Recommendations on inexpensive bass for recording

A Fender Squier modified jazz is around that price range. And they sound amaing. In my opinion.

 

I grabbed a squier AFFINITY jazz 5 (their cheapest line) and had to shim the neck but otherwise it is amazing stock (oh and of course with new strings). I paid the equivalent of about $40 or $50 for mine, used on CL.

I'm a professional bassist - this thing is no kid's toy though. sounds, feels, looks, plays like a fairly decent fender jazz V. the pickups are as good as on several american jazzes I've played.

edit: but if you can float the extra $100 up to the $300 mark then yea CV or VM basses are pretty outstanding at ANY price, and hopefully will need less setup than my affinity did. shimming is easy for me as I do it all the time- probably not a weekly task for most folks though.

 

Worth checking out:

http://www.rondomusic.com/bassguitars5.html

http://www.rondomusic.com/bassguitars4.html

My main 3 basses are 2 SJB Ash 5ers ( same as Ursa 2 before they changed the headstock) which are modded and a pretty much stock Ursa 2 6. I did shield all of them and put a series/ parallel mod in all of them, but you're not likely to find those 2 features under $200 unless you luck up on something used anyway.