Advice on getting a "first bass" guitar?

[Lawdog1521]

I'm disappointed Lawdog didn't give advice on how to get to first base.

1. Get your other to drink malt liquor.

2. Play on your 8 track Take it to the Limit by the Eagles.

3. Say something suave like, "Let's play house. You can be the screen door and I'll bang you all night long."

By this point you should be rounding first, headed toward second.

[Doc_SoCal]

1. Get your other to drink malt liquor.

2. Play on your 8 track Take it to the Limit by the Eagles.

3. Say something suave like, "Let's play house. You can be the screen door and I'll bang you all night long."

By this point you should be rounding first, headed toward second.

That sounds more like the list of "how to get barfed on..."

:P

[Lawdog1521]

That sounds more like the list of "how to get barfed on..."

:P

No problem. It washes right off my Valour Jump Suit.

[jibjqrkl]

i suddenly feel strangely attracted to Lawdog

[Lawdog1521]

It's the sunglasses.

[bleached]

Ohhh ok so you have a wider response range, that would make sense considering that a thump or boom (basically any form of sound spike) is a sum over "all" frequencies ... I just didn't consider the "all" to be higher than the higher guitar stuff ... I guess you get bigger higher harmonics ...


Back on to the instrument subject, I also looked at the epiphone eb3, since it's in a similar price range, any opinions on that?

I just discovered that the gsr200 newer models are now active, is that a good or bad thing?

So far what I've learned is:
yamaha and washburn = passive
ibanez = active.

Active nice because it gives the bass extra punch, but if preamp is bad the result is actually worse.

Price wise yamaha is cheaper 180 €, while the others are in the 200~230 € range.

I'm curious about the epiphone because it's a completely different animal.

The only thing I can say about squiers is that their quality is so variable you need to go out and test the one you buy (this is true for all instruments, just with fenders, squiers in particular more so).

I didn't even consider fenders because it would have had to be a squier and I already have 2 in the house which is way more than I can stand.

my first bass was an ibanez gsr200. i hated it. the pickups did not pick up all the strings well. if in standard tuning, the A string was more quiet than the E. although i had bass several years before they made the pickups active, they're still the same pickups. i recommend the ibanez sr300. comes in you're choice of p/j pickups or humbuckers. and it's also active.

i also recommend active pickups. sure you'll a nine volt battery in your bass, but you'll have a wider range of sound. downside is the electronics would be harder to fix if the pickups go out. go passive if you want a bass that you just want to play, or if you want something that has potential of changing the pickups out for a different sound.

now that eb3 is rather unique. sg body with a sidewinder humbucker and a mini-humbucker. rather interesting.

if Dean guitars are available, then i would suggest taking a look at Dean edge 10 pj. i don't know the price of it over there, but in US it's around the same price as the ibanez gsr200. it also has active electronics. i've never owned one, but from what i've heard about low line Deans is that some do have a chance of developing electronic problems.

my last bit of advice is to play the bass that you're thinking about getting through an amp that you that you might get in the future. sure playing it through a 500 watt amp does sound nice, but if the amp that you'll most likely get is going to be a 30 watt or something, then you'll want to pay more attention to how it sounds through that.

[M_Robbins5]

My first and only bass is an Ibanez and I love it.

[randomas]

Ok so the eb3 is a no go, because the neck humbucker gets in the way of slapping and popping. Since I want to be able to practice all techniques that's one less candidate.

I listened to both the yamaha and the ibanez on youtube (yeah I know not ideal but hey ...), and my impression is that the yamaha sounds like crap and the ibanez is okayish.

I may be able to get an sr300 second hand for 150 so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

This rocksmith thing is getting expensive, 80 for the ps3 game, 150~200 for a bass, 60 for the pc version (need a second cable so might as well), and possibly a bass amp further up the road (70 if I'm ticking boxes, 150~200 if I'm allowed to).
So we're talking 300 € or more for starters ... Thank goodness I've already got 4 guitars in the house ...

[TheDescent]

I totally disagree with Mega-Tallica that Yamaha makes crappy bass guitars. My Yamaha sounds amazing. I prefer it over my Ibanez any day of the week.

Depends on the year. I noticed that Post-2004 Yamaha basses are worse than post 2004 Ibanez.

I have a 1998 Yamaha BBN-5 myself, still kicking ass.

Right now, Ibanez basses are pretty good to begin with. The GSR 190 is probably the best you can find for your budget, a friend of mine got it for 90 bucks and it sounds more than just OK.

Personally I reccomend a really good amp over a really good bass, for playing at home I use a 20W Stagg combo. Sure it isn't that powerful, but IMO being cheap on purchasing amps doesn't work. Any amp with less than 20W power just doesn't give justice to the various kind of sounds you can produce, or you're trying to find.

[randomas]

Personally I reccomend a really good amp over a really good bass, for playing at home I use a 20W Stagg combo. Sure it isn't that powerful, but IMO being cheap on purchasing amps doesn't work. Any amp with less than 20W power just doesn't give justice to the various kind of sounds you can produce, or you're trying to find.

Absolutely, which is why I ain't getting one yet. I'm planning on using a software amp and headphones for starters, and then getting something in the 20~30 watt range, I have a 70 watt for guitar but it's overkill for home use. But before that I have to loose a couple of old guitar amps ...