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Post by hushnel on Dec 13, 2021 14:54:26 GMT -5
My el cheapo is getting more time than my high end basses.
100% laminated wood, 24.7” scale with a Parlor sized body. Saddle & nut: Plastic, on board Preamp EQ: 2-band, with tuner(generally a deal breaker for me) I don't like the sides or top of any solid wood body with a cut out for on board conveniences.
This Ibanez PNB14E Parlor Acoustic-Electric Bass Guitar is easy to grab, the acoustic volume is fine, tuners work and stay in tune. I can actually use it with an accompanying guitar and it maintains it’s presence. In 1964 this would of been less than $30
On the electric side I picked up this “one in a thousand” Squire Bronco about 5 years ago. It was pointed out to me by a Guitar Center Manager who also builds violins. This bass in 1954 would of been $18.
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jeffscott
Wholenote
Rickenbacker Guru..............
Posts: 139
Age: GOF
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Post by jeffscott on Dec 13, 2021 18:46:53 GMT -5
Another POV: my first starter bass when I decided to become a bassist was a late '60s 7ender Jazz Bass. You can only go up from there.  |
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Post by themaestro on Dec 13, 2021 23:23:37 GMT -5
My first bass was around 1973. I was a poor college student and finally got the $55 it took for a mail-order Japanese Hofner Beatle bass copy. What a complete piece of junk. Terrible frets. The action was a mile high (well, only a quarter-mile high. After about a year, I moved on to a more decent, but still sub-par Jazz copy. I forget the price, but it was about $125. 1979, I plunked down $350 for a brand new Peavey T-40. Wow, that new CNC manufacturing made for a consistently good product. It really changed the low-end guitar/bass world.
These days, it is hard to get a bad cheap instrument. Yeah, the tuners and hardware may be junky. The fret ends may need a little dressing, but necks are decent, the frets are all in the right places and everything intonates.
I have a S101 Pbass copy that I bought for $100 used. I can't find one thing wrong with it and I have gigged it. I have bought a couple real cheapies ($100 or less used) that I gave to kids that wanted to learn how to play. I had the cheapest Squier Pbass (Afinity model) and with a setup, it was a great playing instrument.
Yup, they don't make them like they used to. They make them orders of magnitude BETTER.
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Post by hushnel on Dec 14, 2021 12:09:43 GMT -5
My first bass was fairly good, I got it for Christmas of 1965. The Farmus Atlantik. A simi hollow body electric bass, Bill Wyman used a Framus at the time. Kind of a strange price but I found this listed on Reverb $2,337.11. Others closer to half that price.
For years I had intonation problems with it, it was slight but I had to bend a couple of the strings to achieve intonation. While living in Pittsburgh I took it to a shop to get new strings and be adjusted. They told me nothing could be done about intonation, at least they only charge me for the strings. Turns out they were idiots. I didn’t get into building instruments until my life settled down and I had a small workshop. When I fist moved up to the farm, back in 2013 or so I had a much nicer shop about 1,600 sq feet. I put the old Framus on the bench to clean up and check it out. This bass has an adjustable floating bridge. I put new flatwounds on it and adjusted the intonation by setting the bridge in the proper place and the saddle adjustments all dead center of their travel. In a matter of minutes I had the intonation nailed. From the nut to the end of the fingerboard intonation was right on. Bastages, all those years and it was just a stupid simple adjustment. I’ve used it at gigs occasionally since then.
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Post by Taildragger on Dec 14, 2021 12:15:02 GMT -5
I picked up a used SX shorty "J"-style bass for under $100 a few years ago. I did replace the lackluster, stock pups with DiMarzio DP-123s and shield the cavities with copper foil, but the fundamental platform was sound (no pun intended) making that upgrade worth the money/effort. The whole investment came in under $200 + about an hour of time and a bit of solder.
My memory of budget instruments (new) during the mid-to-late 1960s is that you had to shell out about $150 (approx. $1200 in 2021 dollars) to get anything decent.
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Post by hushnel on Dec 14, 2021 13:03:29 GMT -5
I did the same thing with the Bronco, I had recently purchased the Guild Starfire and wanted more Bi-Sonic in my life, so I ordered one from Guild for the Bronco. Made a router gig for a clean installation. That Bronco is a real sleeper.
At a gig a few years back I was sitting at the bar sipping my Iced tea. Two guys sat down next to me and started talking smack about my Bronco. They judged my skill based on my choice of instruments. Yeah, I was going to have some fun. I asked them if they were musician, yeah they had a band. One of the guys said something like, the bassist uses a starter bass, these guys may be pretty lame. The other pointed out the SWR bass rig I was using. I never let on I just sat their talking with these two, when Al motioned that we were ready. I got these two a round and asked them to stick around then joined Al and Brownie for the first set. At the end of the set these two came up to the stage asking me about the Bronco. I told them it had great bones and pointed out the pick up I installed, neither one knew about the Bi-Sonic pup. Smiled at them and said not too lame, are we. The three of us in the band have close to 150 years combined musical experience. They bought the band a round and hung out until closing time.
30 years ago I might of done the same thing these guys did
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Post by themaestro on Dec 14, 2021 13:41:58 GMT -5
Sometimes even the old stuff can be reworked and saved. My son found a Kent (Teisco) 25" scale bass in a Western Kansas antique shop. I asked if I would him to buy for me and I said why not.
When I got it, It didn't play very well at all. It did have an adjustable truss rod, so I tweaked that. It had a single bar trapeze-style bridge that did have a height adjuster. I repositioned the bridge back about a 3/8" and canted it to somewhat allow for for intonation across the strings. That turned it into whole 'nuther bass. It plays very well for what it is.
Strings for a 25" bass were somewhat hard to find. I found some LaBella flats designed for micro basses.
The single pickup is a little microphonic and I would like to change it out, but I haven't found anything with the same physical dimensions and string spacing.
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matryx81
Wholenote
I think I know the reason but I can't spell it.
Posts: 773
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Post by matryx81 on Dec 14, 2021 21:55:26 GMT -5
They make them orders of magnitude BETTER. As a guy who picked up his first bass nearly 25 years ago, I will agree with this. Even that recent the cheapos were eh. Not anymore. Being able to do your own setups and some of the maintenance/prep work goes a long way in helping that as well. |
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Post by hushnel on Dec 15, 2021 10:57:45 GMT -5
Humm, more problems, if I leave this forum to get the URL, I return to the page but the previous text is gone. Probably shouldn’t of accepted the recent update.  |
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Post by themaestro on Dec 15, 2021 12:31:58 GMT -5
hushnel, try not leaving the forum in the middle of posting. If you need to look something up, open a new tab in your browser, go get your info, copy or write down what you need, then click on the tab that still has Moe's open. You should be right back where you left off. then paste into your forum posting.
I'm not quite sure about how it works if you are posting from a phone, but there still should be a way to start a new tab.
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Post by hushnel on Dec 15, 2021 12:57:40 GMT -5
I am using an other tab, it’s when I go back to the forum tab, I return to the page but the text is gone. It’s been like this for a while. My work around is to create the post in Pages, including any url, then paste the text and links in it’s entirety. The problem is probably IOS or the iPad itself.
Î let my website expire a few years back, I had no problem embedding photos then, If I go to Flicker and copy the url, post it here, it links to an error page, If I copy the Flicker link to the url bar it opens with the full url, I can then copy this to my text and it will link to the photo but not embed the image it into the post.
Honestly at the age of 68 I’m just not as on the ball as I was even a few years ago. The trick I guess is to not let it irritate me “o)
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Post by LTB on Dec 15, 2021 19:46:25 GMT -5
I had an SX bass back in 2006. Pickups were garbage, Fret's were not done well and the tuners rough operating. Bass was ok but the necks were unstable and required daily tuning but it was ok for a beginner bass but I wanted something a bit nicer.
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mroulier
Wholenote
Chemo'd and Radiated!
Posts: 155
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Post by mroulier on Dec 30, 2021 9:40:50 GMT -5
My first bass (1980) was a Ventura EB0 copy. $100 I think? Loved the short scale, but didn't like the fact that it had a fixed "bar" on the bridge instead of saddles, so intonation was always a bit wonky. Moved "up" to a Bradley P-Bass and liked it a lot better. Also had a Memphis LP copy but that thing would go out of tune after 3 songs. My bandmates thought I was "too heavy handed", but that changed when I got a 1973 Telecaster Custom for $325...'cause it didn't go out of tune! (took many hours slaving away at the local Pizza Hut to save up for that one!).
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Post by reverendrob on Jan 7, 2022 14:03:41 GMT -5
My first bass was a non-name Korean P/J clone.
It was $50 in the early 90s and godsawful.
I don't even remember what happened to it.
By comparison, my first regular guitar was phenomenal, a freebie Hamer Standard from the late 70s.
The headstock broke and I didn't know you could repair them then.
Guy who gave it to me noted years later it had already been repaired once.
Live and learn!
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jw55
Quarternote
Posts: 9
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Post by jw55 on Apr 20, 2022 8:37:09 GMT -5
There is a stunningly good pile of basses available in the 'no more than $500' price range. 'Cheap' basses when I started out were horrible plywood sleds that were only good for being door stops, but they were handy in that I could often listen to AM radio through them.
I could only dream that back then I could have bought something like a Sire, Ibanez, or Squier when I started out.
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twangmeister
Wholenote
Posts: 349
Formerly Known As: Twangmeister
Age: 72 and fading fast.....
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Post by twangmeister on May 27, 2022 16:52:46 GMT -5
Back in the '60s I owned a Blackjack bass, a Japanese-made violin bass with an idiosyncratic headstock. $50 used at the local pawn shop. I soon swapped out the factory silk-n-steel flatwounds for a set of Gibson heavy gauge flatwounds. I needed all the help I could get as I was playing through 23 watts of Silvertone 1483. Volume went up but the neck started to develop a bit of a bow. So I traded it toward a white Vox Phantom 4. $55 more and my old bass and it was mine. The neck had a contour that would have appealed to Paul Bunyan. LOL.
My current #2 bass is a Squier Vintage-Modified Tele bass with the Fender-labeled single mudbucker. It had hung on the music store's wall for three years with scant interest. They sold it to me for $199. This is a great-sounding highly playable instrument that I bought for the equivalent of ~$35 in 1960s money.
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Post by rdr on Jul 31, 2022 15:32:11 GMT -5
I'm gonna buy my first bass, likely an Ibanez Talman 30". Bass player in my jam band has one and it is really nice. $229 new.
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Post by windmill on Jul 31, 2022 18:08:53 GMT -5
Recently did 4 weeks interstate, where I couldn't take my own guitars. I did the rounds of pawn shops, specifically looking for a cheap shortscale bass and an acoustic, that I could sell back to them when I left to return home. There were no shortscale basses and the acoustics in the price range, all had high actions and needed new strings. I came across a guitar shop and ended up buying new the cheapest acoustic, a MIC Fender, they had and a Squier bronco bass, also the cheapest bass they had. The acoustic was on special and was the cheapest in the shop but was set up perfectly, it "played like butter", didnt have all that good a sound but was a delight to play. The Bronco bass wasn't set up quite as well but still was good fun to play everytime I picked it up. So yeah, cheap these days doesn't have to mean bad.  |
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Post by LTB on Dec 3, 2022 18:15:04 GMT -5
Recently did 4 weeks interstate, where I couldn't take my own guitars. I did the rounds of pawn shops, specifically looking for a cheap shortscale bass and an acoustic, that I could sell back to them when I left to return home. There were no shortscale basses and the acoustics in the price range, all had high actions and needed new strings. I came across a guitar shop and ended up buying new the cheapest acoustic, a MIC Fender, they had and a Squier bronco bass, also the cheapest bass they had. The acoustic was on special and was the cheapest in the shop but was set up perfectly, it "played like butter", didnt have all that good a sound but was a delight to play. The Bronco bass wasn't set up quite as well but still was good fun to play everytime I picked it up. So yeah, cheap these days doesn't have to mean bad. I played a $250 Fender Acoustic a guy brought to test a clip on tuner I was selling. I fell in love with that guitar. Sweet and like you said “Played like butter”. I only found one other like that. My SIL’s applause that was his grandfathers. I would have loved to have either one. They were so special. I played higher priced instruments that didn’t do it for me. |
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apple
Quarternote
Posts: 36
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Post by apple on Jan 4, 2023 19:09:09 GMT -5
And yet the cheapo guitars that were almost unplayable in the '60s command outrageous prices on Reverb, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
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Post by reverendrob on Jan 5, 2023 2:38:53 GMT -5
And yet the cheapo guitars that were almost unplayable in the '60s command outrageous prices on Reverb, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Stupid f'in hipsters! |
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Post by hushnel on Jan 6, 2023 14:59:58 GMT -5
And yet the cheapo guitars that were almost unplayable in the '60s command outrageous prices on Reverb, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. It’s got to be a nostalgia thing, which will never be a problem for me, since I still have my first bass, the Framus Atlantik along with my first upgrade, a brand new 1981 Fender Precision Special, the year it came out. I played that Framus exclusively for 18 years. I just came across one 4 years newer for $1,322.45. The bass isn’t worth that, but I still wouldn’t sell mine, too many memories. |
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Post by reverendrob on Jan 6, 2023 18:50:11 GMT -5
The people buying the 60s junkers for big bucks aren't old enough to have used them growing up.
It's literally hipster crap.
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Post by morrow on Jan 7, 2023 8:10:17 GMT -5
I just bought a cheapie from the 70’s , a UniVox Hi Flier , a classic from the Matsumoku factory. I know a lot of folks that owned them back in the day and reviews are mixed. Some have a hate for them and some absolutely loved them . So we’ll see … should be delivered Tuesday.
I’m looking forward to it. Fingers are crossed.
edit. (I’m old enough to have bought one in the 70’s)
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Post by hushnel on Jan 8, 2023 12:16:16 GMT -5
Back in 1965 I was in serious need of a bass. I played a concert bass in the school’s orchestra. I starting in 1963. Then Dad was assigned to Wiesbaden AFB, Germany.
My first attempt at building a bass guitar was pretty serious, I was going for an acoustic. Unfortunately at the age of 11 I didn’t have the skills or tools to have any success, though in a way It was a success. Dad noticed that my first attempt was in the trash, minus the purchased hardware, I was across the street in a construction site gathering more crappy material for the second attempt. Christmas was only a few months away and dad said I’d be getting one for Christmas.
I was set on a semi acoustic since any bass amplifier in those days was way beyond what dad could afford. Dad took me to the base exchange to see what they offered. I had a choice between the Framus Atlantik and the Hofner 500/1 Violin Bass, aka Beatle Bass, they were around the same price. I played both, the Framus was louder, had a better neck and sounded better through an amplifier, the Hofner had bad neck dive. Besides that I wasn’t a fan of the Beatles, though mom was. I was listening to Spencer Davis band, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge, Cream, the Animals, the Monkeys etc.
On my 16th birthday, back in the states not far off the belt way of DC. Mom and Dad gave me a Fender Bassman. I was in a band within the week, playing gigs soon after, even had a few gigs at Andrews AFB.
Invariably when I did hear a Beatles tune I liked, it was written by George Harrison.
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Post by morrow on Jan 14, 2023 8:54:34 GMT -5
Well , the UniVox arrived and I love it. And it arrived nicely set up , oh I’ll slightly tweak it over the next few days , but it was nicely set up. Took it out to a rehearsal for a little instrumental project and the band loved it. It might have been a cheap intro bass in the early 70’s , but it is a nice player. Despite being around 50 years old.  |
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Post by LTB on Jan 25, 2023 13:06:48 GMT -5
Well , the UniVox arrived and I love it. And it arrived nicely set up , oh I’ll slightly tweak it over the next few days , but it was nicely set up. Took it out to a rehearsal for a little instrumental project and the band loved it. It might have been a cheap intro bass in the early 70’s , but it is a nice player. Despite being around 50 years old. Very cool looking bass. I love it! |
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Post by Laker on Jan 25, 2023 14:31:43 GMT -5
Well , the UniVox arrived and I love it. And it arrived nicely set up , oh I’ll slightly tweak it over the next few days , but it was nicely set up. Took it out to a rehearsal for a little instrumental project and the band loved it. It might have been a cheap intro bass in the early 70’s , but it is a nice player. Despite being around 50 years old. Looks like a Mosrite copy. My entry bass was a used ‘62 Fender Jazz bass that I purchased when I traded my Buescher bari sax for it. I played that until I traded it for a new ‘65 Precision bass that I still own. |
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Post by morrow on Jan 25, 2023 15:46:41 GMT -5
Well , the UniVox arrived and I love it. And it arrived nicely set up , oh I’ll slightly tweak it over the next few days , but it was nicely set up. Took it out to a rehearsal for a little instrumental project and the band loved it. It might have been a cheap intro bass in the early 70’s , but it is a nice player. Despite being around 50 years old. Looks like a Mosrite copy. My entry bass was a used ‘62 Fender Jazz bass that I purchased when I traded my Buescher bari sax for it. I played that until I traded it for a new ‘65 Precision bass that I still own. The HiFlier was a Japanese copy of the Mosrite , but today Eastwood make a Chinese copy of the Japanese copy of the classic Mosrite |
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