 1 Lakland 1 Sterling by Musicman Stingray and 1 Fender Squier Precision . There was a issue or two with every bass . Crappy electronics , fret edges were razor blades , and sub par quality control . Hate to say it but when I see that a bass is made in Indonesia now I pass .

My experience has been the opposite. I have 4 Indos.... purchased from 2007-2020: Ibanez ATK, ESP LTD and Ibanez Talman... along with a Hamer guitar double-cutaway PRS copy. All of them were playable out of the box, and required only minor adjustments. No issues with electronics or frets. The stock strings on the Talman were garbage... had to replace them, but that was no big deal.

 

[Maynjo]

Anything Spector. I love the look and the sound of them. It started with a Spector Legend Neck-thru that cost around 1300. When it came in, the nut was cut all wrong, the frets were sharp, the pickups were wired out of phase, there was a bunch of sawdust in the truss rod and it weighed about 11 lbs. It felt like a 2-300 dollar bass. I returned it and bought a Euro, which felt like a whole different instrument. The fit and finish were great, but the bass balanced super awkward and had a bunch of high frets. It just felt awful to play. Also, what's the deal with the tummy cut? It seemed like a super cool idea, but in practice, it's pretty pointless. In the end, I decided they just weren't for me. I understand what people like about them, but I personally don't feel like they're worth the price.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

It's almost like you posted this for me. Eerily similar experience myself.

I forgot to mention the microphonic pickups though, lol. That Rick is the worst piece of junk I've never had the misfortune of owning-

Haterz will hate. I'm seeing a pattern with hate towards Rickenbacker and ErnieBall MusicMan. Most of the hate is coming from Fender enthusiasts. Imagine that.

Is it hate to be disappointed when you've paid over $2000 for a Rick and it starts to fall apart within weeks and is more or less unplayable after 10-15 years? Add to this a company that denies the existence of well known issues and offer a laughable warranty on their products.

I mean, things like broken mute adjustments, tail lift, microphonic pickups, twisted necks and loose binding aren't exactly rare occurances with Rickenbackers. It's more or less to be expected with these instruments. I just wish I had known this 20 years ago and spent my money on something else instead.

Fender QC is far from perfect and I've had more than a few disappointments with expensive MIA Fenders too but at least they don't fall apart completely like many Ricks do.

This isn't hate. This is criticism. Deal with it.

 

[sotua]

EBMM Stingray. My first music obsession was Peter Gabriel, and that led to Tony Levin, but I could not afford a Stingray and quit playing anyway when I went to grad school. When I picked up bass again in my 30s, I finally bought one. Turns out I'm not Tony Levin! It just felt big and unwieldy to me; my playing improved when I traded it in for a Sterling and improved again when I went to medium scale. When it comes to musical instruments, trial and error is a long and expensive process!

Similar experience for me, except Geddy Lee/Rickenbacker bass. Fortunately I did not buy it, but maaaaaan, that disappointment. It was heavy, uncomfortable, and clanky.

 

[Danny O Danny]

Cool I have heard Ibanez does have their own factory in Indonesia and does demand high quality . I am lusting after a fretless lately , maybe Ibanez will not disappoint .

I bought an Indonesian-made Ibanez SRF700 fretless and was surprised at how great it is in pretty much every aspect. YMMV.

 

[BBassBassington]

Years ago I traded a Peavey Tour 700 and 115 cab for this. It's handmade, absolutely gorgeous, great woods were used, built well. And it was the least inspiring instrument I've ever played.

The neck was super uncomfortable, the pickups sounded weak, it had a grounding issue, I basically couldn't play past the 12th fret. Which for me is like the G string, you don't think it's a big deal. Then you go to grab it and it's not there or you can't get to it, and that happens over and over in a night. Suddenly you find yourself thinking yeah, I need those higher notes.

Plus I just don't like fretless. I traded this for a real nice Warwick 4 string fretless. It was active, and much, much more my style. Double cut, played great, active, tons of different sounds in it too. I used it for an accoustic gig once. I set it on the bridge pickup, played with the EQ a bit, and it just sounded really nice. Very woody and present but not super divergent from the sound of 2 acoustic guitars. I didn't even have a single issue with finding the right notes. But 95% of the time I just don't dig the fretless sound. It just doesn't work for basically anything I do. Still a great bass.

That said, I think there's a fretless P bass in my future. Now that I have 7 basses and 1 free spot on the racks it's a lot easier to justify it.