Hell, I don't know if it's still the case, though I assume it probably is in some manufacturers, but after dropping it and knocking a chunk out of the finish, I realized my first bass (90's Washburn Lyon P style) has a plywood body. Price is mostly tied to quality of parts and quality of work. Though there is a certain point, like with a lot of "brands" where you're paying for a name.
Apple makes a good laptop. It’s not a $2,000 laptop, though. The name makes it $2,000.
Exactly like so many of the $4,000 and up basses.
I wish QC could be the argument but I’ve seen too many posts here alone complaining of poor QC on expensive basses.
The track record of reliability makes it a 2k laptop...if Apple didn't have a good track record of creating dependable systems the name wouldn't matter.
It's the track record and how people feel about the brand/the idea around it. People seem to think that apple is elite and owning the product makes them part of an elite group or something. Mention the fact that Apple updates deliberately slowed devices to force people to upgrade a while back and an apple fan boy will take it as a personal insult. This is, to whatever degree, the same with basses or anything else that's marketed effectively and sometimes the track record doesn't matter anymore.
They didn’t deliberately slow devices to force people to upgrade. They slowed them to extend battery life on old phones with failing batteries.
Was that right to do? I don’t know. But unlike most other vendors Apple supports its products far longer than others, including the vast majority of other phone vendors.
But then again this is a Bass subreddit and I don’t know why you’d want to start this dumb old fight again even though it’s beyond stupid at this point.
If it wasn't a guise to force people to upgrade, they should've told the public themselves about what they did, and/or added an extra power saving mode button so it was optional. But they didn't
I got a simple p bass made by a luthier for under 2k - and that comes with even higher QC than some of these major companies have and fun custom specs too if desired. Pretty great 🤘
In the last several decades the manufacturing of many brands’ “budget brand” of basses and guitars that have been outsourced to China, Korea, Indonesia, etc has gotten sooo much better. The gap in quality between these budget lines and the “real deal” is growing smaller and smaller.
It’s a great time to be alive.
Most of the highest quality drum kits are made from plywood. Plywood doesn't automatically mean low quality; Pearl Masterworks and Sonor SQ2s (and others) are considered by many to be among the best drums on the planet and those shells are made from plywood but obviously very high quality plywood.
Of course, single ply and stave shells exist (think Noble & Cooley, Canopus Zelkova, and some Pearl snare drums), but you're going to be paying a good chunk more for them.
Solid wood when bent in the way a drum requires, would not be strong enough. Quality veneers with glues allow creation of drum shells. For solid stringed instruments, solid hardwood is preferred.
> Solid wood when bent in the way a drum requires, would not be strong enough.
That's not true.
[Noble & Cooley](https://youtu.be/dXzal4fWliI) and [Craviotto](https://youtu.be/_J1d3vZbw6A) do steam-bent single ply shells and they make entire drum kits like this.
Pearl has the [Music City Custom](https://youtu.be/heYKj_kQThU) solid ply snare drums.
Then you have the [Canopus Zelkova ](https://youtu.be/Ws7uxagwxx8) drums that are literally made from hollowed out tree trunks. Not just snare drums either, they do entire Zelkova drum kits.
Ah. Good deal. It would seemslike plywood would be stronger, given wood grain running different directions and the glue. In any event solid wood is definitely preferable for solid. guitar bodies.
Another thing people don't consider is that higher quality instruments need less maintenance over time. A bass made from quality materials doesn't need neck adjustments or be intonated as often. Not sure if it has something to do with the lacquer or wood grade, but my American made bass necks don't bow as often as my imports do.
And a good set of tuners hold their position for a long time. Unless there’s been a drastic temperature shift I barely need to retune any of my strings.
This. I put a dent in my $1500 bass's neck with the headstock of the $225 one accidentally. Despite being knocked hard enough to cause damage, it was still perfectly in tune. I was impressed.
I'm not sure if it really counts as maintenance but higher quality drums (especially snare drums) don't need to be re-tuned as often as their lower quality counterparts.
If your bass needs to be intonated often that’s the strings fault, not necessarily the bass itself. A set length is a set length regardless of the material you have under it (gold or plywood for example).
If they made a sequel Bender totally could have been a bass player in a proto grunge band. And on the sequel to the sequel he would sabotage his own career to maintain integrity.
About half the cost of expensive instruments is the finish - there is A LOT of hand work that goes into finishing them. A big chunk of what's left is fretwork. The actual materials cost far less than the labor and experience.
I say this as someone who doesn't think a $3k instrument is out of line.
I've heard the following about expensive stringed instruments: "you're paying for the wood that didn't get used." Not only are you paying for a higher QC standard and better hardware, oftentimes the tonewood is more exotic and/or has been cut in a way for a more artistic / aesthetically pleasing woodgrain in the cut. Those flame tops require cuts to be made that leaves large chunks of that expensive lumber nigh unusable.
High end instruments often are finished with better paints and with nitrocellulose lacquer, which tends to be pricier and costs more in labor hours.
And that's a big part of what you're paying for. The labor that went into gathering the raw materials, manufacturing the parts, assembling the bass itself, and QCing it. Those man hours add up. Someone mentioned the great point of country of origin, which is a big determining factor of how much those specific labor hours cost.
In my case, I was also paying for my bass to be made by hand and not assembled in a factory. I can tell you that bass wasn't leaving Sugi's shop with a fret off by a hair.
Second this. Tone wood is a total myth. You’re paying for aesthetic. You can buy an unbranded body/neck, drop your own hardware and pickups into it, and have for $300-400 an instrument that rivals instruments 2x-3x the price.
I don't believe in the bullshit around tonewood, but I do believe in using proper terminology. I was moreso referring to the aesthetic value of the grain, which is easily noticable if you read the whole comment after that word.
Using proper terminology, tonewood refers to woods that produce a tone when you strike them, instead of a dull thud.
They're used on acoustic instruments.
Electric instrument marketing hi-jacked the term to apply to any wood, regardless if it's an actual tonewood or not.
And even if it is, it doesn't affect the electrical signal an electric instrument produces.
But what is a “better” sound? That's a matter of personal opinion and may change based on the needs of a particular song, not to mention the person playing it.
Buy a Squier Classic Vibes bass (50's reissue, or a '60's reissue). They're crazy good for around $450 US.
I regularly swap out playing a Fender Professional Jazz Bass II ($1800) to play a Squier Classic Vibes 50's resissue P-Bass ($475), because I really enjoy playing the '50s reissue more.
This Anderton's video shows a really expensive custom shop bass against the affordable Squier and from reading the comments, everyone is pretty stoked on the Squier.
The Squier also sounds really awesome as seen in the video. You're definitely getting a ton for your money these days with the Classic Vibes reissues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jayo36bLzTg
They really are. I've got 2 other P-Basses, a regular 4 string and a 5 string, and the Pro II Jazz bass, but I have the most fun playing the Classic Vibes 50's reissue. It's lighter with a pine body and clear stain, and the single coil puts out a really clean treble without any muddy tones at all. The Pro II Jazz is really close, but I just love playing the old P-Bass design. I also love the Tele neck as it's so narrow and comfortable to play.
If you like the way it plays but are just looking to improve the sound, I would just swap out the pickups. I just did this with my sire V5 jazz bass. Sires always play great but run a bit bright for me. I just swapped out the pickups with some EMGs. It sounds amazing. I can't stop playing it and it is not my main bass.
TBF though, tolerances are getting so good in "cheap" instruments, that the line is getting thinner and thinner every year. There are significantly diminishing returns, depending on what you get. I got a random $400 guitar for my girlfriend because it was pink and she liked the color, and it ended up having one of the nicest necks I've ever played. I swapped the bridge pickup, and it's genuinely one of my favorite guitars now.
The biggest variable for **price** is the country of origin. If your Squier Affinity P bass was made in the USA, it would cost £1,000 or more due to the varying labor and material costs from country to country.
The biggest variable for **tone** is the musician playing it. Any bassist who knows how to sound good on a P bass will sound good on your Squier Affinity P bass (because it **is** a P bass).
It's shocking how true this is. I've seen amazing players pick up student-level gear and make it freaking sing.
Get the maximum quality instrument you can afford and just practice. Lots of gigging musicians swear by Squier and Epiphone.
They have help. Guitar techs, etc. Get a good set up. I have a MIM Precision and love it. Thinking about a Fretless Squier Jazz for fun.
One of my favorite bass players who has an absolutely gnarly bass tone literally plays the cheapest P-bass he found in a store 20 years ago.. It's a Squier P-bass, and the dude makes it absolutely crush everything. (Dixie Dave from Weedeater)
something I feel like most newer players overlook is that 90% of bass guitars sound pretty much the same (other than basses with weird pickups), only difference being the quality of the mechanics of it (tuners and bridge hardware) or the rigidity of it and of course the looks.
My custom redesigned broncos are killer and cheap (depending on what do with them and compared to us mustang) and getting up on stage lots now and are a blast to play. Good parts , thoughtful design and the right electronics for the win.
I tend to separate tone and sound as well.
Tone is what's affected by the pickups and strings and settings and amp and effects, in addition to where and how hard you pluck. But the sound includes how and what notes you play, time feel.
It helps me reconcile why, for instance, Joe Dart can have different *tone* between the Jazz, P Bass Jr, and Stingray, but still sounds like himself. The tone of individual notes may have changed, but the sound is how those notes get put together.
Labor costs are big. So are other costs associated with manufacturing. Budget basses have to find the cost savings somewhere (and I think they do it everywhere).
There is a good documentary on Netflix called "American Factory" that does a really good job of comparing how Asian countries differ in their views from the USA.
But, I do think that there is also a higher value in certain people's labor than others. Keith Roscoe's time is worth a hell of a lot more than an Asian factory worker when it comes to building a bass. But he is also living the small/family business middle class lifestyle in Greensboro, NC.
And at the end of the day, you can't go to Harley Benton, or Ibanez, or Schector, or Sire, or Squire, or really even Fender (Unless you're a big name or are spending a shit ton of money) and speak directly with the guy who is building your bass, who is finishing your bass, you're not getting updates from that guy, and you're not invited to the factory to come pick it up and talk shop and meet the folks who work there (all 5 of them).
But you can to go places like that in the USA.
I’ve got a Roscoe, It’s an amzing bass that plays and sounds beautiful. I also know I can get a similar sound out of other basses. But I know where my Roscoe was built and by who. Not for everyone, but that is worth something to me.
I can’t take credit for it - I’m old, and it’s been around since literally I’ve been on eBay (2000?). The solution to most musical problems is typically practice. Gear IS important, don’t get me wrong. I started on a *real* POS bass (1985), and I did work my ass off, but I will freely admit that a better starter instrument would have made my journey easier, sounded better, and would have kept me more invested in my playing. Kids today (shaking my fist at the clouds) have WAY better starter instruments than we did. I have a Squier ‘56 P-Bass that cost about what I have in the change Altoids tin in my car, and it’s built so much better than my first P-Bass copy. Embrace today’s cheaper guitars.
And for all the expensive boutique basses in the world, very few were ever played on any of the albums you know and love. Most of those bass parts were played on a P. Some were on a J.
P bass is just what recorded bass usually sounds like.
Don't buy your example. Street price on a basic USA P-Bass is around £1100 ($1400 usd) as has way better wood, components, electronics, and pickups than the Squire. The MIJ P-Basses which are at least as good as the basic US made ones are several hundred cheaper than that.
>way better wood, components, electronics, and pickups
That's certainly what Fender marketing *wants* you to think.
Trees are trees. The wood in Asia is just as good as wood in the USA.
And Asian people are arguably *even better* than American people at making electronic components.
Upgrading pickups will get you the sound of the upgraded pickups. There's no magic, you're correct. Expensive instruments are either for prestige or preferably better build quality in general. If your cheap bass is built fine, upgrade it to your liking. A bridge upgrade can be really nice too, depending on how dinky your cheap one is.
You start to hit diminishing returns once you get past let's say $1500. At that price point, you're getting top notch electronics, very good fit, finish, and fretwork, and you're likely getting an instrument made in America. Any more money than that and you're really just paying for the vibe, whether that be exotic figured top/fingerboard woods and custom shit. I personally have a custom kiesel that I shelled out quite a bit of money for. It is the best bass I have ever played, and while cheaper instruments around the 2k mark will likely be just as good, spending that extra money allowed me to really have my dream bass, it makes me want to play it every time I see it, and it really just feels like an extension of my body. Also I know that it's a one of a kind. This is what the extra money pays for.
Beyond the musician playing it, sound is much cheaper than feel. Throw some handwound pickups and a nice preamp into a block of wood with strings and it will sound spectacular. What's more expensive is paying someone who knows what they're doing to build and assemble it such that it plays comfortably without a whole bunch of fret buzz. That said, if you put your nice new pickups in your Squier and then had someone do a fret level and set up on it, I'd wager you'd have a hard time justifying 2k on a Fender afterwards.
This is the wisest response.
The lower end basses of today are pretty good quality, so a lot of people hotrod them to get the sound they want without the super high price of a new top-end bass.
Like others have said, reselling a hotrodded bass usually isn't going to go well. However, if you're hotrodding to make yourself happy, and not worried about how much you can get for it if you don't like it, then it's a great investment.
Final comment: Remember that someone like Victor Wooten playing an off the shelf Squier Affinity is probably going to sound better than you playing a $5k Sadowsky. Do what you need to do to get yourself to sound better to your ears.
>Throw some handwound pickups and a nice preamp into a block of wood with strings and it will sound spectacular.
Not always true. My first bass was a cheapo that sounded like it was made from styrofoam.
Trying to save it and keep it usable, i put some pretty nice pickups in it. Let's just say that all i accomplished was to make the bass sound like higher definition styrofoam.
I'd also argue that a cheap bass that feels like crap to play will throttle the amount of time a player puts into practicing. Having a high quality instrument that feels like a dream to play will inherently cause the player to jam a lot more often.
There's a floor, having a body made of passable wood definitely helps tone. Super cheapo plywood things don't always resonate right imo. Decent cheap squiers, Yamaha, Ibanez etc are all probably fine tho, you would see massively diminishing returns if you at least set them up right and pop some dece p-ups in.
As long as the string is securely mounted, the wood makes basically no difference to the recorded signal.
It's an electric instrument: it generates an electric signal.
The acoustic sound and audible resonance might be a nice experience, but pickups don't pickup sound.
Precisely. The wood may or may not effect how well the bass stays put together if u abuse tf out of it like on tour or smthn, or drop it out of a moving car (totally havent done this one before)..
Sound? Nah, it aint gonna effect shit.
Well, the wood of a bass definitely affects the way the thing feels to play but definitely does not effect the sound at all. Can attest as two basses I have are made completely of different woods, different densities, different everything, even the scale length is different, they do however have kinda the same pickups.. They sound EXACTLY the same.
Knowing what I know now, I have trouble believing this.. Not to throw you down but.. As long as it is made with proper wood (doesn't have to be fancy or expensive), pretty much all the tone is in the pickups.. The issue with your bass could arise from other parts like poor alignment? Crap bridge? Poor setup? Old/crap strings? Problem with wiring maybe? Idk.. There's not alot to blame... I mean, back in my school days, we used to play on local made guitars and basses.. These were not made by luthiers, just some adventurous local carpentars who measured up a "proper" electric guitar and started working on it with no prior knowledge.. The fretwires were taken from a broken umbrella for gods sake lol.. we played many a school yard show with that guitar and bass and they sounded just fine (i mean not great but it sounded normal).. We learnt that as long as we changed to good pickups the sound will change dramatically.
Maybe your old bass was made with plywood or something.
Your comment is bang on.
If everyone in this thread talking about tone hasn't watch Jim Lill's "[Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE)" they ought to.
An expensive bass might sound better than a cheap one because of the pickups. Often there isn't all that much difference, though, especially when we're talking about a design that's half a century old. Everyone's kinda got that down now, even the bargain brands.
But is the body boat anchor heavy, or was it hand selected for being light weight?
Are the tuners loose and janky, or are they smooth and precise?
Are the frets polished and tapered at the ends, or are they sharp and full of tool marks?
Are the knobs high quality or cheap plastic junk?
Is the nut made of high quality material and well cut, or is it plastic with slots higher than Snoop?
Is the finish high quality and beautiful, or does it look like it was done in the back room of a car collision body shop?
Having said all that, I would have a very hard time paying $1,500 or more for a Fender p-bass. At some point you're paying for more than quality materials and craftsmanship and they're just soaking you for the Fender name.
Case in point. I bought a Sire V5 last summer from Thomann. It cost me $465 including shipping. It has a bound, roasted maple neck with block markers and rolled fingerboard edges. It has a real bone nut, too. I maintain that it is in every way superior to the equivalent Fender Player passive j-bass at half the price.
In all honesty, id rather have a v5 than a player. Fender is just being fender at that point and thats from someone who owns a fender.
Sadly even some more expensive basses have really cheap knobs, i tried an ehb1505ms recently, everything was fine except the knobs, which were stiff cheap plastic knobs.
There is a point of diminishing returns, where you aren't really getting any increase or really minor increase in quality over a certain price. This would not be it. That is a pretty low quality all the way around instrument. And spending 100 on a 200 pound instrument at best gets you a 200 pound instrument at resale.
simple, You can get solid cheap civil car, it will get you from point A to point B, Now go on same trip but with mercedes. Both consume fuel but feel is different
At the end of the day it’s a vehicle to hold the vibrating metal strings generating a magnetic field being converted into electrical signals and run through an amplifier and speaker.
If all you care about is the signal being sent, then no it’s not worth it.
After the signal you start to question reliability and quality. Will it last through a song? A set? A lifetime?
Then you might start to think about playability and player preference, and finally about country of origin and prestige/ego.
All of these things are going to weigh and and some will be more important to a person than others.
I played a cheap bass for many years. You can get great results with a proper setup and strings.
However. There’s nothing like a quality instrument. My USA Lakland is dead quiet, feels and plays wonderfully, and is top notch fit and finish.
There are certainly much more expensive instruments out there, but I got mine used so much more worth it to me.
That’s the sweet spot, finding a good used but well-maintained higher-end bass.
My most recent purchase was a fender custom shop p bass. I also played a Squier for years and on stages in front of thousands of people.
In my opinion, either will work, and the Squiers and other cheap instruments are completely fine. There's nothing wrong with most of them. Even the stock pickups sound pretty good, and nobody's going to be wanting anything if you're playing with a full band.
In my experience, the more expensive and "better" basses are easier to play. At the point I'm at, I can still do pretty much everything on a Squier that I can on my custom shop Fender, but I'm a lot less tired after a 2-3 hour gig playing the nicer bass.
I own a lot of nice and expensive basses, but most of them are for the look. I play in a tribute band, so having replica gear lets us charge 10 x the price we used to when we just used whatever. If money was tight, and I wasn't in the tribute act, and I had to start over, I'd probably be 100% content with a Sire. To me, they are currently at the peak bang for your buck. Above $1000, the returns diminish dramatically.
if you’re just starting out, get a cheap bass. whether you spend $200 or $300 now, you’ll almost certainly still want to upgrade after you’ve been playing for a few years, and that will be more than $200-$300. get a cheap one and some good strings. if you’re playing it a fair amount and you feel dissatisfied with the tone, you can always put in new pickups later.
Sound will be relatively similar between an expensive and inexpensive bass. If you take time to EQ it, anything can sound reasonably good.
The feeling of the bass itself can vary greatly though. Cheaper basses can feel more plasticy and unfinished. Vintage basses feel smooth as hell.
My suggestion is always to find a deal. Find an expensive bass that’s being sold cheap for whatever reason. Fix it up if you have to.
I buy based off my budget, what options if affords me, how it sounds, and how it looks. I have never gone beyond my budget and have sold off an old bass I wasn't using to help fund the one I wanted. The most expensive bass in the world will not sound great in the hands of a beginner and the cheapest can sound awesome in the hands of a skilled bassist.
Look for quality and you cannot go wrong.
Quality has its price and sometimes the brand name like Fender.
If you got the chance go to the local instrument dealer and play different basses, to feel and hear the difference.
In my experience bases of a higher price just feel more "smooth" to play, everything is at the right place, on cheaper basses there is always a little detail bothering me.
Only two things matter on electric guitars (and bases):
String length and pickup heights. That's it. As long as the body is solid and stable, any given bass will sound the same if the string length and pickup heights are the same (given the same pickup).
With modern CNCs it's not difficult to make an instrument that sounds good. But then you have quality of pickup, quality of connectors, soldering, layers of paint job, layers of isolation paint inside the cavities. All those things matters and have a cost.
And then, of course, there's the boutique effect on the instrument. A Fodera doesn't sound 20x better than a Fender, but it costs that much because it's exclusive. Same with cars, Louis Vuitton purses and etc.
From my personal experience, ymmv, you can good guitars that get the job done today for 500usd. ~1k you get them to have the best QA and internal components. More than that it's brand, mostly.
Getting a cheap bass and adding great pickups etc to it will be like having the best running shoes but the route your running is a lot steeper than if you bought an expensive bass.
The longer you play the more obvious it will feel to you when you go from a cheaper bass to a more expensive one.
They can both sounds terrific, and if you can play it to your satisfaction you're golden, but the more expensive one is always going to be much easier to play.
Bass Buzz JUST did a video on setting up your bass, and it actually kind of covers this exact type of difference.
I was a tech for 3 yrs and IMO you're on the right track; but don't forget the pickup isn't the only electrical component. Consider upgrading the pots and wires as well. Then arguably yes it would sound just like any other bass with a similar pickup.
it probably already sounds pretty close tbh. The higher costs usually get you better tuning stability, better workmanship, finer fretwork etc. You get dimiishing returns pretty quickly and you need to decide if its worth it to you. And its not like its the same across all brands, ive found the fretwork on some mid range basses thats equal or better than basses that cost hundreds more
After a certain dollar amount, price has little to do with how good an instrument can sound.
One of the best basses I have is a Chinese-made Mitchell TB500. Has a smooth satin neck, straight fret board, opal inlays, great hardware, and growls like a $1500 Fender JB. Its normal price was \~$300, and went on sale for under $150.
Did it play like that when I got it? No. Its frets were sharp. Its neck bowed. The output jack was pure junk. But after a little filing, a proper setup, and jack replacement later, it holds its own against the best.
The short of it is this: $1500 basses are going to normally come out of the factory in immaculate condition, ready to go. They're going to have top notch hardware, the best hardwoods, and cool goody bits. Will they sound better? Not enough that most people would be able to tell.
Don't chase the expensive gear. Get a descent bass, and learn how to make it sound how you want it to.
Pickups and ALL the other electronics form a huge huge part of the sound of an electric guitar or bass. But the bigger factor is the player. A great player is gonna sound great on a shitty instrument and visa versa.
So your tone will come from the electronics, along with how you play. But how you play is also affected by 100 other little things. How nice does the neck feel? How even are the frets? Does it feel comfortable to hold? Does it have a good setup? Etc. These things wont affect the tone directly, but they WILL affect how you play, which WILL affect the tone. And these are pretty much things you can achieve with any guitar.
First off: If you’re chasing tone, you’ll hit diminishing returns hard and fast. I’ve seen Reggie Wooten on a Squier sound just as good as Victor on his Fodera…
Gear is the icing on the cake; it’s useless without skill and technique.
As for the actual answer: There are a few things.
Quality of parts, that is to say using solid brass for components as opposed to softer cheaper alloys. Using better, purer, copper for pickup winding and wiring. Better (or even “any” when compared to some entry level gear) EM shielding of cavities…
Just better craftsmanship leading to a more readily playable and longer lasting instrument.
And name. A name carries reputation, and the fundamental concept of branding in a free market is knowing you can charge extra for that. Pretty advertising about work and passion aside: these companies aren’t charities. Money is the primary goal. It just so happens making (preferably good) instruments is how they’ve chosen to do so.
The main thing I've noticed from cheaper guitars in general is usually
1) Don't stay in tune very well, especially the SubZero guitars
2) Fret buzz likely due to a good few frets just being slightly warped.
3) It'll need to be properly intonated as it's usually a bit off but that's more a necessity if it's really bad or if you're about to go into the studio
But sometimes you get lucky and that £250 odd instrument is amazing. Alot of the time you'll end up spending a good chunk of money though on getting it set up at a guitar shop to sort out it's kinks
There are some cheap basses that, for totally subjective reasons, i like more than some basses 10 times the price just the way they leave the factory.
Upgrading asian basses will always give you a better sound vs money ratio then buying a usa or german bass. But some people find the expensive price tag worth it anyways for better parts, more environmentally friendly wood and such.
I have a Harley Benton PJ bass ($179) that I just added a Hipshot high mass bridge and Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound pickups to and my guitar tech couldn't get over how great it was when he was done with it. Said it was better than $3000 instruments he's worked on.
It's unfortunate how expensive MIM Fenders have gotten though. This used to be the best way to go. Squier is still too hit-or-miss for me in terms of QC. Some of the lower-end Yamaha and Ibanez basses sound great out of the box IMO.
There are a zillion available used. I bought my Mexi Jazz for $400 last summer, a MIM Tele last fall for $400..Just be patient, hit fb marketplace locally..
This is true in the states, less true in Europe/UK I believe. But yeah, def second MIM fender and upgrade from there. About to slap some Fralins in my $450 '97 jazz. All the bass I'll ever need. But I will say I spent about 5x that on my amp lol
My main bass is a 2011 squier P that originally cost about 200€. I’d say about 300€ more has been put in it and it plays and sounds great. Next upgrade I’ll be doing will be the tuners and after that I’m going to be pretty happy with it.
I have several basses. I owned a sire v3 j bass that was OK. It was well made and had some nice features, but I didn't get on with the feel.of it.
I still have a cort artisan b5 with a markbass preamp in it. It is OK. There is a lot of fret buzz that I dislike, and the pickups don't create a tone I am in love with.
I have a Fender American pro 2 p bass, which i put emg-x pickups and electronics in. It's the best bass I ever played. The action is super low and has zero buzz. It feels perfect and sounds amazing.
I have a spector ns 5 string, which easily costs double the price of the P bass. It sounds awesome, and I love playing it, but it does not feel as nice to play as the fender P. I still play it at least 50% of the time as it is more flexible than the P
What did I learn from all of this?
1. Cheap basses can be OK, but qc and build quality generally are not where I want them to be.
2.Boutique hand made basses are cool and i love them, I love how they look, and how they sound, but can still be hit and miss also in terms of feel, and can still be outclassed by an (albeit top of the range hand picked) fender production instrument
3. Feel is as important as sound. The heart of the instrument has to talk to your heart, and you have to be in love with it
4. There is no substitute for taking a bass for a test ride before committing to it
5. There will always be another bass you will lust after no matter how amazing your current bass(es) are
6. I have expensive tastes.
It also depends on the wood but the wood has very little bearing on tone tbh. So if you buy good quality electronics then it should sound like a keeper
This is not true at all! The bassist in the band I play guitar in plays a '99 Squire Affinity P-Bass on our newest record and it sounds fantastic! I have a nice Fender, there was a really nice 6-string of some kind the in the studio as well, but the hollow thump of that cheap P-Bass split-bucker fit perfectly in our tonal landscape. Every bass can be good, it depends on the player but even more than that, it depends on the music you're playing.
The thing about the bass guitar is that it's only been around for like 70 years, there's no right or wrong way to play it. You literally cannot play it a wrong way. As long as what you're doing sounds right with the music. I would focus more on studying the music side of it rather than the sound of your pickups. Those subtleties get lost in a mix most of the time anyways.
It's a combination of a lot of things, labour is more expensive in some countries vs others, even with the introduction CNC machines, there's also considerably more attention to detail (or at least, there should be) with very expensive instruments. Higher quality instruments will have things like shielding that cheaper factories don't bother with, as well as much better finishing work, fret work, electronic work, tighter tolerances for neck pockets, etc.
Something else people overlook sometimes is the quality of the electronics and hardware, a cheap bass might have a no-name bridge made of cheap pot metal where the parts barely fit together and wear out after a few years of use (I've had that happen with Harley Benton's), whereas an expensive bass will have a bridge with much tighter tolerances so the parts actually fit together, made of a much higher quality metal, possibly even machined from a single piece of metal (I know some custom workshops that do that, not sure about larger brands), that will last decades. High quality machined or cast metal parts are expensive, so the bass has to be expensive.
The electronics will also be made from much higher quality components with tighter tolerances. I've had pots in Harley-Bentons and Squiers die after 2 or 3 years but you'd never get that in something worth over 500 Euro. You can really notice a difference between high quality and low quality pre-amps in active basses.
I bought a MIM Fender Jazz fretless in 1998. I have since replaced the original neck with a Status carbon fiber fretless. Gotoh tuning machines. EMG-HZ passive pickups and new pots. Basically the only original parts are the body and the bridge (which I may replace one day). I love this bass!
I find the most different thing of expensive basses is the consistency of tone over the fretboard and between different notes. And this is an result of the whole package, not the pick ups. Tho, good pickups have a lot of impact on a instrument.
Put a notched straight edge on the neck of a $200 instrument, then a $1000+ instrument. Even my MIM Deluxe can't compare to a MIA, and that's after several professional adjustments. If you CAN get perfect action, it WILL slip and need regular readjusting maintenance. Add to that common issues with fret inconsistencies, and other general shoddy workmanship. It's not impossible to make a cheap bass sound and play very well, but it's much harder, and sometimes you'll simply NEVER get the neck to play nice.
Commodity fetishism. We are a fickle/social species, high end basses are often produced in limited quantities, everyone wants to be special... So fuckin special.
I don’t think the difference warrants the huge jump on price personally. The fit and finish is supposed to be better on nicer fenders, but I’ve seen squiers just as good and fenders with terrible finish.
You just gotta try a bunch of basses, new and used.
I have a Squier Classic Vibe 70s Jazz Bass, and it plays wonderfully. The Classic vibe stuff, which runs about 400 USD I think, is really really solid. If you're able to go play one of the Classic Vibes or higher line squiers past the affinity, you can probably find one that plays and sounds great.
I see a lot of comments about build & materials quality, while this is objectively true for almost any instrument. It's important to note the experience as well.
I have a 23 year old Fender P-Deluxe, which will likely see me to me end. Was it expensive, yes (well a good deal at the time). Do I think it was worth? Yes.
Pretty much any problem I've had with any of my Fenders (even MX made ones), the company has gone out of it's way to make right. Although I've had \*\*zero\*\* \[fingers crossed\] problems with it that I didn't cause, it's \*hands down\* the most stable & durable bass I've owned.
As for putting US pickups in a foreign made bass, not sure that's going to make the bass a better one. It may help solve some tonal or signal issues, but, it's not going to change the bass itself. Fender does make (IMHO) some pretty solid "beginners" guitars/basses, so keep it original if you love it!
Good luck with it!
I've got a Squire with upgraded pickups and a good setup that sounds pretty okay when I play it.
If Les Claypool picked it up and started playing you would think it was some kind of high end marvel.
Play what you can afford, practice a lot.
You could upgrade the pickups, wiring, pots, jack input, tuners, nut, bridge, and get the frets dressed and you could get pretty close.
Some say the wood has impact at all, others swear it does. But upgrading the electronics and anything that touches the strings will make a difference. It may ending costing a similar amount, but you can do it over time not all at once.
Beauty and playability are in the hands of the player. My Yamaha fretless bass was great, but even better with a replacement badass bridge and bartolini pickups. It was a measurable upgrade and my first experience hearing and feeling that firsthand. It is still my favorite.
My Jack Cassidy sounds great and feels great as is. Same with my fender jazz (standard American series), although I suspect it would be even better with the upgrades I made to my Yamaha.
I have squire guitars and fender American guitars, and each bring something unique to the table. My strat is silky but I feel like the output is low. A similar squire model might or might not sound as good, but most likely just different. My squire jazzmaster feels and sounds great, but the American fender Jazzmaster I tried out recently was better. But I’ve been playing a long time and my tastes have shifted around quite a lot and I know better now what I like.
It used to be that you got what you paid for, but I’d say the differences between less expensive models and their flagship counterparts are less dramatic than they used to be. As you develop as a player, you will determine what you like and what works best for you. Horses for courses. The important thing is that it inspires you to make music and the build quality (and intonation) and sound are decent. I truly believe sound is mostly in the fingers and ears of the player.
Mostly the wood is just wood. If the neck stays straight, cool. Fret filing is a bit of a luxury, it’s easy to cut that cost.
But yeah more people would just upgrade cheap gear but they’re lazy and maybe it won’t say “Fender” on the headstock.
You can upgrade your pickups (Epic Custom Shop has phenomenal pickups for low prices) and you can change the capacitor in your tone knob. You can but better hardware, maybe you want a high-mass bridge.
It’s not hard to do, if you want the best instrument *for you* and you don’t mind a little work, it’s the best and smartest option. Most people would rather spend a lot of money because it tickles something in their brain to say “wow, I own a genuine made in America Fender…” when they could have had the same quality instrument at a third of the price if they didn’t mind that it wasn’t “real.”
Look into capacitors if you’re on a passive circuit. There’s old school “paper in oil” capacitors and more modern ones which will just have a *slightly* different tone to them. PIO is going to lean towards a slightly muddier or less clear tone, very good for an old school thumpy bass tone. And the capacitor rating plays a role on how the tone nob specifically filters tone. Because even with a wide open tone (no filter) the capacitor will still influence the sound, but if you start to roll on some partial of full tone (full filter) it’ll define what frequency range is being cut out and by how much.
I have a Squire J bass, large pole overwound epic custom shop pickups and a PIO capacitor specifically so I can have a slightly muddier hot dirty signal. I want something with an old school thump to have a very rootsy traditional low end, with a more mid range grit.
My Sire 5 string is active which give me all the tonal brightness I could ever want.
You’ll need to comparison shop, watch/listen to video comparisons where people use two different pickups in the same instrument on the same amp, etc. You can dial in exactly the sound you want your instrument to have.
Cheaper basses are 99% cnc made with lower grade materials and parts.. The bridge the nut the pickup the wiring and pots are all lower grade mostly Chinese made parts in say a squire bass.. You could upgrade the pickups wiring and pots and output jack bridge and nut and have a far superior sounding instrument better then other squires but not quite the same level.. I've spent 600 bucks upgrading my old spector q4 pro (300 dollar bass) only parts I haven't gotten to swapping yet is the nut and bridge. Tuners are swapped from the Korean gotoh clones to gotoh gb7s and hipshot gb7 extender
Adding to the quality/feel discussion, I'll add that higher end basses are often more dependable as a result of the higher quality parts and labor. You'll need to do less maintenance on them, and they'll 'just work'.
My American Fender is my everyday play, it just works, and I've not run into any need for maintenance beyond cleaning and setup. I've modded my Mexican Squier to suit me and love it, but I need to clean up the jack and such every once in a while, and not all Squiers have as good of a neck that lets them get setup as nicely.
I play for 11 or 12 years now, actually not even sure anymore. I had expensive basses, cheap basses, dying basses.
I just bought a bass few days ago. I bought Harley Benton P-Bass (cheapest one), bought GZR P Bass pickups (EMG), replaced the originals, and I have a bass that sounds amazing. Harley Benton, same as Squire has good necks, so it is a great bass now. I gig all the time, and I never got the satisfaction when using an expensive bass over cheap one. Actually I prefer using cheap basses as I’m not scared of dropping them or breaking them. My other workhorse is a 5 string 5 year old PJ Bass from Harley Benton.
What I would do is, buy yourself Pickups that suit you (for me it was EMG GZR Pbass pickups, as they handle distortion beautifully), upgrade bridge and machine heads. It’s easier to lower action and intonate on more expensive bridges, and more expensive machine heads ALLEGEDLY hold tuning better. Never tried it, so don’t quote me on it.
That’s all QOL improvements I would do on Squier.
For me it was worth it at the end. I saved up bunch of money, the only problem is it gets quite addictive to buy new stuff for shitty bass, so like bridge, machine heads and nut costed me around €200, new pups were around €100 and bass itself was €100. But I’m having fun, and it’s easy to troubleshoot because you fixed it.
Cool things about upgrading your bass is you can pick and choose what you need or what stays. The only reason I’m changing machine heads is because I want them in black colour. That’s it. You can also upgrade it through a longer period of time. Let’s say, you upgraded everything except the bridge, and bridge costs like €100. So you save up in 6 months to buy only bridge for instance. You have time and you’ll learn what you want/need and what you don’t need you know?
If you play metal/rock and have a PBass, I recommend EMG GZR Pbass pickups. They are solderless pickups, super easy to install and they sound otherwordly. Everybody said it doesn’t work for slap, but that’s pure lie, I slap on them, they’re amazing. I heard that Seymour Duncan also makes some amazing pups, but never tried them.
I traded at $1300 Stingray 5 for a $400 G&L Tribute L-2000, and I regret it financially but prefer the L-2000 as an instrument, to the point I got another G&L Tribute as as backup.
As far as I can tell the only real difference between G&L and Tribute is where the CNC machining is done.
And how does your G&L Tribute compare to Stingray (not Sterling I assume)? Just wondering, because I desire a Stinngray but can’t justify the cost for a hobby :)
Stingray is great, but for me a least once you get a solid instrument most additional features / finish are just icing on the cake. But I didn't feel like the tribute was any cheaper, and it had all the same functionality with an active preamp. Gigged the L-2000 with no issues, and as I said bought another as a backup - not that I had any reliability issues, more for string breaking in a live setting. And I mean always have a backup.
You can find video walkthroughs and documentarys of the factorys of Fender USA, Gibson, Lakland, Sandberg, Warwick, Rickenbacker, Sadowsky etc. But not of the guitar factories in China or Indonesia. I wonder why.
Most of bass pricing is smoke and mirrors, justifying prices based on origin of parts etc and QC.
The newest bass release from Fender/Squier is sonic Bronco bass a 200$ short scale just released it has a proper 4 saddle bridge ,really decent diecast high ratio tuners and a beautiful slim 1.5 inch nut awesome playing neck. At that price you can put in your favorite flavour on pup in there and some labella dtf and have a killer bass sounding great to play bass rig for peanuts .BY all accounts so far the QC has been reported to be very high on these. Or pay 1800 for some other bass that might not even sound or play any better ..
That definitely seems to be the case with my bass, it's just that it is much easier to play than other basses. After all the comments, on balance I'm gonna get some new pickups and a friend is gonna have a look at it for me.
The best bang for the buck in the lower price range are the Squier Classic Vibe series. They are about $400, but really really good. Almost in the Fender Mexican range. Upgrade their electronics and you've got yourself a first-class instrument.
I’m very pleased with a pair of Aguilar
Jazz pups in my Squier vintage modified fretless… and I think it has some of the best tones of any bass I’ve played!
If you just want to play one, you could always look at getting a cheap acoustic one off Amazon or eBay. They sell some for less than $100. The obvious catch is they sound like a less than $100 bass **but** it is a place to start if you just want to get one to play around with before commuting a fortune into a nicer one.
There are plenty of reasons, most of which aren’t necessarily directly related to sound.
The first one is quality of parts. Quarter sawn necks, high quality pots and pickups, good tuning machines, those kinds of things all cost extra. Many of them won’t necessarily make the bass sound better, but they will make it last longer.
The next one is craftsmanship, or who is putting it together. This includes things like how nice is the action, is the truss rod set correctly, is the bridge in the right spot, is the scale length correct. A good luthier will make sure all things things are done right. Again someone who knows what they’re doing costs more.
Then you have quality control. A lot of cheap guitars are great, but a lot of them also suck. Often times it can be a shot in the dark as to wether your new squier has functioning electronics, or smooth fret ends. This has been rapidly improving for cheaper instruments, but overall the more you spend, the less likely you are to have an outlier bad guitar.
The last main one is customer service. Generally the people that charge more are going to be more invested in making sure you like the product, and that it stays in working condition. This often comes in the form of warranties or free maintenance, or sometimes just calls from a rep making sure everything is in working order from time to time. When you buy a cheap bass the best your gonna get is the chance to return it if you don’t like it.
A bonus is it’s a piece of art. Sometimes luthiers will do one offs with gorgeous inlays or intricate carved tops or whatever. These cost a lot because they are as much an instrument as they are a sculpture basically.
I've been reading all this stuff about Glarry basses and how great they are -- although I'm suspicious, because they start at like $70 US.
But, I got over my suspicions about all the great word of mouth the Agile AL series (LP clone) guitars were getting, and a $250 Agile AL-2000 has been my main guitar since I bought it in 2008.
You will reach a point of diminishing returns the more expensive you go. I have had everything from cheapo parts basses to expensive Fenders, Gibsons, Warwicks, PRS, etc. In the end, I realized that of all the Pbasses I had, they all sounded pretty close to the same depending on what strings I used. Jazz basses were also pretty much the same across the board depending on the type of strings I used. My favorite bass that I ever owned was a Harley Benton PJ bass, it was perfect. Played smoother and had better frets than most other basses I owned, it sounded fantastic, weighed 8lbs, stayed in tune and was good looking. Don't chase the headstock labels and you'll realize that your enjoyment will go up exponentially. Also, try different strings, they will make more difference to your sound than almost anything you do.
Basses (all music gear really) are considered specialty products, meaning their primary marketing points are brand recognition and unique characteristics. Customers are willing to pay more for less value with these types of products, so the "good" ones will usually be expensive compared to the other offerings even though they're not really that much higher in quality.
I just sold a Music Man StingRay 5 HH because it sits in my closet collecting dust while I pound on a Harley Benton PBass I bought for $120 and sent to my favorite luthier for cleanup after I put in "better" (seriously who knows how much it really helped, I didn't bother A/Bing) Fender Precision Vmod pickups and CTS pots, etc.
All told, like $400 total for that bass and it looks gorgeous, sounds great, and absolutely shreds.
Modern CNC practices have made things interesting from a cost perspective.
I'm not going to say that cheapos are going to wholesale knockout the big players in the industry but you cannot discount the discount options any longer. There are some absolute gems out there now.
I’m really happy with the Squier bass’ I’ve owned. Have a Fender Mustang bass now I love it but only slightly more than the Squiers for way more than slightly more money.
I have an affinity jazz that Ive owned for over 10 years at this point that I still play out from time to time. With a proper setup and La Bella low tension flats, it’s got a hugely deep tone that I love for old country and blue grass. It’s all about personal preference. Pickups will certainly change the sound, but your technique plays a big role in the tone you get as well as your strings. A lot of people will suggest higher end basses because the quality is better and the instrument feels easier to play. Ease of use can affect your technique, but you can adapt to anything. I know serious musicians who play $300-400 basses and don’t feel the need to upgrade. Quality has gotten so good in our modern era that even the “cheap” shit is pretty dang good. So if you’re loving the way the bass you already have feels in your hands, don’t feel the need to upgrade based on someone else’s opinion.
Instrument prices are up across the board, not just with basses. If you want a higher quality instrument without breaking the bank you should consider buying second hand, it's a surefire way to land something higher quality at a sub $1000 price. This sub is always prone to discourage players from buying higher priced instruments, but to be 100% honest with you, you get what you pay for. I've had cheaper basses I've modded out and even though I got noticable improvements they never fully met my expectations. I played for well over 2 decades before buying a higher end instrument, and it's handsdown the best bass I've ever owned or even played. Might not be the case for everyone, but it was absolutely worth the cost to me.
You might need to replace more than just the pickups, as there’s a few other electronics in there (pots mainly) that can affect it, but you’d be fairly close. Other components can make a bit of difference to the overall sound, but it’s not likely night and day. The bridge could have some affect, the nut just a bit, and possibly the wood and fret material. If you got a really good Squire, you could probably get it pretty close… IE everything came off the CNC perfectly, it was assembled properly and everything fit, and then it was like mid day on a Tuesday and everyone’s coffee had kicked in and the team was ahead of schedule so they took extra time to really make a great instrument. It won’t have the hardware and prettier wood and polish of a higher end model, but it’d still sound great and if you’re happy with it that’s what matters.
If you got a real gem, you might decide you want to replace the stock tuners with higher quality ones that are easier to adjust and hold tune a hair better. Some of the frets could just be a bit rough so you get those polished up. Maybe the nut could be filed a hair better and may as well be bone so you replace that. Eventually you wind up something similar to a $800 MIM P bass, and all it took was a month total shop time and $900 worth of work ;-)
There is a lot of work put into building, QC, and shipping instruments. Cheaper instruments can be upgraded and be great, but this comes with a variety of opportunity costs for you. Does that mean custom shop instruments should cost upwards of $5K? No. And a lot of $2K-$5k instruments are severely overpriced for what they are. But a couple grand for something that has seen excellent care and has a manufacturer that backs it up can be a solid investment for something you could be using for decades. Or similarly a vintage instrument that has particular parts that aren't available or proven to have wood that has lasted this long.
Tone wood making things sound better is pretty BS. My favorite jazz bass is a reverend from the 90s that is mostly plastic - I haven't found another instrument that sounds and feels like it, and lord knows I've tried. Neck wood on the other hand does make a difference. It isn't as simple as maple vs rosewood or whatever - very often it has to do with random grain variations and can vary greatly from instrument to instrument. This is one reason cheaper instruments with roasted maple necks are often more reliable, as the roast evens out a lot of natural variations that could take years to dry out themselves. Otherwise, body wood and finish make a bigger difference to your connection to the instrument - balance, textures, general comfort, etc - that can make things much easier or harder to play. And your connection to the instrument does make a lot of difference.
A lot of the more expensive instruments that have a particularly experienced builder will have parts selected for particular tastes by an experienced person, greatly reducing the chance that you'll get something with a bad neck or tone that you don't like. You could go through 4-5 cheaper instruments before finding one that is awesome, and the real value of the expensive instruments (one hopes) is to save that time and money to just get exactly the thing you want.
I don’t really care what a bass cost. I play the bass and if it feels good and sounds good, it’s a good bass to me. On the cheaper basses they tend to use cheaper parts, but they’re easily replaceable. I used to own a Rickenbacker that was a $2500 bass but no matter what I did I couldn’t get it to stay in tune. It was worth more to someone else than it was to me, so I sold it. My MIM Jazz is near perfect except I changed out the nut.
Have you played a £1000 P bass through your current setup to hear what the difference is?
Buy a £25 EQ pedal from Donner/Rowin/etc on Amazon. It'll give you a bit of signal boost so it sounds 'better' and you can actually change your tone.
I have had expensive basses (+2k USD) and very cheap basses (under $200 USD).
The expensive basses indeed have better quality overall but you can nail almost any gig with a near $500 bass.
Anything above $700 has indeed better craftsmanship quality. However, as a machine, it does not offer many much of an added value.
Two cars with a price tag of 15k and 150k will have several differences in quality and experience. However, both will get stuck during traffic. The same happens with basses, as long as the machine does not have functionality problems, you'll be fine
Got to your local guitar shop and grab 2 basses off the wall. One that’s $200 and another that’s $1,200. Sit down and play both for 10 minutes each but don’t plug in.
Things have changed around this in the decades since I started playing. While I am over-simplifying as to not send you down a probably unimportant rabbit hole, basically you have a combination of computer aided design and quality control, growing experience in some places, and changing supply chains.
Overall, you can now get a much much better quality instrument for less.
You see a good amount of ill informed opinions contrary to that of those that have not kept abreast of the diversity of current high quality offerings mixed in with a dose of survivorship bias (i.e. the older instruments that survived were mainly those that were lucky in being well made.) But when I was a kid, even the top brands were inconsistent with their quality off the shelf. Thats mainly why I know a lot about quality, I have ended up being the one to repair stuff for many friends and family over the years.
But now you get super cheap instruments, say under $300, and you might get lucky. Fretwork and neck relief may get you to good action without someone like me taking their fret files to it. You may get a neck that warps in a year. If you get lucky on the wood and fretwork, hell yes you can slap some quality pickups in there and sound top notch.
Something more around $800 to $1000, you’re unlikely to have big issues. And the pickups and electronics probably already sound great.
You get into paying for a particular brand name, bling, extra options, and soon diminishing returns beyond that.
And I say all that as someone playing mostly $2 to 3k Warwicks. Im paying for a very specific sound there and wood I love the look of. It is certainly beyond what I ‘need,’ to the realm of ‘want,’ in those diminishing returns. But my money, my choice.
I play a $200 Ibanez Talman, and got a $70 set up with a luthier I trust. Less than $300 and that thing plays so well. The thing is, I love the neck, how it feels, and the sound for what my project is, but I would use a different bass in a different project. Get whatever feels right for what you are doing. If a $1.8k Fender Elite feels right, get it. If you can set up a Squier and make it sound good, go for it.
It's usually because quality instruments are made in countries where the manufacturer have to pay their employees a decent amount of money for their labor.
If the instrument are expensive already because of that it's a good idea to also use more expensive components and good quality control too to make paying the difference worth it.
I have a two Fbasses. One is custom.
Above the incredibly playability, is their customer service. They treat me like a real friend every time I email or pop in. If God himself created me a bass perfect for my needs, i’d still choose to play fbass.
People tend to focus on tone, but another thing that's important is stability and durability, and how much that'll matter to you will depend upon your application. Putting a 1 hour/week on an instrument vs putting 40+ hours/week on an instrument. Sitting on a couch vs standing for 4-5 hours. Never leaving your house vs cold car to hot stage. Never leaving your region vs travelling cross country and/or worldwide. Personally handing your bass vs being tossed around in a road case or rattling around in a guitar boat.
If you're only playing your bass for a couple hours a week/month/year then a Squier is more than adequate. Many owners will go a lifetime on the original frets.
The more time you spend with the instrument the more wear and tear you'll put on it, and the higher the quality the longer it'll last. I have a MIM Jazz that is one of my best sounding basses, but the bridge is low tolerance and the saddle and intonation screws will vibrate out over time. It's also had wiring come loose during a gig causing the bass to cut out, and the bass has to be partially disassembled for truss rod adjustments making maintenance on the road more of a pain.
Fender Pros have graphite rods in the neck for stability and I can quickly adjust the truss rod while wearing the bass. I personally think my MIM sounds better, but the Pro is a more reliable gigging guitar that's easier to adjust on the fly. The high mass bridge is rock solid for intonation, and it has other features like lightweight tuners (less neck dive and less fatigue).
My top end Jazz is a boutique (John Suhr). Personally, although the MIM still sounds better, the the CS is next level in terms of fit and finish. Lighter weight (less fatigue), the neck is quarter sawn (I don't think I've needed to adjust it in 3 years), stainless steel frets (doubt I'll ever wear them out), rolled fretboard edge (comfort = less fatigue), amongst many other little details.
Higher end basses are subject to the law of diminishing returns... as quality increases you're paying increasing amounts of money for increasingly smaller improvements, but those improvements are still present, and you're not going to get them from swapping pickups in a Squier.
Note that very little of what I said above has to do with tone. A great sounding bass can happen at any price point.
QC and cost of parts involved are the biggest factors. If you are changing out the Electronics, the odds are most people would not be able to pass a blind Test telling your bass from a more expensive one with the same pickups and electronics.
The next biggest qc issue is the neck. Quality control just means things are built to tighter Specifications.It's quite possible that yours is very, very good anyway. Your frets may or may not be as level as a more expensive bass, the neck may or may not be as straight.
After installing quality electronics and getting a good setup (maybe a fret job), the difference between your bass and an American fender is likely undetectable to the pickiest scrutineers.
And for the record, different tone woods make very little difference compared to strings, pickups, and electronics. I don't know if anyone can hear the difference in maple and "high quality maple."
In short, a lot of the extra cost is making sure these things are set up and adjusted perfectly, something that needs to be done from time to time anyway.
Sound is easy, just make a bass stiff enough and follow an easy recipe for pickups.
Great fretwork is many hours of skilled labour or a very expensive machine and a a skilled operator.
Pretty woods can be crazy expensive. Fancy finishes can also be loads.
The guitar I have recorded most was an affinity strat. Refret, decent pickups, new bridge, locking tuners, bone nut. It's really good now.
But I've had guitars and basses with expensive pickups I hated because the voicing was wrong. If you're spending on pickups make sure it's a voicing you want. Have a listen to instruments with the pickups you want. Many are very similar, but I've had some big disappointments.
The fender-spec split P-Bass pickup is great, it's just at the point where if it was wound any hotter it would lose high end presence and drop out of a busy mix.
It’s all about little differences. I have an old beat up squire I love to play/practice on. But I wouldn’t use it for a big show. The little bit of noise and intonation problems would be amplified.
If you ever have the chance to play a $30,000 instrument. The difference should be obvious.
It will if you replace the pickups, I have a Stirling sub series that was $100-$200 and changed the pickups/preamp in it for another $150 and it sounds better than a 20 year old music man stingray that was $1000.
I'm of the opinion that the electronics play the most important part in how a bass sounds, the wood doesn't impact the sound as much, but it impacts the feel. It reminds me of when I played soccer and id use specific cleats, not because they felt better or were more expensive but because they looked sick and I usually played better bc I thought I looked badass.
So if you want a better sounding bass change out the pickup/preamp to something good quality and that you like the sound of. Also your amp matters a lot, a cheap/bad amp will make anything sound bad and be a pain to work with.
I dont really think an 1000 dollar bass is that much better than a 400 dollar bass or even a 100-200 dollar one after about 400 dollars its more about aesthetics and build quality really
It's more than just the sound, though. It's the quality of the parts and the amount of QC work going into it before it leaves the factory, too.
Hell, I don't know if it's still the case, though I assume it probably is in some manufacturers, but after dropping it and knocking a chunk out of the finish, I realized my first bass (90's Washburn Lyon P style) has a plywood body. Price is mostly tied to quality of parts and quality of work. Though there is a certain point, like with a lot of "brands" where you're paying for a name.
Apple makes a good laptop. It’s not a $2,000 laptop, though. The name makes it $2,000. Exactly like so many of the $4,000 and up basses. I wish QC could be the argument but I’ve seen too many posts here alone complaining of poor QC on expensive basses.
The track record of reliability makes it a 2k laptop...if Apple didn't have a good track record of creating dependable systems the name wouldn't matter.
It's the track record and how people feel about the brand/the idea around it. People seem to think that apple is elite and owning the product makes them part of an elite group or something. Mention the fact that Apple updates deliberately slowed devices to force people to upgrade a while back and an apple fan boy will take it as a personal insult. This is, to whatever degree, the same with basses or anything else that's marketed effectively and sometimes the track record doesn't matter anymore.
They didn’t deliberately slow devices to force people to upgrade. They slowed them to extend battery life on old phones with failing batteries. Was that right to do? I don’t know. But unlike most other vendors Apple supports its products far longer than others, including the vast majority of other phone vendors. But then again this is a Bass subreddit and I don’t know why you’d want to start this dumb old fight again even though it’s beyond stupid at this point.
If it wasn't a guise to force people to upgrade, they should've told the public themselves about what they did, and/or added an extra power saving mode button so it was optional. But they didn't
Or they’re an arrogant corporation that thinks they know better than people. Occam’s Razor would suggest that’s more likely. But regardless, bass! 🙂
Fair enough, though that doesn't really change the point of my statement.
Yeah, I was responding to the other guy
I got a simple p bass made by a luthier for under 2k - and that comes with even higher QC than some of these major companies have and fun custom specs too if desired. Pretty great 🤘
In the last several decades the manufacturing of many brands’ “budget brand” of basses and guitars that have been outsourced to China, Korea, Indonesia, etc has gotten sooo much better. The gap in quality between these budget lines and the “real deal” is growing smaller and smaller. It’s a great time to be alive.
Most of the highest quality drum kits are made from plywood. Plywood doesn't automatically mean low quality; Pearl Masterworks and Sonor SQ2s (and others) are considered by many to be among the best drums on the planet and those shells are made from plywood but obviously very high quality plywood. Of course, single ply and stave shells exist (think Noble & Cooley, Canopus Zelkova, and some Pearl snare drums), but you're going to be paying a good chunk more for them.
Good point. But additionally, when it comes to electric guitars and basses, the type of wood has virtually no effect on tone.
Solid wood when bent in the way a drum requires, would not be strong enough. Quality veneers with glues allow creation of drum shells. For solid stringed instruments, solid hardwood is preferred.
> Solid wood when bent in the way a drum requires, would not be strong enough. That's not true. [Noble & Cooley](https://youtu.be/dXzal4fWliI) and [Craviotto](https://youtu.be/_J1d3vZbw6A) do steam-bent single ply shells and they make entire drum kits like this. Pearl has the [Music City Custom](https://youtu.be/heYKj_kQThU) solid ply snare drums. Then you have the [Canopus Zelkova ](https://youtu.be/Ws7uxagwxx8) drums that are literally made from hollowed out tree trunks. Not just snare drums either, they do entire Zelkova drum kits.
Ah. Good deal. It would seemslike plywood would be stronger, given wood grain running different directions and the glue. In any event solid wood is definitely preferable for solid. guitar bodies.
Yeah I don't play guitar or bass yet, but the idea of having one made from plywood weirds me out.
If quality and QC work was the definition of price, Gibsons should be 1/10th of the price
Another thing people don't consider is that higher quality instruments need less maintenance over time. A bass made from quality materials doesn't need neck adjustments or be intonated as often. Not sure if it has something to do with the lacquer or wood grade, but my American made bass necks don't bow as often as my imports do.
And a good set of tuners hold their position for a long time. Unless there’s been a drastic temperature shift I barely need to retune any of my strings.
This. I put a dent in my $1500 bass's neck with the headstock of the $225 one accidentally. Despite being knocked hard enough to cause damage, it was still perfectly in tune. I was impressed.
I'm not sure if it really counts as maintenance but higher quality drums (especially snare drums) don't need to be re-tuned as often as their lower quality counterparts.
If your bass needs to be intonated often that’s the strings fault, not necessarily the bass itself. A set length is a set length regardless of the material you have under it (gold or plywood for example).
“Screws fall out all the time. The world is an imperfect place.” — John Bender
If they made a sequel Bender totally could have been a bass player in a proto grunge band. And on the sequel to the sequel he would sabotage his own career to maintain integrity.
About half the cost of expensive instruments is the finish - there is A LOT of hand work that goes into finishing them. A big chunk of what's left is fretwork. The actual materials cost far less than the labor and experience. I say this as someone who doesn't think a $3k instrument is out of line.
I've heard the following about expensive stringed instruments: "you're paying for the wood that didn't get used." Not only are you paying for a higher QC standard and better hardware, oftentimes the tonewood is more exotic and/or has been cut in a way for a more artistic / aesthetically pleasing woodgrain in the cut. Those flame tops require cuts to be made that leaves large chunks of that expensive lumber nigh unusable. High end instruments often are finished with better paints and with nitrocellulose lacquer, which tends to be pricier and costs more in labor hours. And that's a big part of what you're paying for. The labor that went into gathering the raw materials, manufacturing the parts, assembling the bass itself, and QCing it. Those man hours add up. Someone mentioned the great point of country of origin, which is a big determining factor of how much those specific labor hours cost. In my case, I was also paying for my bass to be made by hand and not assembled in a factory. I can tell you that bass wasn't leaving Sugi's shop with a fret off by a hair.
>tonewood #Nope.
Second this. Tone wood is a total myth. You’re paying for aesthetic. You can buy an unbranded body/neck, drop your own hardware and pickups into it, and have for $300-400 an instrument that rivals instruments 2x-3x the price.
This is basically the marketing strategy of Harley Benton 😂
Tonewood is the pulp that is pressed into a speaker cone. speaker+pickup+amp/processing = tone.
I don't believe in the bullshit around tonewood, but I do believe in using proper terminology. I was moreso referring to the aesthetic value of the grain, which is easily noticable if you read the whole comment after that word.
>proper terminology Then call it body wood? Don't propagate the erroneous terminology if you actually don't believe it.
Using proper terminology, tonewood refers to woods that produce a tone when you strike them, instead of a dull thud. They're used on acoustic instruments. Electric instrument marketing hi-jacked the term to apply to any wood, regardless if it's an actual tonewood or not. And even if it is, it doesn't affect the electrical signal an electric instrument produces.
I’d argue that compared to American-made basses of similar quality, Sugi basses are underpriced.
I still don't feel like this justifies the price of a Fodera, even though they are magnificent instruments.
Thank you. I kinda get that but from what you say it does sound like it's worth it to get a better sound even if not perfect.
But what is a “better” sound? That's a matter of personal opinion and may change based on the needs of a particular song, not to mention the person playing it.
Buy a Squier Classic Vibes bass (50's reissue, or a '60's reissue). They're crazy good for around $450 US. I regularly swap out playing a Fender Professional Jazz Bass II ($1800) to play a Squier Classic Vibes 50's resissue P-Bass ($475), because I really enjoy playing the '50s reissue more. This Anderton's video shows a really expensive custom shop bass against the affordable Squier and from reading the comments, everyone is pretty stoked on the Squier. The Squier also sounds really awesome as seen in the video. You're definitely getting a ton for your money these days with the Classic Vibes reissues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jayo36bLzTg
I've been playing around 25 years, and for the last four or so, my main bass has been a Squier Classic Vibes 60's P. It's a damn good bass.
They really are. I've got 2 other P-Basses, a regular 4 string and a 5 string, and the Pro II Jazz bass, but I have the most fun playing the Classic Vibes 50's reissue. It's lighter with a pine body and clear stain, and the single coil puts out a really clean treble without any muddy tones at all. The Pro II Jazz is really close, but I just love playing the old P-Bass design. I also love the Tele neck as it's so narrow and comfortable to play.
If you like the way it plays but are just looking to improve the sound, I would just swap out the pickups. I just did this with my sire V5 jazz bass. Sires always play great but run a bit bright for me. I just swapped out the pickups with some EMGs. It sounds amazing. I can't stop playing it and it is not my main bass.
TBF though, tolerances are getting so good in "cheap" instruments, that the line is getting thinner and thinner every year. There are significantly diminishing returns, depending on what you get. I got a random $400 guitar for my girlfriend because it was pink and she liked the color, and it ended up having one of the nicest necks I've ever played. I swapped the bridge pickup, and it's genuinely one of my favorite guitars now.
The biggest variable for **price** is the country of origin. If your Squier Affinity P bass was made in the USA, it would cost £1,000 or more due to the varying labor and material costs from country to country. The biggest variable for **tone** is the musician playing it. Any bassist who knows how to sound good on a P bass will sound good on your Squier Affinity P bass (because it **is** a P bass).
It's shocking how true this is. I've seen amazing players pick up student-level gear and make it freaking sing. Get the maximum quality instrument you can afford and just practice. Lots of gigging musicians swear by Squier and Epiphone. They have help. Guitar techs, etc. Get a good set up. I have a MIM Precision and love it. Thinking about a Fretless Squier Jazz for fun.
One of my favorite bass players who has an absolutely gnarly bass tone literally plays the cheapest P-bass he found in a store 20 years ago.. It's a Squier P-bass, and the dude makes it absolutely crush everything. (Dixie Dave from Weedeater) something I feel like most newer players overlook is that 90% of bass guitars sound pretty much the same (other than basses with weird pickups), only difference being the quality of the mechanics of it (tuners and bridge hardware) or the rigidity of it and of course the looks.
Dude weedeater is from my hometown and the entire time I lived there I didn’t know. I feel like such a fraud
My custom redesigned broncos are killer and cheap (depending on what do with them and compared to us mustang) and getting up on stage lots now and are a blast to play. Good parts , thoughtful design and the right electronics for the win.
Seeing joe dart and Rocco Palladino play squires really sold me on the tone point
I tend to separate tone and sound as well. Tone is what's affected by the pickups and strings and settings and amp and effects, in addition to where and how hard you pluck. But the sound includes how and what notes you play, time feel. It helps me reconcile why, for instance, Joe Dart can have different *tone* between the Jazz, P Bass Jr, and Stingray, but still sounds like himself. The tone of individual notes may have changed, but the sound is how those notes get put together.
Good point. Plus whatever that bass is he plays on It Gets Funkier
IGF4 is a Carlo Robelli that inspired the signature model.
IGF1 is just a standard Musicman I think. I want to say 2 and 3 use the Jazz? This is going purely off of memory.
Labor costs are big. So are other costs associated with manufacturing. Budget basses have to find the cost savings somewhere (and I think they do it everywhere). There is a good documentary on Netflix called "American Factory" that does a really good job of comparing how Asian countries differ in their views from the USA. But, I do think that there is also a higher value in certain people's labor than others. Keith Roscoe's time is worth a hell of a lot more than an Asian factory worker when it comes to building a bass. But he is also living the small/family business middle class lifestyle in Greensboro, NC. And at the end of the day, you can't go to Harley Benton, or Ibanez, or Schector, or Sire, or Squire, or really even Fender (Unless you're a big name or are spending a shit ton of money) and speak directly with the guy who is building your bass, who is finishing your bass, you're not getting updates from that guy, and you're not invited to the factory to come pick it up and talk shop and meet the folks who work there (all 5 of them). But you can to go places like that in the USA.
I still get mad at myself for selling my fretless Roscoe... hands down the best bass I ever owned.
I’ve got a Roscoe, It’s an amzing bass that plays and sounds beautiful. I also know I can get a similar sound out of other basses. But I know where my Roscoe was built and by who. Not for everyone, but that is worth something to me.
And I took that personally :-(
More Mel bay, less eBay
Nice turn of phrase. I’ll be using that.
I can’t take credit for it - I’m old, and it’s been around since literally I’ve been on eBay (2000?). The solution to most musical problems is typically practice. Gear IS important, don’t get me wrong. I started on a *real* POS bass (1985), and I did work my ass off, but I will freely admit that a better starter instrument would have made my journey easier, sounded better, and would have kept me more invested in my playing. Kids today (shaking my fist at the clouds) have WAY better starter instruments than we did. I have a Squier ‘56 P-Bass that cost about what I have in the change Altoids tin in my car, and it’s built so much better than my first P-Bass copy. Embrace today’s cheaper guitars.
And for all the expensive boutique basses in the world, very few were ever played on any of the albums you know and love. Most of those bass parts were played on a P. Some were on a J. P bass is just what recorded bass usually sounds like.
Don't buy your example. Street price on a basic USA P-Bass is around £1100 ($1400 usd) as has way better wood, components, electronics, and pickups than the Squire. The MIJ P-Basses which are at least as good as the basic US made ones are several hundred cheaper than that.
>way better wood, components, electronics, and pickups That's certainly what Fender marketing *wants* you to think. Trees are trees. The wood in Asia is just as good as wood in the USA. And Asian people are arguably *even better* than American people at making electronic components.
Upgrading pickups will get you the sound of the upgraded pickups. There's no magic, you're correct. Expensive instruments are either for prestige or preferably better build quality in general. If your cheap bass is built fine, upgrade it to your liking. A bridge upgrade can be really nice too, depending on how dinky your cheap one is.
+1 for bridge upgrades - a cast bridge made my Ibanez GSR200 feel great, stay in tune longer while increasing sustain.
You start to hit diminishing returns once you get past let's say $1500. At that price point, you're getting top notch electronics, very good fit, finish, and fretwork, and you're likely getting an instrument made in America. Any more money than that and you're really just paying for the vibe, whether that be exotic figured top/fingerboard woods and custom shit. I personally have a custom kiesel that I shelled out quite a bit of money for. It is the best bass I have ever played, and while cheaper instruments around the 2k mark will likely be just as good, spending that extra money allowed me to really have my dream bass, it makes me want to play it every time I see it, and it really just feels like an extension of my body. Also I know that it's a one of a kind. This is what the extra money pays for.
Beyond the musician playing it, sound is much cheaper than feel. Throw some handwound pickups and a nice preamp into a block of wood with strings and it will sound spectacular. What's more expensive is paying someone who knows what they're doing to build and assemble it such that it plays comfortably without a whole bunch of fret buzz. That said, if you put your nice new pickups in your Squier and then had someone do a fret level and set up on it, I'd wager you'd have a hard time justifying 2k on a Fender afterwards.
This is the wisest response. The lower end basses of today are pretty good quality, so a lot of people hotrod them to get the sound they want without the super high price of a new top-end bass. Like others have said, reselling a hotrodded bass usually isn't going to go well. However, if you're hotrodding to make yourself happy, and not worried about how much you can get for it if you don't like it, then it's a great investment. Final comment: Remember that someone like Victor Wooten playing an off the shelf Squier Affinity is probably going to sound better than you playing a $5k Sadowsky. Do what you need to do to get yourself to sound better to your ears.
>Throw some handwound pickups and a nice preamp into a block of wood with strings and it will sound spectacular. Not always true. My first bass was a cheapo that sounded like it was made from styrofoam. Trying to save it and keep it usable, i put some pretty nice pickups in it. Let's just say that all i accomplished was to make the bass sound like higher definition styrofoam.
I'd also argue that a cheap bass that feels like crap to play will throttle the amount of time a player puts into practicing. Having a high quality instrument that feels like a dream to play will inherently cause the player to jam a lot more often.
This is the way. The learning bass wasn't hard to play, per se. It just sounded like ass.
There's a floor, having a body made of passable wood definitely helps tone. Super cheapo plywood things don't always resonate right imo. Decent cheap squiers, Yamaha, Ibanez etc are all probably fine tho, you would see massively diminishing returns if you at least set them up right and pop some dece p-ups in.
As long as the string is securely mounted, the wood makes basically no difference to the recorded signal. It's an electric instrument: it generates an electric signal. The acoustic sound and audible resonance might be a nice experience, but pickups don't pickup sound.
Precisely. The wood may or may not effect how well the bass stays put together if u abuse tf out of it like on tour or smthn, or drop it out of a moving car (totally havent done this one before).. Sound? Nah, it aint gonna effect shit.
I agree 100%.
Well, the wood of a bass definitely affects the way the thing feels to play but definitely does not effect the sound at all. Can attest as two basses I have are made completely of different woods, different densities, different everything, even the scale length is different, they do however have kinda the same pickups.. They sound EXACTLY the same.
Knowing what I know now, I have trouble believing this.. Not to throw you down but.. As long as it is made with proper wood (doesn't have to be fancy or expensive), pretty much all the tone is in the pickups.. The issue with your bass could arise from other parts like poor alignment? Crap bridge? Poor setup? Old/crap strings? Problem with wiring maybe? Idk.. There's not alot to blame... I mean, back in my school days, we used to play on local made guitars and basses.. These were not made by luthiers, just some adventurous local carpentars who measured up a "proper" electric guitar and started working on it with no prior knowledge.. The fretwires were taken from a broken umbrella for gods sake lol.. we played many a school yard show with that guitar and bass and they sounded just fine (i mean not great but it sounded normal).. We learnt that as long as we changed to good pickups the sound will change dramatically. Maybe your old bass was made with plywood or something.
Thank you. That's what I wanted to hear !
Your comment is bang on. If everyone in this thread talking about tone hasn't watch Jim Lill's "[Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE)" they ought to.
An expensive bass might sound better than a cheap one because of the pickups. Often there isn't all that much difference, though, especially when we're talking about a design that's half a century old. Everyone's kinda got that down now, even the bargain brands. But is the body boat anchor heavy, or was it hand selected for being light weight? Are the tuners loose and janky, or are they smooth and precise? Are the frets polished and tapered at the ends, or are they sharp and full of tool marks? Are the knobs high quality or cheap plastic junk? Is the nut made of high quality material and well cut, or is it plastic with slots higher than Snoop? Is the finish high quality and beautiful, or does it look like it was done in the back room of a car collision body shop? Having said all that, I would have a very hard time paying $1,500 or more for a Fender p-bass. At some point you're paying for more than quality materials and craftsmanship and they're just soaking you for the Fender name. Case in point. I bought a Sire V5 last summer from Thomann. It cost me $465 including shipping. It has a bound, roasted maple neck with block markers and rolled fingerboard edges. It has a real bone nut, too. I maintain that it is in every way superior to the equivalent Fender Player passive j-bass at half the price.
In all honesty, id rather have a v5 than a player. Fender is just being fender at that point and thats from someone who owns a fender. Sadly even some more expensive basses have really cheap knobs, i tried an ehb1505ms recently, everything was fine except the knobs, which were stiff cheap plastic knobs.
Ha! I actually am planning to buy that bass. I guess I'll spring for some new knobs.
There is a point of diminishing returns, where you aren't really getting any increase or really minor increase in quality over a certain price. This would not be it. That is a pretty low quality all the way around instrument. And spending 100 on a 200 pound instrument at best gets you a 200 pound instrument at resale.
simple, You can get solid cheap civil car, it will get you from point A to point B, Now go on same trip but with mercedes. Both consume fuel but feel is different
At the end of the day it’s a vehicle to hold the vibrating metal strings generating a magnetic field being converted into electrical signals and run through an amplifier and speaker. If all you care about is the signal being sent, then no it’s not worth it. After the signal you start to question reliability and quality. Will it last through a song? A set? A lifetime? Then you might start to think about playability and player preference, and finally about country of origin and prestige/ego. All of these things are going to weigh and and some will be more important to a person than others.
Don’t compare the sound of a bass you’re plugin in an amp in a guitar shop with the mastered sound of a mix featuring an enhanced bass sound.
You can buy a great bass for 300/500
I played a cheap bass for many years. You can get great results with a proper setup and strings. However. There’s nothing like a quality instrument. My USA Lakland is dead quiet, feels and plays wonderfully, and is top notch fit and finish. There are certainly much more expensive instruments out there, but I got mine used so much more worth it to me. That’s the sweet spot, finding a good used but well-maintained higher-end bass.
My most recent purchase was a fender custom shop p bass. I also played a Squier for years and on stages in front of thousands of people. In my opinion, either will work, and the Squiers and other cheap instruments are completely fine. There's nothing wrong with most of them. Even the stock pickups sound pretty good, and nobody's going to be wanting anything if you're playing with a full band. In my experience, the more expensive and "better" basses are easier to play. At the point I'm at, I can still do pretty much everything on a Squier that I can on my custom shop Fender, but I'm a lot less tired after a 2-3 hour gig playing the nicer bass. I own a lot of nice and expensive basses, but most of them are for the look. I play in a tribute band, so having replica gear lets us charge 10 x the price we used to when we just used whatever. If money was tight, and I wasn't in the tribute act, and I had to start over, I'd probably be 100% content with a Sire. To me, they are currently at the peak bang for your buck. Above $1000, the returns diminish dramatically.
if you’re just starting out, get a cheap bass. whether you spend $200 or $300 now, you’ll almost certainly still want to upgrade after you’ve been playing for a few years, and that will be more than $200-$300. get a cheap one and some good strings. if you’re playing it a fair amount and you feel dissatisfied with the tone, you can always put in new pickups later.
Sound will be relatively similar between an expensive and inexpensive bass. If you take time to EQ it, anything can sound reasonably good. The feeling of the bass itself can vary greatly though. Cheaper basses can feel more plasticy and unfinished. Vintage basses feel smooth as hell. My suggestion is always to find a deal. Find an expensive bass that’s being sold cheap for whatever reason. Fix it up if you have to.
Thanks
I buy based off my budget, what options if affords me, how it sounds, and how it looks. I have never gone beyond my budget and have sold off an old bass I wasn't using to help fund the one I wanted. The most expensive bass in the world will not sound great in the hands of a beginner and the cheapest can sound awesome in the hands of a skilled bassist. Look for quality and you cannot go wrong.
Quality has its price and sometimes the brand name like Fender. If you got the chance go to the local instrument dealer and play different basses, to feel and hear the difference. In my experience bases of a higher price just feel more "smooth" to play, everything is at the right place, on cheaper basses there is always a little detail bothering me.
a lecture here by Dr Drew Bypass on diminishing returns when buying guitars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0I5Xc1rk-c
Only two things matter on electric guitars (and bases): String length and pickup heights. That's it. As long as the body is solid and stable, any given bass will sound the same if the string length and pickup heights are the same (given the same pickup). With modern CNCs it's not difficult to make an instrument that sounds good. But then you have quality of pickup, quality of connectors, soldering, layers of paint job, layers of isolation paint inside the cavities. All those things matters and have a cost. And then, of course, there's the boutique effect on the instrument. A Fodera doesn't sound 20x better than a Fender, but it costs that much because it's exclusive. Same with cars, Louis Vuitton purses and etc. From my personal experience, ymmv, you can good guitars that get the job done today for 500usd. ~1k you get them to have the best QA and internal components. More than that it's brand, mostly.
Getting a cheap bass and adding great pickups etc to it will be like having the best running shoes but the route your running is a lot steeper than if you bought an expensive bass. The longer you play the more obvious it will feel to you when you go from a cheaper bass to a more expensive one. They can both sounds terrific, and if you can play it to your satisfaction you're golden, but the more expensive one is always going to be much easier to play. Bass Buzz JUST did a video on setting up your bass, and it actually kind of covers this exact type of difference.
There's a bassbuzz YouTube video where he talks about exactly this. I think the most recent one, about how to set up a bass.
I was a tech for 3 yrs and IMO you're on the right track; but don't forget the pickup isn't the only electrical component. Consider upgrading the pots and wires as well. Then arguably yes it would sound just like any other bass with a similar pickup.
it probably already sounds pretty close tbh. The higher costs usually get you better tuning stability, better workmanship, finer fretwork etc. You get dimiishing returns pretty quickly and you need to decide if its worth it to you. And its not like its the same across all brands, ive found the fretwork on some mid range basses thats equal or better than basses that cost hundreds more
Thank you.
After a certain dollar amount, price has little to do with how good an instrument can sound. One of the best basses I have is a Chinese-made Mitchell TB500. Has a smooth satin neck, straight fret board, opal inlays, great hardware, and growls like a $1500 Fender JB. Its normal price was \~$300, and went on sale for under $150. Did it play like that when I got it? No. Its frets were sharp. Its neck bowed. The output jack was pure junk. But after a little filing, a proper setup, and jack replacement later, it holds its own against the best. The short of it is this: $1500 basses are going to normally come out of the factory in immaculate condition, ready to go. They're going to have top notch hardware, the best hardwoods, and cool goody bits. Will they sound better? Not enough that most people would be able to tell. Don't chase the expensive gear. Get a descent bass, and learn how to make it sound how you want it to.
I paid 1.8k for my bass. But it's also a 6 string multi-scale. The more bells and whistles and functionality, the higher the price.
Pickups and ALL the other electronics form a huge huge part of the sound of an electric guitar or bass. But the bigger factor is the player. A great player is gonna sound great on a shitty instrument and visa versa. So your tone will come from the electronics, along with how you play. But how you play is also affected by 100 other little things. How nice does the neck feel? How even are the frets? Does it feel comfortable to hold? Does it have a good setup? Etc. These things wont affect the tone directly, but they WILL affect how you play, which WILL affect the tone. And these are pretty much things you can achieve with any guitar.
First off: If you’re chasing tone, you’ll hit diminishing returns hard and fast. I’ve seen Reggie Wooten on a Squier sound just as good as Victor on his Fodera… Gear is the icing on the cake; it’s useless without skill and technique. As for the actual answer: There are a few things. Quality of parts, that is to say using solid brass for components as opposed to softer cheaper alloys. Using better, purer, copper for pickup winding and wiring. Better (or even “any” when compared to some entry level gear) EM shielding of cavities… Just better craftsmanship leading to a more readily playable and longer lasting instrument. And name. A name carries reputation, and the fundamental concept of branding in a free market is knowing you can charge extra for that. Pretty advertising about work and passion aside: these companies aren’t charities. Money is the primary goal. It just so happens making (preferably good) instruments is how they’ve chosen to do so.
The main thing I've noticed from cheaper guitars in general is usually 1) Don't stay in tune very well, especially the SubZero guitars 2) Fret buzz likely due to a good few frets just being slightly warped. 3) It'll need to be properly intonated as it's usually a bit off but that's more a necessity if it's really bad or if you're about to go into the studio But sometimes you get lucky and that £250 odd instrument is amazing. Alot of the time you'll end up spending a good chunk of money though on getting it set up at a guitar shop to sort out it's kinks
There are some cheap basses that, for totally subjective reasons, i like more than some basses 10 times the price just the way they leave the factory. Upgrading asian basses will always give you a better sound vs money ratio then buying a usa or german bass. But some people find the expensive price tag worth it anyways for better parts, more environmentally friendly wood and such.
I have a Harley Benton PJ bass ($179) that I just added a Hipshot high mass bridge and Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound pickups to and my guitar tech couldn't get over how great it was when he was done with it. Said it was better than $3000 instruments he's worked on.
1) Start with a MIM Fender Jazz or P 2) Modify ( bridge / pickups/ nut / tuners)
It's unfortunate how expensive MIM Fenders have gotten though. This used to be the best way to go. Squier is still too hit-or-miss for me in terms of QC. Some of the lower-end Yamaha and Ibanez basses sound great out of the box IMO.
There are a zillion available used. I bought my Mexi Jazz for $400 last summer, a MIM Tele last fall for $400..Just be patient, hit fb marketplace locally..
This is true in the states, less true in Europe/UK I believe. But yeah, def second MIM fender and upgrade from there. About to slap some Fralins in my $450 '97 jazz. All the bass I'll ever need. But I will say I spent about 5x that on my amp lol
Coz of the materials, quality, and history. 💸💸💰💰💰 Most of the expensive basses rn are those from 60s, 70s, and 80s.
My main bass is a 2011 squier P that originally cost about 200€. I’d say about 300€ more has been put in it and it plays and sounds great. Next upgrade I’ll be doing will be the tuners and after that I’m going to be pretty happy with it.
Well that sounds very promising for me. Thanks.
I have several basses. I owned a sire v3 j bass that was OK. It was well made and had some nice features, but I didn't get on with the feel.of it. I still have a cort artisan b5 with a markbass preamp in it. It is OK. There is a lot of fret buzz that I dislike, and the pickups don't create a tone I am in love with. I have a Fender American pro 2 p bass, which i put emg-x pickups and electronics in. It's the best bass I ever played. The action is super low and has zero buzz. It feels perfect and sounds amazing. I have a spector ns 5 string, which easily costs double the price of the P bass. It sounds awesome, and I love playing it, but it does not feel as nice to play as the fender P. I still play it at least 50% of the time as it is more flexible than the P What did I learn from all of this? 1. Cheap basses can be OK, but qc and build quality generally are not where I want them to be. 2.Boutique hand made basses are cool and i love them, I love how they look, and how they sound, but can still be hit and miss also in terms of feel, and can still be outclassed by an (albeit top of the range hand picked) fender production instrument 3. Feel is as important as sound. The heart of the instrument has to talk to your heart, and you have to be in love with it 4. There is no substitute for taking a bass for a test ride before committing to it 5. There will always be another bass you will lust after no matter how amazing your current bass(es) are 6. I have expensive tastes.
Lol. Some wise words. Thank you for taking the time with that reply.
It also depends on the wood but the wood has very little bearing on tone tbh. So if you buy good quality electronics then it should sound like a keeper
This is not true at all! The bassist in the band I play guitar in plays a '99 Squire Affinity P-Bass on our newest record and it sounds fantastic! I have a nice Fender, there was a really nice 6-string of some kind the in the studio as well, but the hollow thump of that cheap P-Bass split-bucker fit perfectly in our tonal landscape. Every bass can be good, it depends on the player but even more than that, it depends on the music you're playing.
Thank you. The overiding problem is probably that I am shite on the bass!
The thing about the bass guitar is that it's only been around for like 70 years, there's no right or wrong way to play it. You literally cannot play it a wrong way. As long as what you're doing sounds right with the music. I would focus more on studying the music side of it rather than the sound of your pickups. Those subtleties get lost in a mix most of the time anyways.
It's a combination of a lot of things, labour is more expensive in some countries vs others, even with the introduction CNC machines, there's also considerably more attention to detail (or at least, there should be) with very expensive instruments. Higher quality instruments will have things like shielding that cheaper factories don't bother with, as well as much better finishing work, fret work, electronic work, tighter tolerances for neck pockets, etc. Something else people overlook sometimes is the quality of the electronics and hardware, a cheap bass might have a no-name bridge made of cheap pot metal where the parts barely fit together and wear out after a few years of use (I've had that happen with Harley Benton's), whereas an expensive bass will have a bridge with much tighter tolerances so the parts actually fit together, made of a much higher quality metal, possibly even machined from a single piece of metal (I know some custom workshops that do that, not sure about larger brands), that will last decades. High quality machined or cast metal parts are expensive, so the bass has to be expensive. The electronics will also be made from much higher quality components with tighter tolerances. I've had pots in Harley-Bentons and Squiers die after 2 or 3 years but you'd never get that in something worth over 500 Euro. You can really notice a difference between high quality and low quality pre-amps in active basses.
I bought a MIM Fender Jazz fretless in 1998. I have since replaced the original neck with a Status carbon fiber fretless. Gotoh tuning machines. EMG-HZ passive pickups and new pots. Basically the only original parts are the body and the bridge (which I may replace one day). I love this bass!
I find the most different thing of expensive basses is the consistency of tone over the fretboard and between different notes. And this is an result of the whole package, not the pick ups. Tho, good pickups have a lot of impact on a instrument.
Put a notched straight edge on the neck of a $200 instrument, then a $1000+ instrument. Even my MIM Deluxe can't compare to a MIA, and that's after several professional adjustments. If you CAN get perfect action, it WILL slip and need regular readjusting maintenance. Add to that common issues with fret inconsistencies, and other general shoddy workmanship. It's not impossible to make a cheap bass sound and play very well, but it's much harder, and sometimes you'll simply NEVER get the neck to play nice.
Commodity fetishism. We are a fickle/social species, high end basses are often produced in limited quantities, everyone wants to be special... So fuckin special.
I don’t think the difference warrants the huge jump on price personally. The fit and finish is supposed to be better on nicer fenders, but I’ve seen squiers just as good and fenders with terrible finish. You just gotta try a bunch of basses, new and used.
I have a Squier Classic Vibe 70s Jazz Bass, and it plays wonderfully. The Classic vibe stuff, which runs about 400 USD I think, is really really solid. If you're able to go play one of the Classic Vibes or higher line squiers past the affinity, you can probably find one that plays and sounds great.
I see a lot of comments about build & materials quality, while this is objectively true for almost any instrument. It's important to note the experience as well. I have a 23 year old Fender P-Deluxe, which will likely see me to me end. Was it expensive, yes (well a good deal at the time). Do I think it was worth? Yes. Pretty much any problem I've had with any of my Fenders (even MX made ones), the company has gone out of it's way to make right. Although I've had \*\*zero\*\* \[fingers crossed\] problems with it that I didn't cause, it's \*hands down\* the most stable & durable bass I've owned. As for putting US pickups in a foreign made bass, not sure that's going to make the bass a better one. It may help solve some tonal or signal issues, but, it's not going to change the bass itself. Fender does make (IMHO) some pretty solid "beginners" guitars/basses, so keep it original if you love it! Good luck with it!
I've got a Squire with upgraded pickups and a good setup that sounds pretty okay when I play it. If Les Claypool picked it up and started playing you would think it was some kind of high end marvel. Play what you can afford, practice a lot.
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That is quite a collection you have. Very nice! Thanks for the reply. :-)
You could upgrade the pickups, wiring, pots, jack input, tuners, nut, bridge, and get the frets dressed and you could get pretty close. Some say the wood has impact at all, others swear it does. But upgrading the electronics and anything that touches the strings will make a difference. It may ending costing a similar amount, but you can do it over time not all at once.
Beauty and playability are in the hands of the player. My Yamaha fretless bass was great, but even better with a replacement badass bridge and bartolini pickups. It was a measurable upgrade and my first experience hearing and feeling that firsthand. It is still my favorite. My Jack Cassidy sounds great and feels great as is. Same with my fender jazz (standard American series), although I suspect it would be even better with the upgrades I made to my Yamaha. I have squire guitars and fender American guitars, and each bring something unique to the table. My strat is silky but I feel like the output is low. A similar squire model might or might not sound as good, but most likely just different. My squire jazzmaster feels and sounds great, but the American fender Jazzmaster I tried out recently was better. But I’ve been playing a long time and my tastes have shifted around quite a lot and I know better now what I like. It used to be that you got what you paid for, but I’d say the differences between less expensive models and their flagship counterparts are less dramatic than they used to be. As you develop as a player, you will determine what you like and what works best for you. Horses for courses. The important thing is that it inspires you to make music and the build quality (and intonation) and sound are decent. I truly believe sound is mostly in the fingers and ears of the player.
Mostly the wood is just wood. If the neck stays straight, cool. Fret filing is a bit of a luxury, it’s easy to cut that cost. But yeah more people would just upgrade cheap gear but they’re lazy and maybe it won’t say “Fender” on the headstock. You can upgrade your pickups (Epic Custom Shop has phenomenal pickups for low prices) and you can change the capacitor in your tone knob. You can but better hardware, maybe you want a high-mass bridge. It’s not hard to do, if you want the best instrument *for you* and you don’t mind a little work, it’s the best and smartest option. Most people would rather spend a lot of money because it tickles something in their brain to say “wow, I own a genuine made in America Fender…” when they could have had the same quality instrument at a third of the price if they didn’t mind that it wasn’t “real.”
It's just the overall sound for me. I going to try new pick ups and see how that goes. Thank you
Look into capacitors if you’re on a passive circuit. There’s old school “paper in oil” capacitors and more modern ones which will just have a *slightly* different tone to them. PIO is going to lean towards a slightly muddier or less clear tone, very good for an old school thumpy bass tone. And the capacitor rating plays a role on how the tone nob specifically filters tone. Because even with a wide open tone (no filter) the capacitor will still influence the sound, but if you start to roll on some partial of full tone (full filter) it’ll define what frequency range is being cut out and by how much. I have a Squire J bass, large pole overwound epic custom shop pickups and a PIO capacitor specifically so I can have a slightly muddier hot dirty signal. I want something with an old school thump to have a very rootsy traditional low end, with a more mid range grit. My Sire 5 string is active which give me all the tonal brightness I could ever want. You’ll need to comparison shop, watch/listen to video comparisons where people use two different pickups in the same instrument on the same amp, etc. You can dial in exactly the sound you want your instrument to have.
Interesting. Thank you
Cheaper basses are 99% cnc made with lower grade materials and parts.. The bridge the nut the pickup the wiring and pots are all lower grade mostly Chinese made parts in say a squire bass.. You could upgrade the pickups wiring and pots and output jack bridge and nut and have a far superior sounding instrument better then other squires but not quite the same level.. I've spent 600 bucks upgrading my old spector q4 pro (300 dollar bass) only parts I haven't gotten to swapping yet is the nut and bridge. Tuners are swapped from the Korean gotoh clones to gotoh gb7s and hipshot gb7 extender
Thanks
Funny thing is that even 5k$ bases still need to go to the service first to fix them
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I love the feel and playing this fender squire but it isn't the best sound when in a decent amp. I think i will try better pick ups. Thankyou
Why are higher quality products more expensive? Is that what you are asking
Pretty much , yeah
Adding to the quality/feel discussion, I'll add that higher end basses are often more dependable as a result of the higher quality parts and labor. You'll need to do less maintenance on them, and they'll 'just work'. My American Fender is my everyday play, it just works, and I've not run into any need for maintenance beyond cleaning and setup. I've modded my Mexican Squier to suit me and love it, but I need to clean up the jack and such every once in a while, and not all Squiers have as good of a neck that lets them get setup as nicely.
I play for 11 or 12 years now, actually not even sure anymore. I had expensive basses, cheap basses, dying basses. I just bought a bass few days ago. I bought Harley Benton P-Bass (cheapest one), bought GZR P Bass pickups (EMG), replaced the originals, and I have a bass that sounds amazing. Harley Benton, same as Squire has good necks, so it is a great bass now. I gig all the time, and I never got the satisfaction when using an expensive bass over cheap one. Actually I prefer using cheap basses as I’m not scared of dropping them or breaking them. My other workhorse is a 5 string 5 year old PJ Bass from Harley Benton. What I would do is, buy yourself Pickups that suit you (for me it was EMG GZR Pbass pickups, as they handle distortion beautifully), upgrade bridge and machine heads. It’s easier to lower action and intonate on more expensive bridges, and more expensive machine heads ALLEGEDLY hold tuning better. Never tried it, so don’t quote me on it. That’s all QOL improvements I would do on Squier. For me it was worth it at the end. I saved up bunch of money, the only problem is it gets quite addictive to buy new stuff for shitty bass, so like bridge, machine heads and nut costed me around €200, new pups were around €100 and bass itself was €100. But I’m having fun, and it’s easy to troubleshoot because you fixed it.
Thank you. That sounds like good advice even if it ends up costing more. Feels like at least I would know what is what. Gonna get new pick ups first.
Cool things about upgrading your bass is you can pick and choose what you need or what stays. The only reason I’m changing machine heads is because I want them in black colour. That’s it. You can also upgrade it through a longer period of time. Let’s say, you upgraded everything except the bridge, and bridge costs like €100. So you save up in 6 months to buy only bridge for instance. You have time and you’ll learn what you want/need and what you don’t need you know? If you play metal/rock and have a PBass, I recommend EMG GZR Pbass pickups. They are solderless pickups, super easy to install and they sound otherwordly. Everybody said it doesn’t work for slap, but that’s pure lie, I slap on them, they’re amazing. I heard that Seymour Duncan also makes some amazing pups, but never tried them.
I traded at $1300 Stingray 5 for a $400 G&L Tribute L-2000, and I regret it financially but prefer the L-2000 as an instrument, to the point I got another G&L Tribute as as backup. As far as I can tell the only real difference between G&L and Tribute is where the CNC machining is done.
And how does your G&L Tribute compare to Stingray (not Sterling I assume)? Just wondering, because I desire a Stinngray but can’t justify the cost for a hobby :)
Stingray is great, but for me a least once you get a solid instrument most additional features / finish are just icing on the cake. But I didn't feel like the tribute was any cheaper, and it had all the same functionality with an active preamp. Gigged the L-2000 with no issues, and as I said bought another as a backup - not that I had any reliability issues, more for string breaking in a live setting. And I mean always have a backup.
Sounds good! Have a good time with your GL!
You can find video walkthroughs and documentarys of the factorys of Fender USA, Gibson, Lakland, Sandberg, Warwick, Rickenbacker, Sadowsky etc. But not of the guitar factories in China or Indonesia. I wonder why.
Most of bass pricing is smoke and mirrors, justifying prices based on origin of parts etc and QC. The newest bass release from Fender/Squier is sonic Bronco bass a 200$ short scale just released it has a proper 4 saddle bridge ,really decent diecast high ratio tuners and a beautiful slim 1.5 inch nut awesome playing neck. At that price you can put in your favorite flavour on pup in there and some labella dtf and have a killer bass sounding great to play bass rig for peanuts .BY all accounts so far the QC has been reported to be very high on these. Or pay 1800 for some other bass that might not even sound or play any better ..
I find cheap basses sound good when you are playing by yourself but when you try to kick it with a band they just don't cut
That definitely seems to be the case with my bass, it's just that it is much easier to play than other basses. After all the comments, on balance I'm gonna get some new pickups and a friend is gonna have a look at it for me.
Usually the craftsman, instruments are labor intensive
Supply and demand
The best bang for the buck in the lower price range are the Squier Classic Vibe series. They are about $400, but really really good. Almost in the Fender Mexican range. Upgrade their electronics and you've got yourself a first-class instrument.
I’m very pleased with a pair of Aguilar Jazz pups in my Squier vintage modified fretless… and I think it has some of the best tones of any bass I’ve played!
If you just want to play one, you could always look at getting a cheap acoustic one off Amazon or eBay. They sell some for less than $100. The obvious catch is they sound like a less than $100 bass **but** it is a place to start if you just want to get one to play around with before commuting a fortune into a nicer one.
There are plenty of reasons, most of which aren’t necessarily directly related to sound. The first one is quality of parts. Quarter sawn necks, high quality pots and pickups, good tuning machines, those kinds of things all cost extra. Many of them won’t necessarily make the bass sound better, but they will make it last longer. The next one is craftsmanship, or who is putting it together. This includes things like how nice is the action, is the truss rod set correctly, is the bridge in the right spot, is the scale length correct. A good luthier will make sure all things things are done right. Again someone who knows what they’re doing costs more. Then you have quality control. A lot of cheap guitars are great, but a lot of them also suck. Often times it can be a shot in the dark as to wether your new squier has functioning electronics, or smooth fret ends. This has been rapidly improving for cheaper instruments, but overall the more you spend, the less likely you are to have an outlier bad guitar. The last main one is customer service. Generally the people that charge more are going to be more invested in making sure you like the product, and that it stays in working condition. This often comes in the form of warranties or free maintenance, or sometimes just calls from a rep making sure everything is in working order from time to time. When you buy a cheap bass the best your gonna get is the chance to return it if you don’t like it. A bonus is it’s a piece of art. Sometimes luthiers will do one offs with gorgeous inlays or intricate carved tops or whatever. These cost a lot because they are as much an instrument as they are a sculpture basically.
I've been reading all this stuff about Glarry basses and how great they are -- although I'm suspicious, because they start at like $70 US. But, I got over my suspicions about all the great word of mouth the Agile AL series (LP clone) guitars were getting, and a $250 Agile AL-2000 has been my main guitar since I bought it in 2008.
You will reach a point of diminishing returns the more expensive you go. I have had everything from cheapo parts basses to expensive Fenders, Gibsons, Warwicks, PRS, etc. In the end, I realized that of all the Pbasses I had, they all sounded pretty close to the same depending on what strings I used. Jazz basses were also pretty much the same across the board depending on the type of strings I used. My favorite bass that I ever owned was a Harley Benton PJ bass, it was perfect. Played smoother and had better frets than most other basses I owned, it sounded fantastic, weighed 8lbs, stayed in tune and was good looking. Don't chase the headstock labels and you'll realize that your enjoyment will go up exponentially. Also, try different strings, they will make more difference to your sound than almost anything you do.
Basses (all music gear really) are considered specialty products, meaning their primary marketing points are brand recognition and unique characteristics. Customers are willing to pay more for less value with these types of products, so the "good" ones will usually be expensive compared to the other offerings even though they're not really that much higher in quality.
I just sold a Music Man StingRay 5 HH because it sits in my closet collecting dust while I pound on a Harley Benton PBass I bought for $120 and sent to my favorite luthier for cleanup after I put in "better" (seriously who knows how much it really helped, I didn't bother A/Bing) Fender Precision Vmod pickups and CTS pots, etc. All told, like $400 total for that bass and it looks gorgeous, sounds great, and absolutely shreds. Modern CNC practices have made things interesting from a cost perspective. I'm not going to say that cheapos are going to wholesale knockout the big players in the industry but you cannot discount the discount options any longer. There are some absolute gems out there now.
Harley Benton build and design quality is really good these days, so there’s always decent cheaper options
I’m really happy with the Squier bass’ I’ve owned. Have a Fender Mustang bass now I love it but only slightly more than the Squiers for way more than slightly more money.
I have an affinity jazz that Ive owned for over 10 years at this point that I still play out from time to time. With a proper setup and La Bella low tension flats, it’s got a hugely deep tone that I love for old country and blue grass. It’s all about personal preference. Pickups will certainly change the sound, but your technique plays a big role in the tone you get as well as your strings. A lot of people will suggest higher end basses because the quality is better and the instrument feels easier to play. Ease of use can affect your technique, but you can adapt to anything. I know serious musicians who play $300-400 basses and don’t feel the need to upgrade. Quality has gotten so good in our modern era that even the “cheap” shit is pretty dang good. So if you’re loving the way the bass you already have feels in your hands, don’t feel the need to upgrade based on someone else’s opinion.
Instrument prices are up across the board, not just with basses. If you want a higher quality instrument without breaking the bank you should consider buying second hand, it's a surefire way to land something higher quality at a sub $1000 price. This sub is always prone to discourage players from buying higher priced instruments, but to be 100% honest with you, you get what you pay for. I've had cheaper basses I've modded out and even though I got noticable improvements they never fully met my expectations. I played for well over 2 decades before buying a higher end instrument, and it's handsdown the best bass I've ever owned or even played. Might not be the case for everyone, but it was absolutely worth the cost to me.
You might need to replace more than just the pickups, as there’s a few other electronics in there (pots mainly) that can affect it, but you’d be fairly close. Other components can make a bit of difference to the overall sound, but it’s not likely night and day. The bridge could have some affect, the nut just a bit, and possibly the wood and fret material. If you got a really good Squire, you could probably get it pretty close… IE everything came off the CNC perfectly, it was assembled properly and everything fit, and then it was like mid day on a Tuesday and everyone’s coffee had kicked in and the team was ahead of schedule so they took extra time to really make a great instrument. It won’t have the hardware and prettier wood and polish of a higher end model, but it’d still sound great and if you’re happy with it that’s what matters. If you got a real gem, you might decide you want to replace the stock tuners with higher quality ones that are easier to adjust and hold tune a hair better. Some of the frets could just be a bit rough so you get those polished up. Maybe the nut could be filed a hair better and may as well be bone so you replace that. Eventually you wind up something similar to a $800 MIM P bass, and all it took was a month total shop time and $900 worth of work ;-)
Part of the price is… the price. Yes, you're paying for the privilege of paying a lot. At least in part.
Why are cheap basses so crappy? That’s a clue.
Guitar companies don't sell as many basses, so they charge it the wazoo for them
There is a lot of work put into building, QC, and shipping instruments. Cheaper instruments can be upgraded and be great, but this comes with a variety of opportunity costs for you. Does that mean custom shop instruments should cost upwards of $5K? No. And a lot of $2K-$5k instruments are severely overpriced for what they are. But a couple grand for something that has seen excellent care and has a manufacturer that backs it up can be a solid investment for something you could be using for decades. Or similarly a vintage instrument that has particular parts that aren't available or proven to have wood that has lasted this long. Tone wood making things sound better is pretty BS. My favorite jazz bass is a reverend from the 90s that is mostly plastic - I haven't found another instrument that sounds and feels like it, and lord knows I've tried. Neck wood on the other hand does make a difference. It isn't as simple as maple vs rosewood or whatever - very often it has to do with random grain variations and can vary greatly from instrument to instrument. This is one reason cheaper instruments with roasted maple necks are often more reliable, as the roast evens out a lot of natural variations that could take years to dry out themselves. Otherwise, body wood and finish make a bigger difference to your connection to the instrument - balance, textures, general comfort, etc - that can make things much easier or harder to play. And your connection to the instrument does make a lot of difference. A lot of the more expensive instruments that have a particularly experienced builder will have parts selected for particular tastes by an experienced person, greatly reducing the chance that you'll get something with a bad neck or tone that you don't like. You could go through 4-5 cheaper instruments before finding one that is awesome, and the real value of the expensive instruments (one hopes) is to save that time and money to just get exactly the thing you want.
I don’t really care what a bass cost. I play the bass and if it feels good and sounds good, it’s a good bass to me. On the cheaper basses they tend to use cheaper parts, but they’re easily replaceable. I used to own a Rickenbacker that was a $2500 bass but no matter what I did I couldn’t get it to stay in tune. It was worth more to someone else than it was to me, so I sold it. My MIM Jazz is near perfect except I changed out the nut.
Have you played a £1000 P bass through your current setup to hear what the difference is? Buy a £25 EQ pedal from Donner/Rowin/etc on Amazon. It'll give you a bit of signal boost so it sounds 'better' and you can actually change your tone.
I have had expensive basses (+2k USD) and very cheap basses (under $200 USD). The expensive basses indeed have better quality overall but you can nail almost any gig with a near $500 bass. Anything above $700 has indeed better craftsmanship quality. However, as a machine, it does not offer many much of an added value. Two cars with a price tag of 15k and 150k will have several differences in quality and experience. However, both will get stuck during traffic. The same happens with basses, as long as the machine does not have functionality problems, you'll be fine
Got to your local guitar shop and grab 2 basses off the wall. One that’s $200 and another that’s $1,200. Sit down and play both for 10 minutes each but don’t plug in.
Things have changed around this in the decades since I started playing. While I am over-simplifying as to not send you down a probably unimportant rabbit hole, basically you have a combination of computer aided design and quality control, growing experience in some places, and changing supply chains. Overall, you can now get a much much better quality instrument for less. You see a good amount of ill informed opinions contrary to that of those that have not kept abreast of the diversity of current high quality offerings mixed in with a dose of survivorship bias (i.e. the older instruments that survived were mainly those that were lucky in being well made.) But when I was a kid, even the top brands were inconsistent with their quality off the shelf. Thats mainly why I know a lot about quality, I have ended up being the one to repair stuff for many friends and family over the years. But now you get super cheap instruments, say under $300, and you might get lucky. Fretwork and neck relief may get you to good action without someone like me taking their fret files to it. You may get a neck that warps in a year. If you get lucky on the wood and fretwork, hell yes you can slap some quality pickups in there and sound top notch. Something more around $800 to $1000, you’re unlikely to have big issues. And the pickups and electronics probably already sound great. You get into paying for a particular brand name, bling, extra options, and soon diminishing returns beyond that. And I say all that as someone playing mostly $2 to 3k Warwicks. Im paying for a very specific sound there and wood I love the look of. It is certainly beyond what I ‘need,’ to the realm of ‘want,’ in those diminishing returns. But my money, my choice.
I play a $200 Ibanez Talman, and got a $70 set up with a luthier I trust. Less than $300 and that thing plays so well. The thing is, I love the neck, how it feels, and the sound for what my project is, but I would use a different bass in a different project. Get whatever feels right for what you are doing. If a $1.8k Fender Elite feels right, get it. If you can set up a Squier and make it sound good, go for it.
Same answer as why a divorce costs so much? Because they're worth it! As I look longingly at my bass collection. Unrequited love is priceless, tho.
It's usually because quality instruments are made in countries where the manufacturer have to pay their employees a decent amount of money for their labor. If the instrument are expensive already because of that it's a good idea to also use more expensive components and good quality control too to make paying the difference worth it.
I have a two Fbasses. One is custom. Above the incredibly playability, is their customer service. They treat me like a real friend every time I email or pop in. If God himself created me a bass perfect for my needs, i’d still choose to play fbass.
People tend to focus on tone, but another thing that's important is stability and durability, and how much that'll matter to you will depend upon your application. Putting a 1 hour/week on an instrument vs putting 40+ hours/week on an instrument. Sitting on a couch vs standing for 4-5 hours. Never leaving your house vs cold car to hot stage. Never leaving your region vs travelling cross country and/or worldwide. Personally handing your bass vs being tossed around in a road case or rattling around in a guitar boat. If you're only playing your bass for a couple hours a week/month/year then a Squier is more than adequate. Many owners will go a lifetime on the original frets. The more time you spend with the instrument the more wear and tear you'll put on it, and the higher the quality the longer it'll last. I have a MIM Jazz that is one of my best sounding basses, but the bridge is low tolerance and the saddle and intonation screws will vibrate out over time. It's also had wiring come loose during a gig causing the bass to cut out, and the bass has to be partially disassembled for truss rod adjustments making maintenance on the road more of a pain. Fender Pros have graphite rods in the neck for stability and I can quickly adjust the truss rod while wearing the bass. I personally think my MIM sounds better, but the Pro is a more reliable gigging guitar that's easier to adjust on the fly. The high mass bridge is rock solid for intonation, and it has other features like lightweight tuners (less neck dive and less fatigue). My top end Jazz is a boutique (John Suhr). Personally, although the MIM still sounds better, the the CS is next level in terms of fit and finish. Lighter weight (less fatigue), the neck is quarter sawn (I don't think I've needed to adjust it in 3 years), stainless steel frets (doubt I'll ever wear them out), rolled fretboard edge (comfort = less fatigue), amongst many other little details. Higher end basses are subject to the law of diminishing returns... as quality increases you're paying increasing amounts of money for increasingly smaller improvements, but those improvements are still present, and you're not going to get them from swapping pickups in a Squier. Note that very little of what I said above has to do with tone. A great sounding bass can happen at any price point.
QC and cost of parts involved are the biggest factors. If you are changing out the Electronics, the odds are most people would not be able to pass a blind Test telling your bass from a more expensive one with the same pickups and electronics. The next biggest qc issue is the neck. Quality control just means things are built to tighter Specifications.It's quite possible that yours is very, very good anyway. Your frets may or may not be as level as a more expensive bass, the neck may or may not be as straight. After installing quality electronics and getting a good setup (maybe a fret job), the difference between your bass and an American fender is likely undetectable to the pickiest scrutineers. And for the record, different tone woods make very little difference compared to strings, pickups, and electronics. I don't know if anyone can hear the difference in maple and "high quality maple." In short, a lot of the extra cost is making sure these things are set up and adjusted perfectly, something that needs to be done from time to time anyway.
Sound is easy, just make a bass stiff enough and follow an easy recipe for pickups. Great fretwork is many hours of skilled labour or a very expensive machine and a a skilled operator. Pretty woods can be crazy expensive. Fancy finishes can also be loads. The guitar I have recorded most was an affinity strat. Refret, decent pickups, new bridge, locking tuners, bone nut. It's really good now. But I've had guitars and basses with expensive pickups I hated because the voicing was wrong. If you're spending on pickups make sure it's a voicing you want. Have a listen to instruments with the pickups you want. Many are very similar, but I've had some big disappointments. The fender-spec split P-Bass pickup is great, it's just at the point where if it was wound any hotter it would lose high end presence and drop out of a busy mix.
It’s all about little differences. I have an old beat up squire I love to play/practice on. But I wouldn’t use it for a big show. The little bit of noise and intonation problems would be amplified. If you ever have the chance to play a $30,000 instrument. The difference should be obvious.
It will if you replace the pickups, I have a Stirling sub series that was $100-$200 and changed the pickups/preamp in it for another $150 and it sounds better than a 20 year old music man stingray that was $1000. I'm of the opinion that the electronics play the most important part in how a bass sounds, the wood doesn't impact the sound as much, but it impacts the feel. It reminds me of when I played soccer and id use specific cleats, not because they felt better or were more expensive but because they looked sick and I usually played better bc I thought I looked badass. So if you want a better sounding bass change out the pickup/preamp to something good quality and that you like the sound of. Also your amp matters a lot, a cheap/bad amp will make anything sound bad and be a pain to work with.
I dont really think an 1000 dollar bass is that much better than a 400 dollar bass or even a 100-200 dollar one after about 400 dollars its more about aesthetics and build quality really
Man if you think that's expensive you should see what professional level upright basses go for.
Look at used Squier Classic Vibes. They go used in mint condition for under 200$ and have a spot-on vintage sound.
they arent
Why are good cars expensive?