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What Pro uses a cheap bass?
- Thread starter Surprise Panda!
- Start date
^^^ Understatement Of The Year!
To the OP: I think Abe Laboriel played most of his tracks in the 1970s & 80s on a Goya or some equally no-name axe. And Baghitti Kumalo used a low-end Washburn until he got famous.
Its not unusal at all to see guys playing Epiphone basses. I am guessing this has more to do with endosrements. And even some of the stock Epiphone stuff does approach a grand.
Punk rockers and new wave used to get away with some real junk. Tina Weymouth paraded out a lot of crap before she settled into the the short scale Fenders. I saw Devo and they had a couple of Sears catalog instruments, I swear.
Punk rockers and new wave used to get away with some real junk. Tina Weymouth paraded out a lot of crap before she settled into the the short scale Fenders. I saw Devo and they had a couple of Sears catalog instruments, I swear.
Oh I'd love to hear more about this because quite honestly I'm looking at a naked emperor. Yeah, I get that the finish is better, better materials, etc. But I can't for the life of me see a 10x difference between a $200 import and a $2000 custom. Personally, I love dinking around with a variety of basses and simply couldn't do that if I had a true high dollar one. Plus I'd be nervous as sh*t about taking it out to some bar jam.
Just on years of production alone this is nowhere near possible.
Hear! Hear! I've got some nice instruments, but every time I see a great player playing what is clearly their only beat to sh## P or Jazz, I have to wonder why I don't ell them all and just use my old ESP P clone.
Yeah, but then she settled into a Veilette-Citron, aka an "East Coast Alembic", a bass much more commensurate with boutique-y TalkBass status quo than any short scale Fender!
I really understand where you are coming from. My main bass for a several years was a Brice fretless 5, and before that a Peavey Forum (great neck actually on that!). Neither of them bad instruments at all and I wondered what the fuss about high end basses was (not to mention I couldn';t really afford them). The fenders I'd played in the past (like an old p bass) were nothing that exciting.
Increasingly frustrated with the brice (feedback from pickups, just a bit bored of it) I got a spector NS euro fretless five 18 months ago
for a grand used and OMG.... its literally night and day.
The build quality, playability and tone are just fantastic.
Now if you DON'T want growl and that EMG active sound, then this is not the bass to use, and the Forum will certainly be better suited to some tasks.
I also babied the spector for a while and kept it studio only, but the first time I took it to practice I knew I couldn't go back
The brice is let down by weak electronics - but does have a good b string and a particular 'woody' tone. new pickups/preamp would help a lot (I have an Agile baritone guitar...very nice, better than the brice actually in overall quality)
The spector is a much better player to my hands tho.
So, I'd say 2-3 times as good.... and well worth the cash.
Increasingly frustrated with the brice (feedback from pickups, just a bit bored of it) I got a spector NS euro fretless five 18 months ago
for a grand used and OMG.... its literally night and day.
The build quality, playability and tone are just fantastic.
Now if you DON'T want growl and that EMG active sound, then this is not the bass to use, and the Forum will certainly be better suited to some tasks.
I also babied the spector for a while and kept it studio only, but the first time I took it to practice I knew I couldn't go back
The brice is let down by weak electronics - but does have a good b string and a particular 'woody' tone. new pickups/preamp would help a lot (I have an Agile baritone guitar...very nice, better than the brice actually in overall quality)
The spector is a much better player to my hands tho.
So, I'd say 2-3 times as good.... and well worth the cash.
David Wm Sims recorded all the Jesus Lizard records on a Memphis jazz bass copy. Among the best sounding bass tracks I've ever heard.
Isn't Geddy's original MIM Fender Jazz, as in before Fender made his sig model, something he found at a pawn shop?
And then they made it his sig model and added $500 to the price tag??
I have the Bass Player from some months ago with his interview. Some reason I recall him mentioning this in it. I'll have to revisit it.
Nevermind...I'm mistaken...
Found this on Wikepedia: This "signature" model is a recreation of Lee's favorite bass, a 1972 Fender Jazz that he bought in a pawn shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
So I guess technically it's not a 'cheap' bass although he probably bought it for cheap if the pawn shop owner didn't know any better what he had in his shop!
And then they made it his sig model and added $500 to the price tag??
I have the Bass Player from some months ago with his interview. Some reason I recall him mentioning this in it. I'll have to revisit it.
Nevermind...I'm mistaken...
Found this on Wikepedia: This "signature" model is a recreation of Lee's favorite bass, a 1972 Fender Jazz that he bought in a pawn shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
So I guess technically it's not a 'cheap' bass although he probably bought it for cheap if the pawn shop owner didn't know any better what he had in his shop!
I've never had an engineer ask me to change basses. Where do you get this stuff... And how the hell would they know how much I paid for the bass???
The only thing they care about is a clean signal and good tone. Not the price of the instrument.
I'm not a big TOOL fan but I seem to remember hearing that a lot of guitar work for one of the records was done on an Indo Squier.
It's easy to get good tone out of a cheap instrument... it will just look rough. And maybe not get as low action as something with a better fret job.
Look what Jaco did on a beat up old Jazz bass. That bass couldn't have cost more than a couple hundred bucks new...
Yeah.. the way it works (in my experience) is they just send money, either to you or the studio directly.... they don't know what you're playing on. They just want to hear what it sounds like every couple sessions to make sure it's not a bunch of crap being recorded. They don't know/care/think about the cost or name of the instrument you are using.
I highly doubt that. Adam Jones famously uses Gibson Silverburst Les Pauls almost exclusively and is on record as saying that the finish on that particular model significantly colors his sound.
The actual 72 jazz bass that the sig model was created to replicate was something he found at a pawn shop. Again, I don't consider a 72 Jazz cheap, but I'm sure he got it for cheap.
When you say "cheap", I think Teisco del Rey, Lafayette, Heathkit, Zimgar, Conrad, Segova, etc. The re-appearance of any of these would impress the hell out of me.
Used to be column in Guitar Player like "Cheap Thrills and Pawnshop Prizes". The author had a thing for the Italian "blender" instruments (10 or 12 push buttons that did little or nothing).
Riis
Used to be column in Guitar Player like "Cheap Thrills and Pawnshop Prizes". The author had a thing for the Italian "blender" instruments (10 or 12 push buttons that did little or nothing).
Riis
