binky_bass

Bought a pedal board, case and tuner from Mark, absolutely perfect to deal with, no problems at all, all items very well packaged and all arrived in good time! Another credit to basschat, thanks good sir!

To be honest, all of this pretty much confirms what I've been doing since starting to play bass some time in the Edwardian era. Buy pre-owned. Well, with two exceptions... having custom instruments made. One by Bee Basses and one by ACG. Both spectacular instruments. Buying pre-owned might be inadvertently assisting in the death of the high street, but there are some incredible deals to be had out there and I'd sooner buy from one of you fine folk knowing its come from a good home and going to a good home with me!

They're a decent little outfit, always friendly and always willing to help. I had a 36" 7 string bass and they opened a fresh set of Ernie Ball strings just to see if they could reach from saddle to nut, which they didn't! But they didn't have to open a set up like that to help out. Also very handy for odds and sods like the occasional knob, switch or bridge pin. Very useful for me when I buy shoddy guitars from Gumtree with half the bits missing to fix up and eBay on! 😂

Set up is subjective, absolutely agree. However, there is a 'rough set up' that I believe would accommodate a very large proportion of people to at least give them an opportunity to play the bass without it feeling awful. We all like different things, but the majority out there prefer a low/medium low action with no fret buzz and no pitching strings, something that doesn't actually put the bass out of tune when you press down on the string in the same way a bend does. The last bass I bought from a shop was a Dean Edge, some time in the 17th century. No idea what the strings were! If I had strings I absolutely lived by, then yes, I'd probably change them too, but that doesn't mean I'd be happy buying a bass that was so poorly 'set up' I couldn't tell it from a 2x4 with an elastic band wrapped around it. Your ideal set up sounds quite far from what the average person would prefer, so for you a 'general store set up' may make a bass as bad for you as these basses were for me, but we're talking in a general manner, not a super bespoke 'exactly what I personally want' manner. If someone who has never played bass before fancied buying a really nice bass to start out with (it happens!) they'd most likely be out right off by the set up that Ibanez had. Even if they offered a set up upon purchase, you have no real gauge to judge the bass properly with how it was when I played it. A basic general set up should be mandatory before they hang a bass/guitar on the wall.

I've heard BD and The Gallery do set everything up to a high standard, the way it should be! The Bass Centre did too from memory. And if the tiny little Guitar Shop (String Salon) down at Barleylands in Ye Olde Billericay can manage to set up all their reasonably cheap stock, then this currently unnamed shop with high end gear definitely should too! In my humble opinion of course. 😁

My job requires a huge learning curve, even if you have the core skills my employer would look for, you wouldn't be able to use our bespoke systems or have any idea whatsoever on how to achieve what is required, it takes learning and training. Something that you would gain on the job. This shop had a good number of employees rattling around the shop, they are employed by a music shop, they should have at least a basic understanding of how to set up and demonstrate an instrument in order to make a sale. If they don't, then they should absolutely be trained to do so. If the shop hired them and just left them to it then that's their massive downfall, they should train their staff to do the set ups and put them to work doing them. If you were an employer would you rather your staff mill around the store like lost children, or have them do something that actively helps the business and assists with pushing sales?

Hugely disagree. The basses in question have potential, but they were so poorly 'set up' (or whatever better use of words there are) that the bass didn't shine to anywhere near close to its potential and just played like a dog. I will not buy a bass brand new where I don't know (to at least some degree) what it is capable of. A: its foolish as you're essentially buying blind and B: to me it shows the shop has no real care over their trade. Yes, of course set ups are subjective, but playing a bowed neck, a rattley fretboard, with dying batteries, crackly pots, biting strings, bad intonation etc etc are not subjective. The comparison to a car is quite apt, would you buy a car with four flat tyres, iffy breaks and a cracked windscreen? Doubtful. Set ups are subjective, but there is a degree of 'set up' that will show case a bass's best side to 90% of punters, having £1500+ basses hanging from a wall that play like a piece of Far Eastern tripe does no one any favours.

That to me is false economy. I'm not prepared to spend that level of money on a 'brand new' bass without being damn sure it can do what I want it to do. To buy it with a terrible 'as delivered' set up means I'm not buying it period. I may as well just spend my money (which I always do!) on the second hand market, at least that way if I buy something and it's set up poorly, and I then set it up, if I STILL don't like it, I can sell it without losing and arm and a leg and a kidney. A good shop should present their instruments in the best way to get them sold, so you can play a bass and 'fall in love', having a target market of people who can do their own set up is a little short sighted and quite foolish in my humble opinion!

See that is exactly what I would do if I owned such a store... god know this particular store had enough employees lurking around. If I was management I'd set someone to work at setting up (to a reasonable degree) all the instruments as and when they are delivered. There's a little music shop near me in Billericay and they sell your typical Squires, Epiphones and other such low cost instruments, but they set up every single one of them regardless of their retail cost and you can absolutely tell. It also give the buyer (often a total newbie player) a fair chance at playing an instrument and liking it. If you buy a squire or similar with sky high action I can see people being out of from playing due to the difficulties in actually playing the instrument without pain and intonation issues.

I went into a large, well know, music store over the weekend to get rid of one of my basses (for a very good price surprisingly!), naturally while I was there I had a play on a few basses, and naturally gravitated towards the more expensive side of things! I played 3 different basses, all between £1400 and £2000 in price, and I was utterly disappointed with all of them! Each one clearly had absolutely no kind of set up whatsoever, the action on all of them was sky high, the fit and finish of two of them was really quite poor and they just felt cheap in hand... The fit and finish isn't the stores fault, but I would really expect the store to look at the 'delivery set up' of these expensive basses and adjust them where necessary, the Ibanez I played (which had a price tag of £1399) was borderline unplayable. I know action is reasonably subjective, but this was silly... In order to sell these basses, surely they need to present them in a manner that befits the price they are asking? As mentioned, the finish was particularly poor too, the rear of the bass looked pitted with noticeably uneven lacquering. The other two basses weren't much better, one being a Dingwall, which I was surprised at. With the Ibanez, if I was blindfolded, given it to play and then asked how much I though it was worth, I would have absolutely said sub £200 at a push. I was considering putting it down to being a bit spoilt in terms of what I'm used to playing, but I don't think that's the case as I have a mid-nineties Tanglewood Baron 6 string bass, and have owned a couple of Cort A6 basses and the build quality and general finish and tone (particularly on the Tanglewood) is remarkably good, better than some well know, eye-wateringly expensive basses I've played and FAR better than the three I played over the weekend by several country miles. Has anyone else experienced this? Playing 'expensive' instruments and being left utterly underwhelmed and somewhat surprised at the general lack of quality? Maybe the three I played were just not great examples, but I suspect that isn't the case.