Rick Beato interviews Charles Berthound.
Great discussions on several topics.
His bass is so attractive. Schecter Charles Berthoud CB-4 Electric Bass. It has a price tag of $2100 Canadian. Great sound but I think CHARLES can make anything sound fabulous! Love the deep cut out at the bottom of the neck. Is it worth the money?
Beato!
3ā¦2ā¦1ā¦
I donāt think there is an instrument āworthā over $1,000 purely for sound produced/materials used, assuming you have the skill to fully push the instrument somehow.
I see so many great guitarists and bassists āsounding like themselvesā regardless of what they play.
If little things like a deep cut matter for your soloing/playing, maybe search it out or do the weird āsandwich handā when you get that high on the frets.
Charlesā signature Schecter looks to be a great value for the money. There are always a few who might not like its design details, but I think it has a very attractive color scheme and a quality build.
Plus, yes, Charles can make any bass he touches sing like very few humans could ever imagine.
Yes absolutely.
The what is one thing, the who and the how is another story altogether. This is one of my bass that Lignum built for me. Sure you see the CNC but the amount of hands on time on this bass is ridiculous. Lignum said itās a few hundreds hours. How much do you pay for the labor and the know how.
Iām more coming from the āpracticalā side, is there a gig that requires a hand made bass, or can a mass produced bass with decent QC cover the gig?
When I say āworthā I mean from your average player looking for a sound.
If you want to commission someone to make a wild high quality bass so be it 
Absolutely. For the record this will be the cheapest bass Charles own and itās custom.
Neck through, sandwich body these are not cheap features, thereās a lot of bass for $1500 US. At that price you are only now getting āAssembledā Made in Mexico Fender.
No one has ever contended that any player needs a custom bass, because thatās ridiculous. Whether one is a gigging pro or a casual player, there are jillions of basses at every conceivable price point to meet those needs.
Custom and/or high-end basses are options for those who want unique basses. Thatās it. Anyone who isnāt concerned with the high cost of a custom build simply never has to consider it.
Just play the instrument that moves you to play, and all is good.
Never really considered the construction of basses before -thanks
I also understand these also produce some desirable sounds properties.
I understand the rebuttal, but at the same time there is this weird market of "if you want to sound like soandso, you need this $3000 bass, their $1500 pedalboard, their 6 amps they use on stageā¦ "
I just comment to save people from thinking they need things to accomplish a short term goal.
You are absolutely correct. Thanks for being real!
Sorry, Iāve never run across any such statement. It sure has never been made by anyone on this forum.
Just play what you like. Nothing else matters, regardless of who says what, particularly elsewhere.
Thatās absolutely not true. Many people especially, ones who
owns custom basses. Sounds and tones is cheap. A cheap bass can look and sound like an expensive bass for relatively cheap, maybe a hundred or two. You can make it feels almost as good.
I can make my cheap bass sound very close, same or better than premium but I donāt have the Kung Fu to make it feels as good, if I have @Barney wood working kung fu Iād probably can.
The one thing that separates expensive instruments to an affordable aside from some electronics features is the refinement feel of the instrument.
This is a $2900 Music Man Joe Dart II Signature
Standing on the right is the Joe Dart I replica I did for $400, bass included I just ate the hours of labor which in the way cost double what I paid for the real one, 
Itās not limited to just cheap and premium. Same can be said about premium and ultra premium.
Hereās the German built Warwick. The Teal 5 string is a $3000 custom ordered color VS the $6000+ 4 string Master built Ziricote
Both have Wenge neck and both sounds awesome. I play and own a few really nice basses the first time I tune this Masterbuilt Warwick I did a double take. Matching Wenge tuner knob button, is refine and buttery smooth. I have no doubt that the rest of the bass is just as well made.
If you read enough of my posts youād know I champion my āGod Tierā Squier Contemporry P bass. I paid $200 for it from ProAudioStars. Itās well made with tons of features. Awesome active pickups too. I actually recorded a few songs on it as compare to the $1700 American P bass. Itās personal pride to find and build a āGod Tierā instrument.
Youād be surprised how much I paid for that. Itās less than an American Fender.
I know that you do gigs, may be not enough of it yet. No one but no one, except you are a world recognized musicians bring custom made instrument to a gig. If you have a $5000 custom shop would you have brought it to your last gig? You play your custom instrument and even record with it.
I bring my workhorse to my gigs and some expensive ones to show it off because I buy and sell instruments. My recurring gig consist of people in the industry from another country. Thatās how I make the bucks not the retainer.
Iām agreeing with all the above replies on this.
Hereās my simple take. Itās my money. I work 40+ hours a week for myself, doing finish carpentry.
I can buy whatever I want bass wise, with that money. I could afford a custom bass. I could order one tonight from the Fender Custom shop. I donāt have one because Iām happy with my Mexican P Bass.
But if someone has spare money and wants to splash out on a nice bass, great.
We (you, me and everyone else on this forum) will all die. So treat yourself and if you want to, then buy that nice bass. You get one go round the hamster wheel and itās over.
I donāt need this but If I were to splurge then it would be something like this; the craftsmanship is beyond amazing.
Yeah @howard shared a link to this before. It is what I like to say, Off the Chartsā
The most valuable instrument you can ever own is the one that drives you to pick the damn thing up and make music with it.
Now, each person must decide what creates that feeling, because no one elseās hands are going to make sounds with it.
But, as has been said here many times, basses are more than the sounds they make: thereās playability; thereās feel, which is massively important; thereās balance; and there is quality of materials and looks. These criteria vary in importance from player to player, but, considered in total, each aspect adds or subtracts from the cost and uniqueness of a given instrument.
So, yeah, a production bass will be cheaper and more available, while a custom bass will be much more expensive and equally rare. Thatās life.
But as Barney said, we all have but one bite at this apple of life, and we each get the privilege to prioritize what we value most.
What you choose might not be what I choose, and vice versa. But at the end of the day, it all works out for each of us, if we pay attention.
In Alās case, itās all the basses are belong to him.
(Sorry for the shitty Starcraft reference)
That is a Zero Wing reference 
