Professional bassists/musicians who choose to use cheap gear?

[Matt O]

 

[Joshua Pickenpaugh]

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The humans are dead. Lol

 

[bassstrangler]

I don't recall the DynaBass being a cheap bass back in the day, mainly because it took me a summer of mowing lawns, birthday money, and my amazing folks putting some cash down back in 1987 to buy me one. Just sayin.

How much did you make an hour in '87? I'm pretty sure I hadn't broke the $5 ceiling then. My first bass was a Yamaha BB 300 or something like. It was cheap in always but the price. I'm pretty sure it took me awhile to save for that also. And my parents lent me money to get it too.

It's amazing what you get for the money today as compared to then.

 

[Joshua Pickenpaugh]

It's amazing what you get for the money today as compared to then.

I don't remember the hourly wage, but I do remember the feeling of looking at the price of the bass and then looking at my income and getting really depressed! Lol

I agree that you can get a lot more for your money on the starter side nowadays. I wish the Squire Vintage Modified series was around in its present form back then, it would've saved me hundreds of dollars finding a bass that wouldn't fall apart!

 

[Matt O]

I watched a doc on the Wrecking Crew a while back and I noticed that while the studio was filled with the ubiquitous Fenders and Gibsons, Glen Campbell favored odd ball cheapos like Teiscos etc.

 

[blindrabbit]

Just a guess, but I'm pretty sure Sonic Youth didn't spend too much on their stuff.

A lot of British bands from the late 70's and early 80s played with some pretty low end stuff and recorded with it also. Joy Division, the Cure, Bauhaus, most of those guys had some junk. Robert Smith bought his guitar at a dept. store for £35 and recorded the Three Imaginary Boys album with it. So it comes down to what you can do with it, not what you paid for it.

Peter Hook used a Hondo Rickenfaker when in Joy Division.

Cheap is a term that applies only to price. It has little to no bearing on quality or sound.

 

[gary m]

I watched a doc on the Wrecking Crew a while back and I noticed that while the studio was filled with the ubiquitous Fenders and Gibsons, Glen Campbell favored odd ball cheapos like Teiscos etc.

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True, which were followed by a succession of Mosrite electric 12's and an endorsement deal with Ovation. To my ear, his tone was defined by the Mosrites and the Danelectro 6 string baritone he used on "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston".

 

[blindrabbit]

true, but then he ruins it by playing through two ehx POGs, a Mastotron and some boutique amp switcher... not so cheap when you throw all that in the mix

I'd hardly call Mike Kerr's tone "ruined", and for that matter, pedals and effects always make things sound better. Always.

Germane to the topic of the thread though, is it fair to infer from your point then that the instrument one plays is irrelevant when it comes to tone, and that it is effects and amps that truly dictate what you sound like?

 

[dtsamples]

I don't think he was talking about tone; I he meant he may play a cheap bass but his rig ain't cheap, which voids his inclusion to some.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

joey spampinato from NRBQ played mostly danelectros, as does garry tallent from bruce springsteen's band. john entwistle's solo on " my generation" was purportedly played on a dano.

prince plays a hohner tele guitar.

and regarding squires....there are a LOT of squiers rebranded as fenders on big stages across the world. unless rene martinez is your tech, you want something that has easily replaced parts and something that's not too precious on the road whether you play bass or guitar.

Say it isn't SO!! Blasphemy!! They CHANGE THE DECAL TO FENDER???? (Not Squier by Fender?)
Any second the decal police will be here....
Those artists should be ashamed... (just kidding)

 

[khutch]

khutch, I've always respected and enjoyed your thoughtful, pleasant and well-researched posts. But even a student of history, like myself, would have to say…

NEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRDDD!!!

Nerd? Me? Friend, I qualify for the title nerd in so many ways that even I won't bother to list them! For all I know the term nerd was invented by my high school classmates to describe me although I did break the mold in one respect, I dated the captain of the cheerleading squad. And what would any self respecting nerd do when he gets bored with the Squier Police? Why correct their corrections of course!! So folks, although I don't personally care how you spell the name of Fender's budget line, please spell it SQUIER so that we never have to read about this again -- from them or me....

 

[Killed_by_Death]

However both Squier and Squire mean a knight's apprentice. Modern English had not yet come into being, much less had it settled on standardized spellings, when squiers first began serving apprenticeships to knights. Today many variant spellings of the Squier surname exist because they were passed down through the generations from the time before spelling was a thing, only the squire spelling of the profession's name in common usage has survived the spelling police. This does not change the meaning of the name Squier however. According to Wikipedia in medieval English, aka Anglo-Saxon, the profession's name would have been spelled scutifer, which may explain why one source (sorry, can't recall which) claims that the very first known recorded spelling for the Squier/Squire/etc surname was Scuir.

Touché. I think they change the title to Esquire later on.

 

[abstractart06]

Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine played Peavey Foundations and Forums. I actually saw Soft machine play in Cleveland Ohio when they opened for Jimi Hendrix and the Experience. Hopper was an absolute monster on bass!

 

[wpc1996]

Doesn't the guy in Mastodon use a Squier?

Troy uses fender and the squire version of his sig model

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Are you sure his signature model isn't a Squier?

 

[matt holt]

I think he's mostly pimping that Cort RITHIMIC bass with his name on it these days.

Ah, well, at least for a while he was playing his signature dean, which retailed for like $499

 

[Kamatori]

I saw Esperanza Spalding recently and she was playing a beat up fretless Ibanez SR400 with Barts and well used black beauties because West Jet lost her main axes. She also had a nice G&L with her.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

How could you tell they were Black Beauties?
Isn't the coating transparent?

 

[bassstrangler]

Peter Hook used a Hondo Rickenfaker when in Joy Division.

Cheap is a term that applies only to price. It has little to no bearing on quality or sound.

I think inexpensive applies to price and cheap is a negative term for the most part. But, for this thread how is cheap meant?

 

[Malak the Mad]

Are you sure his signature model isn't a Squier?

Troy Sanders has both a Squier and a Fender-sig.

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The only person I can think of that had one of each, at the same time, was Frank Bello. Victory Bailey had two sig-models, but both were Fenders. Can anyone remember if another artist had a two-fer simultaneously?

How could you tell they were Black Beauties?
Isn't the coating transparent?

Nope, they're black as the night sky. Here's what they look like up close.