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Surprisingly Good Cheap Bass

grunge_freak

grunge_freak

Aug 3, 2010
126
3
#1
I had an old Jay Turser P-Bass sitting in my closet that I haven't played in years (since I was just a noob and knew nothing about bass) and I moved on to other basses without ever really understanding the potential this bass had.

Well, I took it out of my closet, put some new ernie ball strings on it and set up the action/intonation... and to my surprise, the tone I get out of this bass rivals that of a Fender p-bass, and is much punchier, deeper and yet brighter than any squier p-bass I have played. Stays in tune just fine, and all the way up the neck may I add. I will be using this to jam and record, will post some pictures of it too. But basically just wanted to say, don't be afraid to give one of these a try if you are ever looking for a cheap bass to play around on, you'll be surprised how much bass you get for the money!!:bassist:
 
#5
grunge_freak said:
I had an old Jay Turser P-Bass sitting in my closet that I haven't played in years (since I was just a noob and knew nothing about bass) and I moved on to other basses without ever really understanding the potential this bass had.

Well, I took it out of my closet, put some new ernie ball strings on it and set up the action/intonation... and to my surprise, the tone I get out of this bass rivals that of a Fender p-bass, and is much punchier, deeper and yet brighter than any squier p-bass I have played. Stays in tune just fine, and all the way up the neck may I add. I will be using this to jam and record, will post some pictures of it too. But basically just wanted to say, don't be afraid to give one of these a try if you are ever looking for a cheap bass to play around on, you'll be surprised how much bass you get for the money!!:bassist:
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M.R. Ogle said:
There ya go.... new strings and a setup will do WONDERS for amost ANY bass. Glad this one turned out to be a real player!
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+1 to proper setups! I took a dog of an abused Matsumoku Vantage 80s bolt-on P...thing, and turned it into a dream to play. I almost didn't want to sell it, but I had a 300% return on my investment. :)
 
#6
I'm just glad I've gotten to the point where I can set things up and know what I'm doing. I also have an Epiphone Thunderbird and between that and the Turser P I have pretty much all my bases covered as far as tones go (no pun intended)
 
#7
I'm very surprised at the quality of this bass though. It seems to me that, (and I work in manufacturing engineering for a living), CNC machining has made it so that, if properly set up and taken care of, even cheap basses can play really well if you put the time into them these days.
 
#8
We are living during a renaissance as far as cheap instruments goes. With the advent of modern manufacturing (Mostly CNC machining), it's almost impossible to buy a truly bad bass now.

I'm not saying better instruments aren't better, of course, but the differences between expensive instruments and cheap ones are getting smaller and smaller and there are some very inexpensive basses out there (such as yours) that can very easily be considered gig-worthy on a professional level.

The days of kids learning on awful department store guitars are long over.
 
#9
Lo-E said:
We are living during a renaissance as far as cheap instruments goes. With the advent of modern manufacturing (Mostly CNC machining), it's almost impossible to buy a truly bad bass now.

I'm not saying better instruments aren't better, of course, but the differences between expensive instruments and cheap ones are getting smaller and smaller and there are some very inexpensive basses out there (such as yours) that can very easily be considered gig-worthy on a professional level.

The days of kids learning on awful department store guitars are long over.
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Well said buddy, I couldn't agree more
 
#10
Lo-E said:
The days of kids learning on awful department store guitars are long over.
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Come to think of it, most of those department stores are no longer around!

There is now far less of a gap in quality between inexpensive and it's more costly brethren - people who can actually afford to spend more are now not adverse to picking up Squier basses, Sterling Sub basses and others. There are more bassists with more than one bass than ever before so yes, it is is a renaissance in a way.
 
#11
When I first started playing at the end of the '80s, there were a few entry level basses, and there were a larger number of better instruments, with a relatively small number of really high end bass makers. I started on an Aria Diamond, which is a pretty good bass for the $200 it cost at the time. My good bass was a Charvel 2B that I wish I still had, and I will replace. Anyway, that Charvel cost me something like $350 in late '80s dollars. I played for about 12 years, and took about a 15 year break. Fast forward to today, and not only are the entry basses much better than they ever were, there are relatively few in the middle compared to the old days, and quite a few at the top end that are making a successful living handmaking expensive basses. The money spent on a playable bass goes so much further its not even comparable to when I started.

The other oddity is that some of the basses that were 200-300 bucks back then are for some reason $1300 now. I still haven't figured that one out.
 
#12
Lo-E said:
We are living during a renaissance as far as cheap instruments goes. With the advent of modern manufacturing (Mostly CNC machining), it's almost impossible to buy a truly bad bass now....
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I believe the internet is largely to thank for this...Back in the day, facts about an instrument's qualities was hard to find. Now you go on-line and there's such a wealth of user feed-back and reviews around, that the makers know they won't survive producing complete garbage.
 
#15
Free market society caused this. As more budget priced basses were put into the market, the buyer no longer needed to settle for just anything within his/her price range, they now have quite a selection to choose from. Badly made basses won't be bought so manufacturers have to up the quality so it could compete with the others. We're getting to the point where especially in the recession, the $300-1000 price range is extremely competitive and quality, features have had to be bumped up considerably by the manufacturers. The Squier VM line and the Sterling Subs are examples of the increased quality/feature for the buck.

Back to the op's initial remark..Jay Turser basses are decent for the price. The actual manufacturing is done overseas- usually at the same factories that likely make budget basses for the more "famous brand name" companies so there really isn't all that much of a drop off in quality of build. If anything, the differences may be in the electronics and hardware and what they are told to use. Like you, I'm not adverse to trying anything that feels good these days, and I've been more than surprised by a lot of these "cheapo" basses. One that comes to mind is a Crate bass I saw not too long ago. It felt great to play- with a change in pickups and bridge, I can easily see how this can be a go-to bass. Only thing is that quality control is not quite as tight as some more established companies, so you can pick a great bass as easily as a lemon.
 
#16
bachlover said:
That works against us too. The days of walking into a pawnshop & picking up an old beat up looking Fender for a couple hundred bucks because the owner knew nothing about guitars are over.
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Yeah, I think the really spectacular deals like that are gone, but I bought an Ibanez GSR200 for $79 because it had skull control knobs and needed a cleaning and set up. They're harder to find, but deals are still to be had. The thing is, a lot of people know how to find them now, so if you're not first, you're not scoring the deal. :D
 
#18
Haji said:
Yeah, I think the really spectacular deals like that are gone, but I bought an Ibanez GSR200 for $79 because it had skull control knobs and needed a cleaning and set up. They're harder to find, but deals are still to be had. The thing is, a lot of people know how to find them now, so if you're not first, you're not scoring the deal. :D
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Craigslist is the place to go to these days- the deals to be had are there, pawn stores seem expensive now to me.
Besides, there may be options to trade other items you don't need for the bass with no cash even involved.
 

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