What Pro uses a cheap bass?

[DanielleMuscato]

Most *real* pros use cheap basses. It's the hacks like me that spend thousands on a bass!

Very true. On the club circuit, you see mostly Fenders, Ibanezes, etc. I've very, very, very rarely seen Foderas, Warriors, MTDs etc in the hands of working players. Those are purchased by 40-something IT guys and lawyers who drive down the going rate of gigs for working players by playing for free, because they like the nostalgia associated with their college days of actually getting paid to play at bars

 

[SundanceChile]

So every new MusicMan and lots of Fenders are "crazy expensive"? Wow...

Amongst our own, a good deal of TB'rs would have no problem saving up/dropping 1-2k on a beautiful bass. However, you do have to take into consideration that you are paying 1-2k on a piece of wood, some metal, magnets, plastic, etc. assembled into an instrument. Once again, all IMO. I am now going to shut up before the flames start brewing.

 

[pbass2]

Those are purchased by 40-something IT guys and lawyers who drive down the going rate of gigs for working players by playing for free, because they like the nostalgia associated with their college days of actually getting paid to play at bars

? Hmm, I guess, I know what you mean--you can spot those guys a mile away usually, from the glint coming off their perfectly polished boutique bass. But then, those guys aren't really doing pro gigs anyways. I dunno, rock on, I say. I guess this is a whole 'nuther topic . . .

I like cheap basses, if they sound cool. If they look cool even better. But if I walk into a session with a pawn shop special 'cause I think it's nifty, I better damn well have a few other higher end options in my quiver too. But heck, sometimes the pawn shop bass ends up as the star of the session!

 

[not_jason]

So every new MusicMan and lots of Fenders are "crazy expensive"? Wow...

I'm sure a lot of people here would class me as a "hobbyist" and use it like a four letter word, because I play maybe one or two gigs a month (on average) in my band, usually unpaid. Still, I take my music very seriously, as well as my gear. I think 1,000 dollars for a bass is a lot of money. I'm 25 years old, and I work full time. Honestly I am lucky if I make 1000 dollars in a month. Between rent, bills, miscellaneous necessary expenses, there is pretty much completely no way I could justify paying over 1,000 dollars on a bass guitar. A few months ago I managed to drop 800 dollars on an amp, and that took me a LONG time to save up.

In my opinion, when you can get something that is entirely usable for under 300 bucks--and based on a lot of the praise that squier has been getting here recently for their VM line, I know a lot of you agree that it's possible--I think it's fair to say that 1,000 dollars counts as expensive. That's not to say that they aren't worth it, cause I've been totally lusting over the new American Fenders, but they are still expensive. I'm not saying that anybody is in the wrong for paying those kind of prices if you can swing them, but for me, the guy who has to scrape together loose change at the end of the month to avoid finding all his gear sitting on the curb with an eviction notice taped to it, it's a little bit painful to have a 1,000 dollar instrument dismissed in a general sense as inexpensive.

And if anyone really wants to argue the opposition, a good way to prove your point conclusively would be to send me a brand new MIA Standard Jazz Bass. IM me for the shipping address, and I'll make sure to watch for the UPS truck.

 

[worker201]

I think it's fair to say that 1,000 dollars counts as expensive. That's not to say that they aren't worth it, cause I've been totally lusting over the new American Fenders, but they are still expensive. I'm not saying that anybody is in the wrong for paying those kind of prices if you can swing them, but for me, the guy who has to scrape together loose change at the end of the month to avoid finding all his gear sitting on the curb with an eviction notice taped to it, it's a little bit painful to have a 1,000 dollar instrument dismissed in a general sense as inexpensive.

Amen, brother. Plus-one.

 

[mattygbass]

pino paladino uses a japanese squire jazz bass from the 80's.not his main bass but one of his favorites to record with roland bass synth.

 

[bassrique]

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

Haha, I remember that.

 

[optikhog]

Those are purchased by 40-something IT guys and lawyers who drive down the going rate of gigs for working players by playing for free, because they like the nostalgia associated with their college days of actually getting paid to play at bars

Hey, I resemble that remark!

 

[jim primate]

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.

beat me to it, stranger.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Very true. On the club circuit, you see mostly Fenders, Ibanezes, etc. I've very, very, very rarely seen Foderas, Warriors, MTDs etc in the hands of working players. Those are purchased by 40-something IT guys and lawyers who drive down the going rate of gigs for working players by playing for free, because they like the nostalgia associated with their college days of actually getting paid to play at bars

We don't play for free but we're not getting rich, either. Our band plays the "fraternal organization" circuit (Moose, Elks, barbecues, fundraisers, etc). We're lucky to get $400 a night but will play for a reduced fee (sometimes for nothing it its a charitable event) provided we get fed. I like to think we fill a market void.

Its not nostalgia, trust me...we're just still trying to get laid.

Riis

 

[Fezzey]

This is hearsay, but my cousin has done some session work with Ralphe Armstrong in Detroit and Ralphe Armstrong told him that he did an entire session with Aretha Franklin playing a Fender Mexican Precision.

For those of you who do not know who Ralphe Armstrong is, he beat out Jaco Pastorius at an audition for Jean Luc Ponty's band when he was 17 years old!

 

[Polk Salad]

Paul McCartney. When he got his first Höfner 500/1 it was a cheap bass.

That is a great, if not THE classic example.

 

[Polk Salad]

I bought my DeArmond pilot on Craig's list for 80$. I've had 3 producers complement me on the tone of it. New I think they cost $350. If I ever spent more than 500$ on a bass, I don't think I'd ever play it for fear of it getting stolen/ruined. In the end it's how you play, not what you play.

+1

 

[Would'e?]

Very true. On the club circuit, you see mostly Fenders, Ibanezes, etc. I've very, very, very rarely seen Foderas, Warriors, MTDs etc in the hands of working players. Those are purchased by 40-something IT guys and lawyers who drive down the going rate of gigs for working players by playing for free, because they like the nostalgia associated with their college days of actually getting paid to play at bars

Of course for every rule there is [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

 

[pedro]

For those of you who do not know who Ralphe Armstrong is, he beat out Jaco Pastorius at an audition for Jean Luc Ponty's band when he was 17 years old!

Yes that's the story he circulates but I have my doubts.

 

[BillyRay]

On the guitar side, Queen's guitarist used the same homemade guitar on all the records.

From Wikipedia:

Unlike the primary instruments of most musicians, May and his father, Harold, built the original Red Special guitar themselves. They began to work on the guitar in August of 1963. Most of the wood came from an 18th century fireplace mantel that a friend of the family was about to throw away. The neck was hand-shaped until it reached the desired form, which was difficult due to the age and quality of the wood. According to May, there are two wormholes in the neck of the guitar.[1]

The neck was finished with a 24 fret oak fingerboard. Each of the position inlays were hand shaped from mother-of-pearl buttons. May decided to position them in a personal way: two dots at 7th and 19th fret and three at 12th and 24th.

The body was made from oak, blockboard and mahogany veneer; the final result was a sort of semi-acoustic guitar—the central block is glued to the sides and covered with two mahogany sheets to give it the appearance of a solid-body guitar. White shelf edging was then applied as binding. It was then completed with three pickups and a custom-made bridge. May purchased a set of Burns Tri-Sonic pickups but re-wound them with reverse wound/reverse polarity and "potted" the coils with Araldite epoxy to reduce microphonics. He originally wound his own pickups, as he had for his first guitar, but he did not like the resulting sound using bending because of the polarity of these pickups: alternating North-South instead of all North.

The tremolo system is made from an old hardened-steel knife-edge shaped into a V and two motorbike valve springs to counter the string tension. The tension of the springs is adjustable by screwing the bolts, which run through the middle of the springs, in or out via 2 small access holes next to the rear strap button. To reduce friction, the bridge was completed with rollers to allow the strings to return perfectly in tune after using the tremolo arm (the arm itself was from a bicycle saddlebag holder with a plastic knitting needle tip). For the same reason, at the other end of the neck the strings pass over a zero fret and through a bakelite string guide.

Originally the guitar had a built in distortion circuit, adapted from a mid-1960s Vox distortion unit. The switch for this was in front of the phase switches. May soon discovered that he preferred the sound of a Vox AC30 distorting at full power, so the circuit was removed. The switch hole is now covered by a mother-of-pearl star inlay, but was originally covered by insulation tape.

He still uses the original but he has been using replicas in some performances since his own company (Brian May Guitars) builds this instrument. One of the most well known occasions on which the original guitar was not used is in the video We Will Rock You, since he did not want to expose the Red Special to snow.

 

[Muddslide]

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.

Really? Man, Sims is one of my favorite players. Big influence on me from way back when he was in Scratch Acid. I had no idea. Can I ask where you heard this? (Not that I don't believe, just curious...)

I was lucky enough to see Jesus Lizard on the Liar tour at the Metro in Chicago. As I recall, he didn't even use any pedals whatsoever--just a P-bass into amps.

(on edit): Well, I say it was a P-bass, but the only pics I see of him he's playing a burst Jazz with a back-block maple neck...as a matter of fact, it looks like it might have a Memphis logo on the headstock.

Anyway, maybe I am wrong.

 

[coreyfyfe]

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.

Happened to a friend of mine. He went into the studio with an ibanez, they made him record with their vintage p-bass. Granted it was a cheap ibanez, but it definitely had a different sound than the classic p-bass thump.

 

[ksandvik]

Check out the latest 2008 Ibanez bass catalogue. The pictures of artists playing inexpensive Ibanez gear is interesting. Just shows that with modern CNC manufacturing you could get a really good bass for a decent price. And as we all know, a large part of the bass sound is really from the fingers...

--Kent

 

[Eric Perry]

That is a great, if not THE classic example.

Didn't he used to string it with piano wire as well? I remember reading he was too poor to afford bass strings, and the piano wire tore the HELL out of his fingers!