Hello there,
My first post, and from what I have seen this seems to be a good forum with great resource.
For the last eight weeks I have taken part in a weekly two hour session at a community college where I have played the bass. The sessions mainly consist of several absolute noobs learning a basic song and trying to get to the stage where it can be played from start to end by the time the session ends. For example, this week it was Wild Thing, and in other weeks it has been Teenage Kicks and All Day and All of the Night.
I have enjoyed it immensely and have been so frustrated that I have to wait for a whole week for a short two hour session. I have also become frustrated at the fact that I'm now not exactly learning much as all I am doing is quickly learning the tab for a song. I have always enjoyed the bass guitar when listening to music and naturally gravitated to it when I started at this community college. It is definitely the instrument for me.
For the past couple of weeks I have been researching online as to which bass I should buy. In doing so I have learnt quite a lot about the instrument that I had no idea about previously. The more I learnt the more tricky it became for me to work out what I should go for. If I knew nothing then I'm sure I would have already bought any old bass that caught my eye.
The bass will be used primarily for me to learn on when alone at home. A pick will be used for most of the time, with fingers also used from time to time. There won't be any slapping going on as I don't seem to appreciate that sound or the type of music that goes with it (at least for now). The music I will be concentrating on will be mainly post-punk/new wave, rock, indie etc. I don't see much funk, jazz or blues going on, other than in the learning process with regards scales etc.
At the very most I have around £300 to spend on a bass, amp, lead and tuner. I could put more to it but I would then have to wait even longer in order to save more. I have not yet been into a shop to try any as I would imagine that to be a rather embarrassing situation, especially when before I started to do some research I didn't even know of the existence of a P or J-Bass, a short scale or long scale etc. So I have been trying to hone in on exactly what kind of bass it is that I want before going to a shop to listen to them and feel how they are.
With the sound I want I am thinking that a P-Bass would be more suitable. I see lots of P/J basses but I assume that the 'P' won't be as much of a 'P' as in a P-Bass? (That may be the worst sentence ever written but I'm sure you know what it is I am trying to describe!) At first I was attracted to the look of what turned out to be short scale basses. But again, would this not give me the sound I want? Having said all of that, would going for a full scale P-Bass limit me in my learning? Would a short scale be easier for me to learn on? Would a P/J give me more options for learning?
Some basses I find to be rather boring looks wise, at least to me personally, and I think that it would really help me out a lot if I was attracted to it other than the sound it gives. If it encouraged me to pick it up every day then that would be great.
I was initially attracted to the [b]Epiphone EB-0 [/b]but that was before I understood that there was such a thing as short scale. So then I veered towards the [b]Epiphone EB-3. [/b]A few models I read about often are the [b]Yamaha RBX170, Ibanez Soundgear GSR200 [/b]and the [b]ESP LTD B-10[/b]. I am not all that attracted to those three basses all that much as they seem to look a little too metal for me. Also, I'm not too into the active side of things and being at the mercy of a battery, which the Ibanez is. The bass I am most attracted to physically is the [b]Squire Vintage Modified Jaguar Bass SS in black[/b]. The other two models (full scale) near that in price I like too but I notice that they're active. Others I have looked at are the [b]Squier Mike Dirnt Precision Bass [/b]and the [b]Squire Vintage Modified Cabronita Precision Bass[/b]. Those would probably be getting past my budget though. I discovered an English company called Lindo that caught my eye. They have a few cheap basses and one of them I found on Amazon with a good bunch of stuff as a starter pack - [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lindo-Series-Electric-EBG15-FP-Amplifier/dp/B00FWVMVUE/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&qid=1405209618&sr=8-21&keywords=lindo+bass"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lindo-Series-Electric-EBG15-FP-Amplifier/dp/B00FWVMVUE/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&qid=1405209618&sr=8-21&keywords=lindo+bass[/url] - which is odd as they supposedly charge £200 for the actual bass on its own.
I do apologise if I have rambled my way through this but I have nobody else to talk to about it and I think that I just needed to get it all out there as it's been quite difficult learning so much new information at the same time as being unsure as to which way to go. I would greatly appreciate any guiding and please do feel free to speak in laymans terms.
I'm happy to be here
