went to a local pricey small music store to play a lot and buy nothing

I went and spent about 2.5 hours today looking for a possible back up bass. I went by a local smaller music store (high priced) and tried out a bunch of basses. My main bass is a Carvin LB70 with J99 and Basslines pickups and my other basses are all weird unique basses.
Here are my feelings on what I played:

Warwick Corvette Std 4 string passive model: did not like this bass at all. It hummed and buzzed like crazy and I didn't really get into the passive sound. It had very weak output.

Warwick Thumb 5 string bolt on: Very unique and funky sound that I really liked, but it wasn't very veritile - most settings just sounded about the same. Very neck heavy. It also really showed me that I prefer 4 string basses. The B-string mainly got in my way (I'm sure that would improve with time, but I just don't really get into it. Could be fun in a four string version as a distant future bass, but IMHO it is the ugliest of all Warwick basses (except maybe the Dolphin).

Ibanez BTB400 (?) 4 string: This was a surprisingly OK bass. It wasn't super, mainly becasue the pickups sounded a little thin, but it wasn't bad either.

Tobias Killer B 5 string: If I had to have a 5 string this is what I would go for. This was a very good bass, but 5 strings really aren't my thing. Maybe if I could find a cheap 4 string version. This bass had very good sound from the bart pickups and a lot of tonal options (warm to bright and slappy). the B string was the tightest of the few 5 strings I tried.

Peavey Millenium 5 string: again they didn't have the 4 string version. The B was a little floppy, but overall this bass has good sound. The pickups aren't spectacular and the pre-amp didn't give too much of a tonal change (maybe a weak battery). This is a very attractive bass (nice flame top, birdseye maple fretboard).

Epiphone Jack Cassidy: Played fairly well. nice sound, but the pickup rotary switch made absolutely no change to the sound when moved (probably a broken wire or something). I don't really care for the gold top. If I were going to go semihollow, this would probably be the bass I would choose.

Guild Starfire II: pretty bass. would have been better if it actually worked when plugged in. It was completely dead. Sounded OK unplugged. The neck was a little small for my tastes as I kept pulling the G off of the side of the board.

MIM Fender Jazz: This bass just plain sucked. very poorly put together and buzzed beyond belief. Also I am not really a Fender type of person. I know there are some better MIMs out there, but this one was really bad.

MIA Fender Jazz with custom flamed body front and back with a very nice light sunburst finish: The best of all of the 4 string basses I played. Very nice feel and great sound for a passive bass (I typically like active basses better). And even though i stated in the previous post that I am not really a fender kind of person, I could almost consider this one (more so if it were the deluxe active model and weren't $1500 )
That's a little bit of a high price for a backup and I still like the sound and feel of my Carvin better.

Well that was my adventure for today. I think the next basses I want to try (even though they are expensive) are a Modulus Flea, Warwick Streamer Stage II, and maybe an MTD. I wish they had a 4 string kingston for me to try, but this store didn't carry MTD basses.

-KB

 

I just figured I would share my impressions of these basses in case anyone else was looking into any of them. and also hopefully looking for some advice for a cheaper but good backup bass. The only one I tried that is really close to the back up bass price range (<$500 for me) was the Ibanez BTB.
I know at this point I couldn't afford any of the more expensive basses I tried, but I wanted to see it they were really worth it IMHO. Unless anyone wants to make a donation to my back-up bass fund

-KB