Need some insight on buying a bass

[MattZilla]

Reiterating what I agree with:
- 5ers are weird coming from guitar. Really.
- Fender’s QC is like buying $5 lotto scratch offs but the resale is close to 90% MSRP
- Yamaha’s QC is stellar but the resale sucks so buy to keep
- you should try-before-buy, but corona...

What hasn’t been mentioned:
- I’ve never heard a Fender preamp that sounded less-good than a passive bass with meh-okay pickups. Active Fenders best serve people who have the budget to immediately swap in an Audere or some other preamp and other aftermarket pickups but really like that current year’s color paint.

Nobody’s asking “what do you want it for?”!

If you’re wanting to slowly add “Bassist” to your resumé, go with the Yamaha with plans to eventually get a cheap sunburst Fender as a certain gigs bass.

If you’re just using it in a home studio for your own demos, get at least one something with a split Precision type pickup. Yamaha BB series will do it. Squier Precisions in the CV/VM series are really pretty great for the money (in your budget you could buy two used ones to have one with regular nickel rounds and one with exposed core stainless rounds) and will work fine for recording.

 

[rpt50]

I might have some relevant insight, as a 45+ year guitar player who just got into bass a few months back.

What got me started is picking up an Ibanez Mikro on a whim, as it was only about $160 with a coupon. That turned out to be one of my best guitar purchases ever! It's a ton of fun, and very easy for us guitar guys to play with the short scale. You can practice for hours without getting the hand cramps you are probably going to get from a 34" scale "normal" bass, and really work on the plucking and other bass techniques.

I enjoyed the micro so much that I decided to buy a "real" bass, and Yamaha was at the absolute top of my list. I played about every new bass for sale in the Atlanta metro area, and it was hard to find anything that matched the Yamaha TRBX 504 that my son (a drummer) had laying around in his studio (and he didn't want to sell it). The problem with buying a Yamaha however, is that they seem to be sold out everywhere. I suggest that if you can find one, buy it.

A word of warning about Fender basses--DO NOT BUY ANYTHING YOU DON'T GET TO PLAY FIRST, preferably head-to-head with other basses. As a guitarist I'm sure you are well aware of the value/quality of their MIM guitars, but I don't know what is going on with their basses. Some are great off the shelf, but others are just terrible with ridiculous fret sprout, bowed necks, loose pickups, etc. If you can find one that plays nice, go for it, but my guess is that once you start playing some other basses, they are going to fall way down your list unless you happen to find a nice one.

For what it's worth, I ended up with a G&L Fallout Tribute bass, which is their Indonesian version of their American short-scale model. I'm very happy with it, and it plays like a dream and sounds great. But you can bet that once Yamaha's are back in stock I will be picking up one of them to go with the G&L.

 

[One Way]

7 years ago I was an experienced guitar player looking to add a bass for my home recordings. I went to my friendly local musical instrument store and held a $99 used Squire Affinity P bass, the least expensive bass in the store, and asked my sales guy to play it for me. It felt and sounded awful! This is not a knock against Squires or the Affinity line, the bass was used, cheap, plus it looked and felt like it was ridden hard and put away wet. My sales guy then picked out a new Squire VM 70’s Jazz bass. The sound with him playing was awesome! It looked and felt great! It and an Ampeg BA-112 75w bass amp came home with me that day. Since that time Jazz basses have always felt right to me plus I love their tone. Plus they have thin, comfortable necks.

My bass playing friend said I should get a 5 string due to the advantage of being able to play the same notes across the fretboard in addition to up and down the neck. I bought a 5 string and could make no sense of it! As said earlier, my guitar playing experience relates to the lowest note string being “E”. The 5 string lowest string is a “B”. My nice new 5 string was a source of frustration and remained dust and wear-free, banished to its’ case as I happily played bass lines on my 4 string bass.

Three years ago I determined to learn to play 5 the string bass and bought a really nice, new G&L M-2500. I committed to learning I only played the 5 string for one year. My P and J 4 string basses didn’t see the light of day for that year. It was a rough start however I ultimately learned the 5 string.

I bring all this up just to support what the previous poster(s) have said, it is my personal experience as a guitar player that it’s far more intuitive to transition and learn bass on a 4 string. Welcome to bass playing! It’s amazing fun, cool, etc! Best of success selecting the right instrument for you

 

[Bass Man Dan]

May I ask, what’s pushing you towards the Yamaha?

I have a BB235, which I believe is one of the lowest priced 5ers Yamaha makes. Besides being a bit on the heavy side, it is otherwise equal to any passive bass I own in tone, feel, and playability.

 

[equalizin]

I wouldn't order a Jazz V without seeing it in person first. If you check sweetwater they are almost always close to 11lbs. Yamahas are usually around 8.5-9ish. Not sure there are many basses that compare quality wise in that price range with Yamaha. I'd probably put Schecter and Korean Spectors up there. I played guitar for about 20 years too before switching to bass. Teles and Les Pauls. With a guitar id probably not gig with something less than a PRS SE for 600ish. With a bass you can get one that stays in tune and sound good for half that. You get a lot more for your money buying a bass which is weird since its just a bigger instrument.

 

[Titanium]

Wow lots of great comments and advice. Thank you all very much. I thought I was leaning heavily towards the Fender, but now I’m strongly considering the Yamaha again. Thanks again everyone!

 

[redlizard]

Unless you have a compelling reason to go with five, I also vote for going four string. You'll have enough on your plate with transitioning to a new instrument, no need to ratchet up the complexity. Four string really is intuitive coming from guitar and switching back and forth is a snap. YMMV.

 

[gg22]

Have you had either of those in your hands yet? If so, which “felt” better?

Jazz basses are known for their relatively skinny necks...that might be desireable for a transitioning guitar player.

What types of music are you playing?

If you're coming from a guitar I would definitely look at nut width. I don't know anything about the Yamaha, but Jazz basses have narrow necks. That's going to be especially important if you're playing a 5-string.

As others have said, try them if you can. Two basses of the exact same model can feel different, and when you find an instrument that suits you'll know. If you can't try them then at least attempt to try out similar models.

Fender Jazz 5 strings necks are aclually quite wide.

 

[Nickweissmusic]

Reiterating what I agree with:
- 5ers are weird coming from guitar. Really.
- Fender’s QC is like buying $5 lotto scratch offs but the resale is close to 90% MSRP
- Yamaha’s QC is stellar but the resale sucks so buy to keep
- you should try-before-buy, but corona...

What hasn’t been mentioned:
- I’ve never heard a Fender preamp that sounded less-good than a passive bass with meh-okay pickups. Active Fenders best serve people who have the budget to immediately swap in an Audere or some other preamp and other aftermarket pickups but really like that current year’s color paint.

Nobody’s asking “what do you want it for?”!

If you’re wanting to slowly add “Bassist” to your resumé, go with the Yamaha with plans to eventually get a cheap sunburst Fender as a certain gigs bass.

If you’re just using it in a home studio for your own demos, get at least one something with a split Precision type pickup. Yamaha BB series will do it. Squier Precisions in the CV/VM series are really pretty great for the money (in your budget you could buy two used ones to have one with regular nickel rounds and one with exposed core stainless rounds) and will work fine for recording.

I agree with most points, I will say that the one active fender 5 jazz I owned had fantastic electronics and pickups, granted it was a USA. It was a great sounding bass, but the neck was so pathetically bad I had to unload it. And this was the second defective fender deluxe neck on it- after a Fender warranty replacement which took nearly a YEAR- while I was a repair tech- *at a Fender dealer.* if I couldn’t get a good neck in two tries on a flagship instrument, good f$&@!?& luck to anyone else. New Fenders are absolutely a crapshoot, I’d say the lottery analogy is spot on. I personally only buy used Fenders now.