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Show Me Your Beater Bass

Her my two (and only) Basses.
One is at home, the other one in the rehearsal room/car/studio/train/or....


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... even a beater bass deserves at least a $15 bag, simply for convenience if nothing else ... ;)

... no pics, but current 'beater' is a 7+ lb Squier VM '77 Jazz (nearly stock)... at that weight and little $$ into it, no reason to hate it, and it gets to go on lots of rides and hits lots of other hands with no worries ...
 
Here's my beater bass,$100 w/case craigslist find Spector.I did replace the tuners w/Carvins for $35 so I've got a total of $135 in it.Since I've bought it I drag it back and forth now instead of my other really nice basses.If this one were to get stolen or fall off the stand or something it wouldn't be devastating.
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Pretty much any Fender I ever owned. They take a lickin' and keep on ticking'. But I do treat them better than beater basses.

My Stingray 5 seems to be that tough, to, but again, like the Fenders, I try to not actually "beat it', although I've come close through no fault of my own...

My Alembic Series 1, when I had one, was a lot tougher than you'd think. Still...
 
My "beater" has a gig bag, doesn't get left in the car and isn't hated at all. It's a '79 T-40, and it's been traveling with me as a backup. As others have said, I'd hate for something to happen to it, but better that than one of my more costly basses. I never abuse any of my basses, though.
 
This is my first bass, a Silvertone I bought sometime in the late 90s and I'm pretty sure it was less than a hundred bucks. The deal clincher was it came with a free gig bag. To me the inference was someday I'd be playing gigs. I lived on a sailboat for the next fours years and the harsh marine environment didn't seem to bother it. And it always sounded okay to me, not as good as my Fender P but not horrible. I still pick it up once in a while like I just did today to play a bit and make these photographs after I saw this thread.

Funny thing, but I just noticed the nut is worn to the point the G string has moved to another country! That says more about my lack of talent than this bass' build quality. It's probably been that way for years and I just never noticed it, lol!

And still, I've never played a gig . . .

:)

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No beater today, but the future beater has been identified. If the zombies attack, I have an E-series Pbass that will have to take one for the team and be used as a weapon while protecting the high dollar basses. A guy ought to be able to generate some decent "club head speed" with that one.