+1. Owning a Stradivarius will not make you a great violinist. That said, if you can afford a Stradivarius what's wrong with owning one?
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What is Your Price Comfort Level?
- Thread starter Dr. Cheese
- Start date
+1. Owning a Stradivarius will not make you a great violinist. That said, if you can afford a Stradivarius what's wrong with owning one?
Agreed.
I felt guilty going for the Rob Allen MB2-5 a couple of years back, but I did keep it in budget: wood choice, extras. Rob was great working that out. > $2000? Yes. But that is one unique, beautiful bass that I play out, constantly.
It's not a "boutique" thing; you simply can't buy that particular sound and feel for less money
A bass _is_ an inanimate object. POV has nothing to do with it - sorry, but your bass is dead as doornail. Even the wood in it died a long time ago and the rest of it was never alive to begin with.
Goes back to that dead bass thing. The bass isn't the living thing, the player is. All the bass has to do is fit the player and generate the basic tone the player needs. Or as Michael Tobias says "it has to play in tune and please the owner". That's it.
As for the player, starving yourself in a monastery strikes me as a pretty non-productive approach. Instead, you're a lot better served, IMO, if you get a bass that fits you and produces the tone you need. Trying to suit some other purpose would seem to me to be a waste of time and money.
But like everything else, it's a compromise. If you have to hock the wife and kids to pay for it, for example, it may not be the best compromise. You may have to add some wiggle room if it's getting to that point.
And it could be the need really isn't that great and your skills don't actually demand that level of commitment, at least not at that time.
But again, fit and tone - those are primary. Fortunately, we're in the good old days of basses now, with an amazing array of choices available to us at really good price points. I.e. my Carvin Bunny has spoiled me for pretty much any other bass, except perhaps my L2K. And at only about 1.2 large. So it wasn't that expensive of a place to land. It fits me and generates the tone I need. What more could I want?
LS
I'm not sure what my limit would be. Comfort level is probably about $300. This evening I just let a Gibson SB-300 pass on to someone else. This eBay auction had two hours left on it and not one person had bid on this bass. I watched and watched and thought. Finally one person bid and won it for $699.
Here is the link:
GIBSON SB-300 BASS GUITAR 71/72 VINTAGE VERY RARE! | eBay
Here is the link:
GIBSON SB-300 BASS GUITAR 71/72 VINTAGE VERY RARE! | eBay
As an eBay Associate, TalkBass may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
$3500 is the highest I'm willing to pay for anything. Anything I could ever want in a custom at the highest level of build quality is a available for around this price and less.
Getting caught up in the importance of money and saving it, holding onto it or an object isn't going to make you better. I wanted to play a seven string because I heard something in my head I wanted to get out. I did that and moved on. Enjoying a fretless squier right now. It was, and is about the playing, not the money.
unclejane said:
While true from a literal viewpoint, IMHO there is more to it than that. Just as you can boil music down to math, you can say a bass is a dead hunk of material bits. But I think music is more than math and instruments are sometimes more that just an assembly of parts. But in the end, whatever works for the individual is right for the individual. It might not, however, generalize. Rationalization is evident in every post here. Just depends on your biases.
I can identify with how you feel about your Bunny Brunel Sig. I have owned some really expensive basses but I have often been very, very happy with basses that were either moderate in price or even inexpensive. For example, as much I loved my Ken Smith and SSD basses, I honestly cannot say that either of them was better than any Stingray I have ever had or better than the older TRB6 or TRB5s I have owned. I guess the one exception is that as much as I love Fenders, the Sadowskys I have played were clearly better basses.
Before I get too far off topic, I feel I am in a bit of a dilemma in that I have been able to recently pick up a mint 2001 TRB5 II that totally nails what I love in modern, active bass. I also have a lead on a MIA Peavey Millennium. If I end with both of these basses, I will have barely topped $1K. Although I am an eternal GAS fiend, I consider myself fortunate that I genuinely like basses that can be had for fairly low coin.
Interesting. You can't do both? I've been playing over 30 years and am frequently inspired by new/different gear.
I do think instruments are animated, they do all have an individual character sound-wise, ascetically and connect in different way's. I don't see them in monetary value so much now, but in as much as the worth to the player, which is personal choice, your 'cup o' tea', whatever price that comes at.
For me, it seems to go up in time.
Spent about $1,200 for a MusicMan a few years ago, and I thought that was a lot.
Just grabbed a Mike Lull M4V for $1,700. That's the new ceiling for me.
Spent about $1,200 for a MusicMan a few years ago, and I thought that was a lot.
Just grabbed a Mike Lull M4V for $1,700. That's the new ceiling for me.
Exactly what is the "more to it than that"? Can you define whatever this undefinable quality is in reality-based terms?
My question is partly rhetorical, but the point should be clear. There's nothing cosmic about a bass. It's a piece of wood (or composite) with strings on it and some electronics embedded in the body.
And when it comes to cost, this becomes extremely important - you can pay $1200 for a block of wood or $12,000 for a block of wood. If you think there's something supernatural going on, you can be convinced towards the $12,000 option when in fact it doesn't give you what you need any better than the $1200 option. So this piece of folklore about more than the sum of its parts, etc., can be very costly if it catches a victim unawares.
I submit that only fit and tone - real world measurable properties - should drive the choice, not cosmic ones.
I'm in favor of rational choices, not necessarily rationalization. Like I said, if you're taking grandma and kids down to the pawn shop to get the finances for it, you need to be certain you've made the right (rational) choice.
LS
This might sound strange, however every piece of gear I own and my bass was all bought used and the best thing is I got it all at steal prices (no I did not actually steal it). I can understand why people may spend thousands on a bass, you would like to think most of the time the phrase "you get what you pay for" holds true, however I have spent less than $1500 on my whole bass setup I use and most importantly it just works for me. Discount or used is not always a bad route to go, plus I don't feel too bad when I put scratches on my bass or get a tolex rip on my cab 
Well I don't think it's too self-indulgent to say that I finally ended up at the Bunny through a rational consideration of what my needs are as a player:
- Clean, clear, even notes with good mid and upper midbass definition
- must be balanced on the strap
- reasonably thin neck
- humbucker style pickup centered about 3" from the bridge
- passive mode available
- available in unlined fretless, preferably for no extra cost or delivery time.
A lot of basses do this compromise really well, but the Bunny 4 string turns out to be the block of wood that fits those requirements the closest (and at any cost). In fact, I've played basses costing 10 times what my Bunny does and several of those were actually among the worst at conforming to this particular compromise.
But like I said, there's nothing ethereal about choosing a bass. It has to fit, has to sound the way you want and fit into your budget.
Before I get too far off topic, I feel I am in a bit of a dilemma in that I have been able to recently pick up a mint 2001 TRB5 II that totally nails what I love in modern, active bass. I also have a lead on a MIA Peavey Millennium. If I end with both of these basses, I will have barely topped $1K. Although I am an eternal GAS fiend, I consider myself fortunate that I genuinely like basses that can be had for fairly low coin.
I too am in favor of inexpensive. But it's also true that an expensive bass may be the best compromise in terms of fit and tone for a given player, and in that situation, the cost is justified.
This does seem to be relatively rare, tho, having heard a lot of these guys who claim they need the expensive instrument play over the years. But it does happen.
LS
I think we are saying the same things. A bass needs to fit your needs. It does not need to be expensive, but it just might be expensive. If we are intelligent, we come to learn what works for us. We also must accept that others generally know what works for them too.
This makes me think of Janek Gwizdala criticizing John Pattitucci for using a Yamaha Sig. Gwizdala sounds great on his Fodera, and he is successful, case closed. For the life of me, I think the same can be said for Pattitucci (heck JP Sigs really aren't that cheap anyway, they sell for $2.5K new, and that exact same bass made by Fodera would probably run $6K.) My point is that these are two world clas musicians, and both know what works for them.
I have a <€200 washburn T12 and it plays very nice for the price i payed.
and i made a bass for something like 200 euro(the pickup was almost 50% of the bass cost)
so for me it is 200 euro.
and i made a bass for something like 200 euro(the pickup was almost 50% of the bass cost)
so for me it is 200 euro.
My comfort level for price = whatever cash I've got stashed away in the "bass jar". I'd have to be absolutely desperate to have a particular instrument if I needed to funnel money from any other source towards the cost. I don't have a set limit for how much I'd spend, it just depends on how long I've been tossing the occasional handful of spare change or $5 bills into that jar! After a while it really adds up, and it's nice to be able to just walk into the shop, pay cash, and walk out with an instrument that I don't owe anyone money over. Don't think I'd ever feel comfortable putting a bass on the credit card.
