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What's the worst bass you've ever owned or played?


Marc S
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[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1381309935' post='2237202']
I've actually been quite lucky when it comes to sh*t basses. I've owned a few that haven't really suited me, but actual 'bad' instruments? Only 2:


2) Musicman Stingray 5. Too light, IMO shoddily put together, blemishes in the finish, weak output and generally felt a bit toy-like. I really don't know why I didn't get on with it but it just felt alien to play; it was a single H version and was impossible to play comfortably. The body was too big and I couldn't get set on it no matter the strap height and sitting with it caused my right wrist to cramp after 5 minutes of playing. Dreadful thing. Vastly overrated in my opinion. I sold it making a profit of £200 so it wasn't all bad I suppose.

Truckstop
[/quote]

Usually view with interest everyone else's opinion but cant agree with this. You must have gotten a complete dog of a bass my friend. I've played many fivers and the second mm I owned was easily the best non boutique bass I've ever played. Mutts nuts in output and looks and weight - the whole package. It was a plain H and it was better than the mm 25th anniversary HSS I had and got rid off after two months of it. Try again maybe?

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[quote name='4000' timestamp='1381576210' post='2240802']


This. As evidenced by the Rick comments and the fact that they're one of the few instruments I consistently get on with.
[/quote]

Regarding Ricks, hate the neck on mine (it's a real fight compared to a P or Jazz standard), the shape may be pretty but is hard work. However......that tone makes it worth it. Talk about love/hate.

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[quote name='martthebass' timestamp='1381604025' post='2241352']
Regarding Ricks, hate the neck on mine (it's a real fight compared to a P or Jazz standard), the shape may be pretty but is hard work. However......that tone makes it worth it. Talk about love/hate.
[/quote]

Yes, I've been surprised at some of the comments about Ricks too...

I always loved their sound. The necks on all the ones I've played have been fine
Not the thinnest or fastest I've played, but certainly narrower than any Fender necks
The thing I find uncomfortable about Ricks, is the body shape - looks great
but somehow, it doesn't quite "sit right" for me

.... that, and the awful big square block of a pickup guard
Just can't understand why they'd place something over the strings, right in the way of your right hand

Can't quite see why many folk dislike them...
The company attitude toward their design, and copies is crazy,
but the basses are great - but that's just my opinion....

Back to the subject of my OP
I recently picked up a Burns bass (one of the new ones)
That looked good, but was really uncomfortable to play
It was really top-heavy, so the machine head end of the bass just wanted to tip down to the floor
The small body and the position of the strap holder meant the bottom end of the neck was
a long way away - I could hardly reach F or F# on the E string

Lots of switches/ switch positions too
Which as others have pointed out, seemed to affect the sound much

Not one of the worst I've ever played,
but not a great bass, all the same....

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Hi Folks, I only have cheap and strange basses in my collection, 8 in total, that would probably add up to about 2 grand if I had to replace them all.
I have played lots of the regular "named" stuff but the thing that surprised me most was a Rickenbacker 4003.
Up until I saw the comments on here I thought it must've been me!
I was left wondering where the additional £900.00 had gone between the Rick and my poor little Tanglewood Warrior. (Yeah, I know)
That price gap has now extended to about £1300!!! Why? How?
I was so disappointed as I had always wanted one based I on the look of it.
I have tried several since, in the off chance that it was a dodgy one, and sadly my opinion hasn't changed.

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[quote name='Nick Riffed' timestamp='1382103431' post='2248020']
I have played lots of the regular "named" stuff but the thing that surprised me most was a Rickenbacker 4003.
Up until I saw the comments on here I thought it must've been me!
I was left wondering where the additional £900.00 had gone between the Rick and my poor little Tanglewood Warrior. (Yeah, I know)
That price gap has now extended to about £1300!!! Why? How?
I was so disappointed as I had always wanted one based I on the look of it.
I have tried several since, in the off chance that it was a dodgy one, and sadly my opinion hasn't changed.
[/quote]

Yeah the general consensus seems to be that Ricks are a bit s**t...

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  • 7 months later...

Jaydee Supernatural Roadie 2 - weak electronics and a neck the ended up with a back bow that would have shamed Robin Hoods weapon of choice...before it completely failed.

This was also the bass at the top of my wish list at the time (mid 80's) and this contributed to much shedding of tears.

Absolute dog.

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I've never owned a terrible bass, thankfully. There are a number that I have been disappointed by when trying them out though:

Epiphone Thunderbird - seems to be a common theme here but I've played a couple and they were both god-awful muddy messes of basses. I hated everything about it, despite having listed after one for AGES.

OLP MusicMan - these were revered amongst my bass playing friends whilst I was growing up, I always wanted the blue one with a maple neck and a matching headstock, low and behold a few weeks ago there was a used one sitting on a rack on Denmark Street. I gave it a go, and granted it was fitted with 'ex-strings' and was going into a terrible little practice amp but it didn't live up to my (probably vastly optimistic) expectations. Let down.

Epiphone EB0 - just awful. Everything about it.

EDIT: I should state (for the sake of balance) that despite the Epiphone bashing above, I love their guitars, and the EB3 I played at a trade show many moons ago was lovely!

EDIT 2: My brother's Mexican Jazz should've made this list too. He picked it up for silly money but it was (still is) in pretty dire need of a set-up. Maybe it's personal taste, but I never enjoy playing it.

Edited by theyellowcar
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I've now played a real Rickenbacker. I'm aware of taste, but I can't see how they are bad basses. It felt great to me. Like my Rickenfaker, but without the age related foibles.

The worst bass I ever played was my first bass, which was a 1970s (or earlier, potentially) unbranded P-bass copy. It had very high action. At school, none of us knew what we were doing. I did what others had done, and shimmed the neck with a thick piece of flat particle board, maybe 1/4" The bass still had a high action.

The bass also conked out when I was playing with the school orchestra.

BTW: I know there are some other Kiwis on here. I bought that bass with my paperround money, from Harmony Central, a pawnshop in Queen Street, Auckland. Anyone have a memory of that?

After that bass, my Dad said that I could buy a better bass. I had no idea what I was doing, and went to a music shop and bought a more or less random second hand bass because it looked a bit fancy. (Slightly different model from this with different pickups, I think the 1978 model not this 1977 model).



Blind luck. I wish I still had it.

I've seen some old Satellites etc. as posted in this thread. But, I've had absolutely no desire to try them out at all. I've played almost no basses that were actually bad. I played some Johnson basses, p-bass and jazz bass, when a local shop was closing down and selling them for £60. They seemed OK to me. Not wonderful, but entirely playable. I played some no-brand p-bass with a suspiciously light body (Pawlonia?) Played OK though.

Edited by Annoying Twit
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[quote name='bagsieblue' timestamp='1380824652' post='2231226']
Westfield - small bodied, Warwickesque, 5 String.
Awful, awful awful.
Weak pickups, tone controls next to useless.....
Can't believe I gigged it for so long - when I got a MIM Jazz Deluxe the difference was like night and day.
[/quote]

I had what sounds very much like the four string version of that bass, not one redeeming feature, it played and sounded like crap and had the weakest [size=4]pickups I've ever heard. [/size]
[size=4]The Encore I had before it was far superior despite being half the price, amazing that a bass can be bad enough to make[/size]
an encore that had a neck like a baseball bat and weighed about the same as a small family car seem actually pretty good!

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[quote name='theyellowcar' timestamp='1401559751' post='2464787']
OLP MusicMan - these were revered amongst my bass playing friends whilst I was growing up, I always wanted the blue one with a maple neck and a matching headstock, low and behold a few weeks ago there was a used one sitting on a rack on Denmark Street. I gave it a go, and granted it was fitted with 'ex-strings' and was going into a terrible little practice amp but it didn't live up to my (probably vastly optimistic) expectations. Let down.
[/quote]
What are 'ex-strings'?

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Years ago I played a bass that someone had apparently made themselves, though thinking on it presumably had a proper neck bolted to it??? I don't remember an episode of Blue Peter where they did advanced bass construction any way.

Unsurprisingly it was cackola, though to be fair it would have had to be amazing for me to have liked it because it was star shaped, brush painted white and covered in glitter stickers. Unfortunately I'd never heard of Bootsy Collins back then, so its inspirational, funkational beauty was lost on me....

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It's a redundant statement to say all the old Kay/Satellite/Axe/etc basses are crap. Of course they are crap. They are cheap starters and can never be seen as anything else but.

However, my mate got a Satellite bass in '79 along with a cereal box sized combo and Bass-balls fuzz pedal, and to us it was the best thing ever. I was far more disappointed with my MIM Mike Dirnt P Bass that was so heavy it was unplayable.

The shortest lived bass for me was a Burns Bison. With no tone, power and a head that hits the floor, it came out of the box was played for around a minute and returned back to the shop. Wild Dog? Wild f***-All more like!

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[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1401581018' post='2465046']
It's a redundant statement to say all the old Kay/Satellite/Axe/etc basses are crap. Of course they are crap. They are cheap starters and can never be seen as anything else but.
[/quote]

Well, it was an age thing I think. Shortly after I got my kay strat, I bought a westone concorde, and it really wasn't much of a price difference, but it was a night and day quality difference.

Edited by Woodinblack
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A 'Grant' which cost me £50 secondhand. It was a Precision copy. They were imported from Asia, by a shop in Edinburgh called Grants, in the 80s.
Some guy was trying to sell one on Basschat a couple of years ago for £400 as a collectible vintage bass. I can't remember his name but I do remember how he described it.

[b][size=6]+++AWESOME+++[/size][/b]

[size=4]It wasn't......[/size]

Edit: I found that very ad. Heeheeheee...... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/175221-sold/

Edited by gjones
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A BC Rich Warlock bass that one of my students brought to a lesson. I looked past the aesthetics and gave it a chance. He'd got it for 'a bargain' price of £100 so it looked like it could've been a great back-up to his other bass (an SR300 in iron pewter)... We swapped basses for half the lesson so I could have a proper look and I wouldn't have had that bass if the guy had PAID me £100 to take it from him. Awful.

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[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1401585924' post='2465063']
A 'Grant' which cost me £50 secondhand. It was a Precision copy. They were imported from Asia, by a shop in Edinburgh called Grants, in the 80s.
Some guy was trying to sell one on Basschat a couple of years ago for £400 as a collectible vintage bass. I can't remember his name but I do remember how he described it.

[b][size=6]+++AWESOME+++[/size][/b]

[size=4]It wasn't......[/size]

Edit: I found that very ad. Heeheeheee...... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/175221-sold/
[/quote]

Is this how Sye Ryder basses will be advertised in the future? *runs and hides*

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