I don’t know if this topic belongs here. I can’t think of where else to put it.
I’m a rank beginner. Don’t know how to play bass. Have some knowledge of scales from playing the guitar. That’s it. I walk into Guitar Center and head toward the bass section. I choose a bass I’m interested in trying and an amp I’m interested in trying and sit down to try to evaluate it. All I know is to play some scales. I don’t know what to look for in the actual bass unless the action is so high it’s unplayable. I don’t know what to play while I’m trying to figure it out. Some guy walks into the bass room. Picks up a fancy Fender, plugs into a huge amp and proceeds to slap and play. I quickly get overwhelmed by the noise and by the contrast of his playing to mine.
Any ideas on what to listen for while trying to evaluate a bass? Any ideas for what to look for? Any ideas for what to play? Anything simple and solid at all except for scales?
paging @Gio — i think this topic would be a really good article to write: what to do when going to a music store: best practices and how to navigate the process.
what are the expectations from both you as a buyer and from the store people as sellers? what should you try to do by way of tests when you walk in? use an amp? use headphones? how do you know what should you be looking at in terms of basses?
i am sure to many this may all seem very second nature but i still find the music store to be very intimidating, so i think a guide would be really useful for lots of people.
In total agreement with you. I take my son, who can play, and he grabs stuff and goes at it. I just look and maybe pull one down but don’t dare show my ineptitude
Guessing you have at least a little experience with guitar, most of that would apply here. Make sure it feels comfortable while you play it. Make sure it’s in good shape physically. Look for one that makes you want to pick it up and play it some more.
Scales are great. Especially moving up and down the fretboard. Much better chance of finding dead frets or seeing if theres any rough fret ends that would need to be fixed. As much as possible try and tune out / pretend the other folks in there don’t exist. You aren’t there to entertain them, what you play really isn’t that important beyond evaluating the instrument for yourself.
The most important things are that it LOOKS good and that it FEELS good. You want a bass that makes you smile.
To feel the bass out - just scales or even plucking random notes all along the fretboard. You want to feel that it is comfortable in your hands. You don’t need to know anything special for this.
The tone things to listen for are that all of the controls work, and that there aren’t weird fret buzzes or anything along the neck.
These points and more are covered in the “Which Bass to Buy?” article linked already.
My friendly advice would be this , do not buy a new bass this year. WHAT?? That is correct. Don’t make a purchase. Go back to that store as much as possible and noodle around. Try and go every day or twice a week. The more you pick up different basses the more you will “understand” what to play. And a byproduct of this routine will catch the eye of an employee.
I live here in a smaller community and we have a fabulous music store on Main Street. A guitar center moved into the mall this summer and our local store totally stepped up their costumer service. I was in the market for an acoustic bass and put my paws on all the basses hanging in the shop. Some days , I was the only costumer. Somedays , just like your experience , hot players or noobs making noise. Yes , GC offered a cheaper Fender Bass by almost $100 but I chose to keep my $$$ on Main Street because of the personalized services and the FREE maintenance in six months. Yes , I am bringing the bass back in for a once over for FREE.
My point is , the more you explore and make appearance , the quicker the right bass will find you. Meaning , it is the puppy dog theory. We are new so the red bass looks cool or the 5 string looks intimidating. You think the rosewood bass looks the coolest but the ugly baby blue fits you like a glove. With the bass , just like a litter of puppies , the right bass will pick you. It is up to you to pick them all up.
Anyway , have a blasting learning , asking questions , and discovering what else is possible
I’d say, forget the other guy slapping his thumb off and he honest with yourself about how the bass you’re holding feels. It is very easy to buy something just because cash is burning a hole in your pocket and the bass you’re trying is just the thing that’s there at that point.
Keep going back, keep noodling, try mates basses if they have them. The more you play the more you know what you like.
Some anecdotes. A shop near me stocked a lot of Schecters and would always recommend them - I think they had a deal with them - every one of them had a painted neck and I very quickly found I hate painted necks.
Years later I was setting up a bass as a favour. An older Spector. Most pain-in-the-backside bridge on the planet. Never again.
I couldn’t tell you what string spacing I like in mm on paper, but I know it feels off when I play something different.
There’s a lot of things that you won’t know until they crop up and that’s fine. For my 16th bday my gran bought me an Ibanez K5. Original run, dark wood, beautiful bass with truly silly on-board EQ. I gigged the hell out of it for years. But then I started to learn how to set up my own instrument and the truss rod cover screws are right under the strings, and the EQ system starts breaking and needs fixed all the time, and I learnt I prefer passive basses.
I know when I’m bass window-shopping to look for all this stuff, but it’s through experience and not necessarily from a checklist. “Is that an old Spector style rubber block bridge you have to hammer and chisel to get the intonation right. No thank you.”
(I still have the K5 but it sits in my bedroom. It’s a present and beautiful but it’s not gig-able.)
Sometimes picking up a bass is like Harry Potters wand. You’ll know it’s yours. Even if it breaks down the line
(Random tidbit. You start to get quite good at it at recognising the brand. Friend handed me a bass in his house and I went “feels like a Yamaha…” checks headstock “It is a Yamaha.”)
When you go to a store you’re there to gauge looks and feels and tone.
You want a bass that makes you excited to play so you will pick it up and play more, so looks matter
You want a bass that is comfortable to play. Some people like a wider or narrower nut, or the fretboard radius. I tried a Fender Aerodyne bass and found the body very uncomfortable to play, while I love the stingray shape. These are all personal choices that only you can tell, and you find out by playing.
Tone. Tone is a tricky one, you want a bass that sounds good but you can do a lot to fix tone after the fact, I put feels and looks ahead of it. Also as a beginner your tone shifts a lot as your skill increases and what you hear changes as your ear becomes more discerning. Sometimes all a bass needs is a new set of strings. And sometimes the amp at the store sounds great but your amp at home not so much. I have a set of headphones I bring to take the store amp out of the equation. And others can’t hear me play which is a bonus to my self conscious self
I did try and lob a few tips in the Beginner Bass Buying Guide (thanks @Bassic for the link above).
In the article, you can see how much I go off of “does it look cool” and “does it feel good”.
The problem when you’re a beginner is that you won’t know what the difference is between a great bass and a bad bass unless it’s reallllly bad.
A good comparison (for Sonoma County (wine country) based me) is wine tasting.
If I go taste wine, I’m not going to be able to recognize a $20 bottle from a $200 bottle.
It tastes like wine.
I’ll know if it tastes like vinegar, and I’ll know if I like it or don’t… but the complex and celebrated subtleties will be lost on me.
Trying basses is stores is like that.
I say:
Budget over everything.
Then Looks
Then how does it feel.
If the brand is somewhat reputable, you’ll be in good shape.
As for “how does it feel” - you can only play what you know how to play.
If it feels good for scales, great. It’s good!
That’s the short answer. I like the idea of a full article. Would be really fun to go around to music shops and talk to people about it all too.
We’ll see what the “in-the-field travel" budget is, and I’ll pitch the assignment!
A good few have already said feel and looks. Whilst I want my bass to look good, for me it’s way down the list. As a beginner tone is probably best ignored, as @Wombat-metal said, unless it’s really dire; I certainly couldn’t have picked out what tone I liked when I first started out. And you can change that tone a lot with tone controls and how and where you pluck.
So, for me, feel is by far the most important. The main feel things I look for:
neck dive. I can’t believe how many basses are made with neck dive. I know some people don’t mind but, personally, I don’t want to be supporting it with my fretting hand and I don’t want to have to get a special sticky strap to stop it swinging down. I just want a bass that is balanced! (rant over!). Most (but not all) well balanced basses have the top horn where the top end of the strap attaches somewhere up around the 12th fret.
Fretboard. How comfortable is it? Is it too flat or too rounded for your comfort. Ask the folk in the shop to show you examples with short and long radius curve on the fretboard and see which you like.
Neck; How smoothly does your hand slide up and down? Some can be really sticky. Can you comfortably reach all the strings even at the high end, where it’s widest?
