As the title says, I get to buy a new bass but the local bass store, not just your general run of the mill music store but a true bass store, doesn’t reopen till Sept. 6th so have time to orient myself on options.
I’m looking to narrow down my choices further and am looking for recommendations.
I like the Squier P black/gold bass but that’s just because it looks great.
Some of my criteria to help narrow it down:
Budget 2k.
Not too heavy (have a Harley Benton that’s around 11-12 pounds and is going OUT as it has terrible fret buzz).
Preferably a J style neck as I have nerve damage affecting my hands.
The basses I have and LOVE are my Fender American Deluxe J and Cort A4 Plus Artisan.
First of all, congrats! Second, play as many basses as you can handle, even those you wouldn’t imagine you’d like.
Doing so will help you home in on the ones that play the best in your hands. At that point, you’ll have a quality pool of candidates to choose from that will work best for you. Good hunting!
@MikeC and @Anderson are right. At 2k, you have a ton of options. Since it’s a bass store, do as Mike suggests and play everything so you know you’re going to be comfortable with it. Don’t settle when you’re at that price point, although you can get great deals for a lot less. I paid around $200 for my Ibanez Mikro and it’s my favorite. The best advice I can give you as far as weight goes is don’t buy a headless. I have a Steinberger Spirit and it’s a heavy thing due to the increased electronics in the body. It’s still a good bass but it can be a pig.
It was a little over budget and at a different regular (non bass specific) bass store as I just didn’t wanna wait till the 6th.
Played it there, was set up to my needs and am happy with it.
With the right settings on my amp, full on bridge pickup I get a good P sound out of it.
The card on the knobs didn’t stay on for long as I found it annoying and as a Fender Active J player (have the American Deluxe as well) I already know what all the knobs are and do.
Am now saving for the Arctic white version.
A proper set up didn’t get rid of that, it’s cheap trash and did you miss that it weights 11 to 12 pounds? (Which wasn’t listed otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it to begin with).
Would you play with a bass that heavy?
I have a C level Spinal Cord Injury which not only affects every function of my body, including my hands, but also means that I don’t have the strength or muscle endurance that I used to have and no amount of training will improve that (believe me, I tried) so the weight of a bass is definitely important.
I could replace the pickups but that wouldn’t do anything for the weight issue.
That would indeed be a complete dealbreaker for me. That’s 2kg too heavy IMO. But:
this is also usually correct; barring a high fret (definitely possible), a good setup (which, sadly, you don’t get from all shops or luthiers - need to trust yourself to do it) will fix like 90% or more of fret buzz issues.
High frets are tougher. If it’s just one it is probably not too bad to level it yourself. If the whole thing needs a fret levelling, that’s an expensive proposition for a bass in the HB price range.
Or rather, also, why would it ever be a criteria in bass selection? Like, unless you are going Motown and foam the bridge, all basses shoud have adequate sustain. The idea that it would matter at all that some had slightly longer sustain than others is odd.
No bass I have ever played had insufficient sustain - multiple measures of whole notes without problem. Is this actually a problem for some basses? Seems really weird as a selection criteria.
That aside I understand the bit about your injury.
You must have gotten a bad harleybenton cause I’ve yet to hear of one that can’t be set up. Maybe try to return it as faulty.
I think sustain is neat to play around with when I’m bored… you know, “I wonder which bass of mine can sustain an open E longer? I must conduct this experiment!”
