If you wanted to get a bass and you limited yourself to $300 what would you buy?

[dorfmeister]

I am a long-time guitarist but want to get a decent low cost bass to develop my bass chops and record with.

I have been looking at used low end Schecters, Spectors, and Cort Curbows. All these can be had new or used for $300 or under. What would you recommend?

[midnight-to-six]

It's hard to beat the Mexican-made Fender Precisions or Jazz basses for that kind of money. Totally solid, playable, and nice sounding instruments. You could also check out the SX basses from Rondo Music--I had a jazz bass copy that was kind of incredible for the money (about $120 new).

[trpullen]

for mid-$400 range, the G&L SB-2 Tribute is AMAZING. It is way better than the Mexi Jazz for the money.

[Gordon_Gecko]

Ibanez Soundgear

[dillonfiore]

Ibanez Soundgear

No offense but, I hate those things...sorry. I got a Fender Jazz Bass for about 200 and upgraded the circuitry to seymore duncan active circutry for about 150. Sounds great.

[kipknee]

80's era Ibanez or Yamaha basses can be picked up for cheap. Lotta bang for the buck. I had an Ibanez RB850 that I used as a travel bass for years. Great tone, great playing.

[Gordon_Gecko]

No offense but, I hate those things...sorry. I got a Fender Jazz Bass for about 200 and upgraded the circuitry to seymore duncan active circutry for about 150. Sounds great.

Thats OK, I hate Fender... especially the Squire series :BOUNCE .

[dillonfiore]

Thats OK, I hate Fender... especially the Squire series :BOUNCE .

I'm with you on the Squire thing. They fall apart. It may be because I cant stand Nu-metal and the tone of those reminds of Nu-Metal tone.

[Gordon_Gecko]

No doubt... nu metal sucks.






BTW... what is nu metal?


:RoCkIn

[The Golden Boy]

I wish I could run into an Ibanez SR1500 for cheap. The SR800s are pretty nifty little basses as well.

My main bass is a G&L L-2000- If'n I were looking for another bass on the cheap, I'd be looking at a G&L Tribute L-2000.

[LowWatt]

Very happy with my Godin Freeway 4. It was $375 CDN, so probably about $300 US. 3 piece body, nitro finish, decent P/J pickups, phenomenally well-built, great jazz bass style neck.

[Bassomatic]

A used 80's Guild Pilot from Ebay, or a new Epi EB-0 style bass (played one revcently anfd was pretty impressed).

[Zim]

Now the older Squires are nice! I had a MIJ P that was awsome and one of the first MIK Jazzers that blew me away! I don't like the new ones. The older with thick gloss necks rock! I got the P for $100 and the Jazz for $120!

My old band played a open mic night thing at a bar, and the host bands guitar player was running sound. I played that P-bass there. The guitarist said to me before we played, " Squire?, Haha, I strated on one too, you put the cable into the input of the bass amp." We played 5 orginals and 2 covers. 2 days later, the same guitarist called me and asked if I would come join his band and do thier new record with them. I asked if I could bring my Squire, and turned him down.

[Thor]

A used 80's Guild Pilot from Ebay, or a new Epi EB-0 style bass (played one revcently anfd was pretty impressed).


+1 on the 80's Guild Pilot - tracked with one that our producer had picked up several years back, and it was fantastic! (I really should try to pick one up for myself now that I think of it....)

Cheers,

Edward

[westrock]

All the fender made in Japan basses are very nice, I have a Fender Precision Bass Lyte with P/J active pick ups. These have Precision type bodies with Jazz type necks, Great basses.

[PB+J]

SX p-j four string. $119. I got the fretless four string J for $133 shipped. It needed some set up work, but it was playable out of the box. The quality is really very high


IMHO the place to spend money with a solid body is the amp. The best bass in the world will sound bad though a bad amp; a good amp can make any bass sound good.

[garfight]

i picked up a g&l tribute l2k new off ebay awhile back for less than 3 bills shipped.it has since become my main bass and blows everything else i've played in it's price range(and ALOT of more expensive basses) away.

[acemcguire]

I am a long-time guitarist and I did a year long stint on bass in a friend's band. Since it was a fill-in role, I didn't want to put out a lot of cash for my instrument. I started on a Mex Precision, but it was heavy and unweildy and the tone was just ok. I switched to a used Ibanez SR400 I picked up on ebay for $225 and couldn't have been happier. Playability was much more guitar-like and the tone was head and shoulders above Fender.

Not to mention I could plug it direct in for recording and get great sounds without using any preamps or eq. The Fender needed a lot of tweaking.

[big mike]

The low end Yamaha stuff is killer. Put some better pickups in it and you're golden. Can't go wrong IMO...as a guitar player. LOL

[dorfmeister]

SX p-j four string. $119. I got the fretless four string J for $133 shipped. It needed some set up work, but it was playable out of the box. The quality is really very high


IMHO the place to spend money with a solid body is the amp. The best bass in the world will sound bad though a bad amp; a good amp can make any bass sound good.

Are the SX basses the ones sold by Rondo Music? I wonder how the quality would be in relation to a Fender Squire, low end Schecter, or other low end basses from Yamaha, Ibanez, etc.

[Antero]

An SX and switch the pickups, perhaps...

Or a Danelectro DC bass (used) though that's a more specific sound. Still awesome.

[michael30]

I have a Korean Tokai Jazz Bass which is surprisingly good. I bought it the day before a gig as a backup. The trick is to go to a store that has a lot of basses and pick out the good one. There were seven Tokais in the store where I bought mine. Two of them were good and five were not.

[bikeplate]

HI

Id get an OLP musicman copy. They are quite nice for under $200

Rob

[p.snail]

Go check out some of the Traben basses. Freaking bad ass basses for not a lot of dough. The Peavey BXP Millenium actives are great basses too for little $$.

[lowendgenerator]

I love my Ibanez SR800! and I picked it up for $200! It doesn't sound like a P or a J, it has it's own voice, modern and punchy. It outplays my Jazz bass as well. :D

[iualum]

...Cort Curbow(w/Bart) or Godin Freeway...

[SGNick]

I'd get a sweet looking Epiphone EB-3 because they look kickass, and I love Cream.

[jyee]

lots of suggestions, but nobody has asked the all important question:
what sort of bass sound are you looking for?

i mean, think of it in a guitar sense: a guy asks for a good electric guitar on a certain budget... we can suggest les pauls and sg's and prs'es and the like all day... and they're great guitars, but they don't help if he's looking for a telecaster style sound.

you've got the standard jazz/j style, the precision/p style, the combo pj style (neck split P pickup, jazz style bridge pickup), the fat dual humbucker gibson style, the fat single humbucker musicman style, and on and on.

also, are you open to short scale basses? do you like bolt on necks? what about neck through? so many good inexpensive basses out there, it'd help if we had some parameters so we don't list them all.

[Guy from Idaho]

Are the SX basses the ones sold by Rondo Music? I wonder how the quality would be in relation to a Fender Squire, low end Schecter, or other low end basses from Yamaha, Ibanez, etc.

Yes, they're the ones sold by Rondo. Bought one for my son (short scale J clone). Maple neck, solid alder body (no agathis crap), hardware is ok probably similar to other inexpensive basses. Pots were a little scratchy but pickups actually sound quite good, I like my Warwick better but the SX sounds lots better than the Ibanez that my band's bass player uses :dude Needed just a little setup, but what doesn't? We looked at Squires, Corts, cheap Yamaha/Ibanez/etc., didn't find anything as nice though some cost twice as much or more. -GFI

[king-albert]

I picked up a SX (Rondo) Jazz bass and was stunned by the price to quality ratio! Waaay nicer than the Squiers. It's my gigging bass actually. For the money, nothing is even close.

[GuitarsFromMars]

Yamaha RBX 170.

[leofenderbender]

If you don't want to go with a MIM Fender, Peavey Millenium series basses are quite nice for the money - they play nice, stay in tune, and sound good without any mods...

[go7]

Another vote for the G+L Tribute,very versatile and the solid bridge. Good Luck!

[Chuck King]

Some great suggestions in this thread---it's staggering that a bass as well-made as the Guild Pilot is going as cheap on the 'bay as they are, but you can get a very nice one for well under $300. I've got one that I don't really play much anymore but I (so far) haven't been able to bring myself to part with it for the low prices they bring---I know it's a better bass than that. Godin is another very well made bass that people can't seem to give away used.

Older Peavey basses also have a very high quality-to-price ratio. The T-40 and similar models are unheralded classics and incredibly versatile but they are very heavy. Some of the subsequent Peavey models were very solid basses without being boat anchors.

Mexican Fenders can be hit or miss. I have a Precision that is great, but I had an old Jazz that was a pig. On both of them the pots got bad and needed replacing, and the nuts cracked under the G string. But those were rather early MIMs (91, 92) and newer ones may be better.

[TedintheShed]

Judging from the basses you are eyeballing, a use Ibanez SR500, even though you may have to be patient as they on average go for $350.00 used. The tone wood are outstanding (Mahogany/wenge) and the pick up are pretty good (Bart's). The hardware is also decent. I am a long-time guitarist but want to get a decent low cost bass to develop my bass chops and record with.

I have been looking at used low end Schecters, Spectors, and Cort Curbows. All these can be had new or used for $300 or under. What would you recommend?

[opdev]

I got a used P Bass (MIM) for 275

And it's sort of purple ;) (blue actually)

[go7]

G+L Tribute L-2000. Good luck!

[musicofanatic5]

To me (yeah, old school), electric bass means fender bass. I couldn't conceive of using anything else. Today in a shop I saw a Squier repro of a '72-'77 style tele bass (un-contoured body, large p.u. near the maple neck). Very hip, very playable, $279 (plus $25 for the set of med gauge flat wounds, mandatory for this bass).

[high mileage]

Lots of good suggestions but you've probably bought something by now. Guild Pilots from the late 80's/early 90's are killer deals. So are Yamaha BB series and some of the Peavey basses from these days. You should be able to find a lot of these in that price range. I saw a Peavey TL5 (five string) neck thru at $306 on ebay the other day with 20 minutes to go, shoulda bought it!

[FL Knifemaker]

Peavey T-40. There's usually a half dozen of them on Ebay and in almost every pawn shop! They usually sell for $200-$400. They have more range and sound better than most new basses under $1200. They're a bit heavy but the sound is worth every pound.

[ghoti]

My Rogue 6-string from Musician's Friend costs $230 new. For something as obviously cheaply slapped-together as that thing is, they did an amazing number of things right. Active pickups, EQ, brass nut, basswood body/maple/rw neck, etc.

Dean makes some nice-sounding low-cost basses. I almost pulled the trigger on one when I was shopping for a bass a bit ago. Schechter makes some nice gear as well. And Epiphone's Goth Thunderbird had a really nice growly tone...not really the "bite" that you get from some, but lots of low growl...if it had come with more range I might have gone for it...

When I was trying used stuff, I tried a fairly decent 5-string with active pickups made by a company I'd never heard of called AXL. I liked the sound quite a bit except the high string sounded a bit muffled (not sure if it was the instrument or the string to blame).

I don't like the P-bass "thunk" nearly as much as the J-bass "point", and Squiers seem a lot more unpredictable than Fenders -- I liked most of the new and used Fenders I tried, but Squiers didn't really seem to do it for me.

On the whole, for new instruments I was the most impressed with the Deans and the T-Bird...I could just do more with my Rogue and the scale of the 6-string feels more my size anyway (6'4" with body and hands to match). After playing my sixer a while, I think it's one of if not the most comfortable basses I've ever played and I don't think I'll ever want to go back to anything less than at least 5 strings.

Actually, reading this convinced me to pull the trigger on a Peavey as well, hopefully getting a similar growl to the T-Bird but with a better range (you have to pay over $1000 to get a 5-string Gibson and they don't even MAKE a sixer).

[orangewizard]

No doubt... nu metal sucks.






BTW... what is nu metal?


:RoCkIn If you really d'ont know...d'ont worry,you haven't missed too much! :munch

[Mudder]

The Peavey USA models from the 80s and 90s are a steal right now. T-40, Foundation, Patriot all can be had under $300 normally. I picked up a Patriot just last week for $175 shipped.

Something being talked about heavily at talkbass.com are the SX models from Rondo music. They essentially copy the Fender Jazz and P bass models, but they use good wood and the work is pretty dang good for a bass that gets to you for under $150.

[Scafeets]

I've got a 63 Jazz Bass and an SX copy as a backup. The SX is an amazing value. Also check out the Dean Edge -- excellent fretwork, nice active pups, cool looks.

[phatster]

I would/have looked for old Tokai models that copy fender design,unfortunately they have become popular so price rising...mine is a percission copy that rocks..235.00.Check fo the older PV's as well,I got a T-20 recently for 225.oo that is a sweet fretless.:D

[rcp06d]

Everyones hatin on the Squires (Im def. a Fender man myself.)....BUT I played the new Vintage modified 70s jazz that Squire just came out with, and its pretty good. Every other new Squire I've played on is a piece, but the "Vintage" jazz was pretty good...

[skrzyp]

+1 on the Godin Freeway. Got one for $300 for my son, and his teachers have all commented on the quality and playability. Plus, it's US/Canadian made...