Bass recommendation

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:33 am

Did the band break up when a No Doubt-like romance sparked and then soured between you and the other guitarist shown there, or is that like your sister and really creepy?

Hey, I created a poll based on this conversation of choosing guitars. Check it out. It's for science. And posterity.

jack · Post by **jack** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:34 am

man roy, if you ever release an album, that picture needs to be the cover.

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:28 am

Henrietta wrote:I'm thinking of upgrading to the Soundgear SRX700 eventually.

Fricking fantastic bass for rock.

My $.02:

Ibanez is probably the way to go for basic quality for a good price. The fender stuff is pretty meh until you get to the mexican-made guitars, which bring you to the $400 range.

Now, the gsr-series bass is pretty much a template that Ibanez and a lot of other companies use. My first bass was a Clark that was the exact same bass as the gsr200. So you can find 'off-brand' basses that are perfect equivalents.

I would suggest buying new, as bass necks tend to do a lot more weird things over time than guitar necks, being longer and having greater string tension on them. If you do go used, just be really careful of the neck, make sure it doesn't have any weird humps or twists in it. Once a neck gets something nasty like that in it, you have to either replace the neck or get it steamed and reshaped, which runs at least $300.

If you also need an amp, just go ahead and get a package deal. Once again, I'd go with the ibanez pack that runs around $260, if I remember right. Don't go for the $200 one, that one sucks pretty bad.

EDIT: Daisy Rock guitars are cute and all, but.. I'm not even gonna start.

JB: as I've said before, any guitar can be set up to play good or bad. My buddy has a badass Tele that's unplayable, while my $50 Yamaha acoustic still plays fantastically. Now, factory setups are another thing. Generally, a USA Fender guitar will play great out of the box, while a Montana guitar will hurt. But a good tech should be able to reconcile any differences, with the exception of actual irreversible wood warping.

And enough with the pickup swapping, people. Don't buy a $100 guitar and put $200 worth of pickups into it. That's like putting $2,000 wheels on a crappy Honda Civic. When you're done, you still have a $100 guitar. Now, if you're in love with a guitar, that's all good and well, but pickups aren't the only thing that makes a guitar sound good. Wood, finish, hardware, and age (if laquered) all have equally integral effects on tonal quality.

Better yet, if you have $200 to spend, and you want your guitar to sound better, get $200 worth of guitar lessons.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:21 pm

The Sober Irishman wrote:If you also need an amp, just go ahead and get a package deal. Once again, I'd go with the ibanez pack that runs around $260, if I remember right. Don't go for the $200 one, that one sucks pretty bad.

You mean this one? That's actually one I've taken a look at before. I'm kinda drawn between paying $280 for a package, or paying $280 for a better bass. While it's nice to have the practice amp if you ever want to just jam w/ someone, we don't really need it to record. I dunno...thoughts?

Post by jb » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:24 pm

I have a $140 guitar with frets the edges of which are so sharp that after I finished playing it (the only time I played it much at all) my index finger was cut basically to shreds. Not really something that leaped out at me when I bought it, especially having bought it sight-unseen online.

You can set up a guitar properly, sure, but there are inherent differences in craftsmanship that you can't make up for with maintenance-- unless you start modifying the instrument.

Frets too high? Not spaced correctly? Sharp on the sides? Tuners don't stay in tune? Fingerboard pick up too much hand dirt, hard to keep clean? Sticky? Sharp crap on the bridge that hurts? Nut too high? Too heavy? Too light?

Some things are easier to correct than others. However, even the stuff that can be fixed easily is going to cost you money. More money than if you just bought something that works well in the first place-- if you replace the pickups you're essentially buying those parts TWICE, plus the labor to install them. Not saying you should never replace pickups, but for a beginner? On a beginner's instrument? Common sense. Plus they have to wait and go through a whole 'nother purchase/installation process when they could be making music and being successful.

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:03 pm

JB

If your frets are sharp on the edge, get a piece of sandpaper

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:45 pm

JB: I am not endorsing cheap guitars by any means

I'm just saying that setup is just as important to how a guitar feels as initial construction. In a perfect world, everyone could have a nice guitar, but this is Songfight.

If you don't care at all for an amp, then by all means, stay the hell away from a package. Your computer speakers will do just as good a job, as they're basically the same as a small bass amp.

What's the exact price range you want to nail down?

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:18 pm

Me$$iah wrote:JB

If your frets are sharp on the edge, get a piece of sandpaper

Sandpaper? On metal frets? On top of a wood fingerboard?

Sage advice indeed.

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:29 pm

KMS, with that TonePort you shouldn't need an amp for practice. If it's like my POD, it will have a "Tube Pre-Amp" setting or something like that. Anything clean should work with a touch of compression for sustain. Just keep the volume knobs no more than half open on the bass and use the master volume somewhere in the chain to make it loud enough for practice.

Play with the tone knob and any bass / treble adjustments on the TonePort to get the tone you want. If you record with it, just make sure it's not all low end because you really can't add anything but hiss at that point if you EQ on mixdown.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:52 pm

Dan-O from Five-O wrote: Just keep the volume knobs no more than half open on the bass and use the master volume somewhere in the chain to make it loud enough for practice.

Can you elaborate? Is that a good practice for regular guitar too?

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:12 pm

kill_me_sarah wrote:
Dan-O from Five-O wrote: Just keep the volume knobs no more than half open on the bass and use the master volume somewhere in the chain to make it loud enough for practice.
Can you elaborate? Is that a good practice for regular guitar too?

On bass, at least on mine (A Fender P-Bass), I find once I get past halfway on the volume the rest is just pushing the signall hotter and not a real volume increase. In other words, distortion.

On guitar this can be true as well depending on your pickups, but of course distorted guitar can be a good thing. Distorted bass is not always a good thing, unless that's the sound you're going for. I find the real benefit of tweaking your volume and tone knobs on guitar is that you can open up a lot of tone variables on a single guitar. This is especially true when you're talking about a gutar that has seperate volume and tone controls for each pickup, like on a Les Paul or a 335.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:25 pm

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:
Me$$iah wrote:JB

If your frets are sharp on the edge, get a piece of sandpaper
Sandpaper? On metal frets? On top of a wood fingerboard?

Sage advice indeed.

On wed, at band practice the frets on the extra bass (belongs to the drummer, and our bassist left his machine at home... ) were all sharp.

We used the strike pad from a pack of matches. Worked awesome. My idea.

I AM a genius... we had no file.

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:59 pm

Wusses. All knobs up to 10. No excuses.

(600th post)

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:06 pm

The Sober Irishman wrote:Wusses. All knobs up to 10. No excuses.

(600th post)

No need for crass-bragging Sober. I mean...c'mon. We're not all endowed like an Italian bullfighter.

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:17 pm

The Sober Irishman wrote:Wusses. All knobs up to 10. No excuses.

Mine goes to 11.

Who's the wuss now?

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:18 pm

OH YEAH?

I run our sound (vocals, bass, and guitar) through a Mackie>

Bass @ +15

Then through the Line 6 effects unit (for the noise gate, less feed back)

it's set at 7 1/2

to a power amp set at 10

so... thats

15
7.5
10
---
32.5

<font size="4">32.5</font> biatch!

blue · Post by **blue** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:10 pm

Hoblit wrote: <font size="4">32.5</font> biatch!

omg pwned

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 1:10 am

Eleven is one more, that's one louder than ten, isn't it?

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:42 pm

Thought I'd post a second recommendation question here. Since we have so many gear affficionados here (read: snobs

), I'm wondering if I were to get rid of my newly acquired Squier Strat and Fender practice amp and get, maybe $300 or so for it, what would be the next step up from my $150 Squier? I don't know if I'd be ready to drop $800 or more on an American Strat (unless I could find one closer to the $400-$500 range). Is there something in between? Or would you just say hold on to the Squier until you can go all the way?

I'm not unhappy with my Squier, but I bought it with an amp that I make almost no use of now that I have my TonePort, so I thought if I could sell the two and upgrade one, it might be worth it?

ken · Post by **ken** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:17 am

BOING!!!

Mexican Strat?

Ken

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:32 pm

used strat

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:49 pm

Hoblit wrote:used strat

American or Mexican? Can you get a used American for anywhere near that little?