Congratulations!
One of their best finishes...Player Plus colors sure aren't boring!
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Newbie - looking for first bass
- Thread starter JimmyAZ
- Start date
One of their best finishes...Player Plus colors sure aren't boring!
That's a hell of a way to get started. Bravo sir.
I notice a lot of people who don't like Squier also can't spell "Squier". Hmmm...
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happens!you might feel even more foolish if you knew how many EBs were made in china, in whole, or in part.!
but if you wanted the best ax for yourself, then you'd know more. or, you'd get a beginner-grade ax and make do until you did know more. seems like you want to start out at a level that you admit you're not ready/prepared for --- it's not a 'sin' (you'll do whatever you want with your money), but it might be foolish.
there are so many great opportunities (instruments) out there for folks who are just getting their feet wet. no one can tell/advise you about your experience "6 months" from now (we don't know 'where you're at' now). and if you want the best instrument for yourself at this juncture (almost no experience), then i'd advise that you take a chance and learn from it. if you don't have lessons figured into your plans = what you need to know will take a little/lot longer.
good luck!
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Correct. Leo's first employees were Mexican-Americans probably and are legendary. Tadeo Gomez and Abigail Ybarra come to mind. You guys really need to visit Mexico. Get lit and all these generalizations will go away
Why is that? The place of manufacture isn’t an indicator of quality anymore.
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Congrats on the Fender - it might need a setup once you get it. I ordered an upscale Squier from them and it needed a bunch of truss rod tweaking, and then saddles for action and intonation. Once set up, it felt great, and I was shocked at how good it sounded! (I have some $2-3k basses, and the Squier was sounding good too.)
I have a Spark 40. It has bass presets. You can practice at low volume with it, but it’s nothing like playing through a bass amp where you can feel the notes you play.
As for playing with your wife… er, I mean, accompanying her piano with bass - tricky. When learning a new instrument, one of the toughest things to do is to learn to play with other musicians. You gotta listen to what they are playing while you are playing, and there’s this stress to keep up with the other player. It can be quite overwhelming. A metronome set to a slow speed, far below the tempo she feels she can play the song, would be a better approach. There’s always going to be one chord, or measure that trips you (her) up, and playing the whole song super slow gives you (her) time to prepare for “the tough part” a few notes before, and get your (her) fingers in position for that bar. Then once she can play it smoothly at a very slow speed, go a little faster, still slow, and keep practicing until she can play it all in time at the correct tempo.
When I first learned guitar, I was lucky enough to have a friend who knew how to play. We formed a band after a couple months of me taking lessons - but I remember how much I had to practice alone in order to be comfortable to play with someone else. (funny enough, 4 months later we had another guitarist, a drummer, and a singer, but no bass player - so I bought a cheap bass and half my guitar lessons turned to bass lessons and I’ve been playing both instruments since then… er, 35 years now!)
I have a Spark 40. It has bass presets. You can practice at low volume with it, but it’s nothing like playing through a bass amp where you can feel the notes you play.
As for playing with your wife… er, I mean, accompanying her piano with bass - tricky. When learning a new instrument, one of the toughest things to do is to learn to play with other musicians. You gotta listen to what they are playing while you are playing, and there’s this stress to keep up with the other player. It can be quite overwhelming. A metronome set to a slow speed, far below the tempo she feels she can play the song, would be a better approach. There’s always going to be one chord, or measure that trips you (her) up, and playing the whole song super slow gives you (her) time to prepare for “the tough part” a few notes before, and get your (her) fingers in position for that bar. Then once she can play it smoothly at a very slow speed, go a little faster, still slow, and keep practicing until she can play it all in time at the correct tempo.
When I first learned guitar, I was lucky enough to have a friend who knew how to play. We formed a band after a couple months of me taking lessons - but I remember how much I had to practice alone in order to be comfortable to play with someone else. (funny enough, 4 months later we had another guitarist, a drummer, and a singer, but no bass player - so I bought a cheap bass and half my guitar lessons turned to bass lessons and I’ve been playing both instruments since then… er, 35 years now!)
Ibanez and Yamaha make good basses, even at the low end of the range.
Fullum, you're exactly right about many of the set-ups at GC. I actually like our local one, the staff....it is what it is, but gee-zuz, man, I've seen some basses that never should've been put on the wall.....broken strings, strings an inch off of the fretboard, dents, scratches, pots that won't turn....I've told them on more than one occasion, what the heck is that bass doing on the wall? So yeah, just have to be aware of that when trying them oiut.
All good advice. I’d suggest not going in with a preconceived notion of what would be best fit. I did the same thing several years ago because of the tonal variety on a Jazz bass but later found that I prefer the wider nut and sound of a Precision bass. GC is useful for finding a bass that fits you. Good luck!
I've been at it over 50 years. There are many great, inexpensive instruments available.
My Squier gets as much play time as my Elrick. The difference in price between the two is a factor of 10.
Shop used.
My Squier gets as much play time as my Elrick. The difference in price between the two is a factor of 10.
Shop used.
GC still has a few of the older Fender Aerodyne models at a good price, pretty good bang for the buck. Fender Aerodyne 4-String Jazz Bass Black Rosewood Fretboard
Congratulations, good choice! But I am a little biased, I have the same model in Cosmic green.
Mine was purchased from a small local shop where I live, so it was already setup and ready to play. I have only purchase one rig directly from Fender, it required a little setup/tweaking out of the box.
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FullumMusic
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Right? And it's like, we're not just complaining because the bass is poorly set up and it makes it hard for us to play. If they're set up properly, the basses will play and sound better, and they'll sell more basses. Kinda baffling on the one hand. How do you expect people to want to buy your instruments if they all play like and sound like garbage because they're poorly set up? And on the other hand, understanding how they're run at a corporate level like a big-box-store for musical instruments, it makes perfect sense that they can't be bothered to try.
It's just frustrating because for some people it really is the only place to try musical instruments, and they might even have to travel for quite a few dozen miles to get there. And you want to encourage new players to just go try as many instruments as possible. But, what good is trying all those instruments if they're poorly set up? It's like if you went to test-drive cars but they dealers only let you test the lemons that got brought back and their mechanics couldn't fix. "Here's the keys! By the way, the ABS doesn't work, it pulls severely to the left, the accelerator sticks, and the stereo will randomly turn on full volume! You're gonna love it!"
I just think back to how many times someone told me "Well i'm just learning and i'm not very good." So i pick up their bass and the neck is bent and the strings are an inch high, all slightly different heights and i'm like, "well this isn't helping you get any better." Give their bass a quick set-up... not even a particularly great setup. Just get the relief close enough, and the string heigh decent, and the pickup height decent, and all of a sudden they're like, "Wow! This is so much easier to play! I thought it was just me who sucked! This is the way it was at the store so i thought this is how it's supposed to be!" You'd think, right? But no. Proper set up and all of a sudden the bass works with you, not against you.
When you have a fair amount of experience, you can probably play a bass with a bad setup, and can still get an idea of what it would be like to play if it was properly set up. We have enough experience to kinda see past it if we had to. But a new player who's just learning the instrument? How are they gonna tell the difference between a bass with rubbish action vs a bass with great action that just needs to be set up properly? Does it sound weak because the strings are too far away from the pickups or because the pickups sound flaccid? Can something be done about the frets scratching my fingers?
Even inexpensive basses can cost a few hundred dollars. For that much money you'd think that a thing you buy would come in good working order, without needing a professional overhaul before use.
{puts soapbox back in the closed for now}
Anywhoooo... to bring this back to the OP, @JimmyAZ if you find yourself at GC trying basses, hopefully they're at least halfway decently set up. And keep in mind the bass's neck relief (forward/back bow), string height, intonation, and pickup height can all be properly adjusted. (Do beware that if you're buying used from GC, someone might have already broken the truss rod, preventing neck adjustments. GC may or may not bother to check if the truss rod works, again, depending on how good the techs are at your particular GC.) And i noticed you were "warned against" Squier. Squier is Fender's "budget" line, but by no means are they poorly made. Maybe 30 years ago the cheapest Squiers were no-frills basses to be avoided, but these days their quality and playability overlaps with a lot of Fender lines, with a few minor design differences and component differences. It'll come down to preference with how they feel and sound to you.
Really, even the more budget friendly brands these days, after a proper setup, will do the job well. But if you're at GC, any of the brands they carry new will be solid (after proper setup).
Edited because just saw OP got a bass on order: CONGRATS!
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I just saw a YouTube video on the Harley Benton Firemist 25th Anniversary PJ Bass. It looks and sounds great, and is only around $450.00. Active and passive options.
Congrats on your player plus P! It seems like a very flexible and cool bass. I was gonna say that I've bought a lot of cheap basses (and made a partscaster that was 75% old Squier parts), and I've never had one that was seriously deficient for playing or tone. That said, your Fender will be miles ahead in terms of versatility.
I did learn some setup skills that I never used when I was playing guitar.
I did learn some setup skills that I never used when I was playing guitar.
You just described the Ibanez SoundGear line. For some reason there seems to be some derision for them here but I LOVE my SR300ESVM. I bought a factory b-stock copy for $269 and I can't for the life of me find anything wrong with it. Plays like greased lightning and the active electronics give a very wide range of tones. I used to always set my tone at the amp and keep the guitar flat, but with this one I am doing the opposite.
