Ugly Basses

[CookPassBabtridge]

On 22/09/2022 at 08:49, NancyJohnson said:

There's hundreds of them. 

 

Noted author Mark Phillips aside, I saw these on eBay a while back and they were so awful it was worth taking screengrabs.  No idea who made them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lest we forget...

 

I think I’ve seen the top two on Facebook before and had much the same reaction. The luthier clearly has some ability (finish looks like a good standard) but the design is hideous.

[Rich]

11 hours ago, msb said:

Everybody back then was using Pbasses. (myself included) There was the rare EB3 or Jazz , but almost everybody seemed to have a Pbass , there were a couple of players with Rics , but they weren’t selling , and the local stores never had them.

They were rare around here , but I could have picked up pre CBS Pbasses for $3-400 at the time. The old ones were cheaper than new ones.

Thought I had all the bass I needed , I was an idiot.

 

11 hours ago, dclaassen said:

Right there in that boat with you 

Yup, me too. I turned up my nose at a pre-EB Ray selling for 250 quid and a Shergold 8-string for 195.

[Dad3353]

8 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

I've said it many times before, but I still think the Fender P bass (and for that matter the jazz) is the ugliest bass there is. It's an amorphous blob with the ugliest headstock I've ever seen, and those stupid big flat elephant ear tuners should be melted down for scrap. On top of that they're usually painted in bright colours so they look ridiculously cheap and tacky. 

 

Every P I've ever seen looks like it was £99 from Argos. 

 

And that amorphous blob in your avatar pic is a..? 

 

...

 

 

[ZilchWoolham]

20 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

While I agree with you on most things on the wal, it has a very ugly headstock - or at least the originals were, they got better with the 5 strings later on.

I have a preference for symmetrical 2+2 headstocks, that is to say if a headstock has to be present at all...

 

As for in-line headstocks, the classic Fender is perfectly fine by me, although anything that tries to look a bit like a Fender but not exactly like a Fender is usually a big turnoff. The very best looking in-line headstock, though, belongs to the Thunderbird, although it is of course barely usable unless you're a professional basketball player. 

Edited September 24, 2022 by ZilchWoolham

[ZilchWoolham]

As stupid as it is, this is actually not the worst Fender-adjacent headstock I've seen.

Then they decided to make a 2+2 style headstock instead with the bizarre decision to make it practically as long anyway, to give a bit of extra pop to their carefully chosen gimmick.

Then, of course, here's the worst headstock design I've ever seen. Remarkably, the makers were so confident in the superiority of their design that they had to include a miniature outline of the headstock, on the headstock!

[CookPassBabtridge]

12 minutes ago, ZilchWoolham said:

That headstock looks like it needs to seek medical advice.

[blowinblue]

Ugly, misguided headstock shapes have been the undoing of many otherwise good-looking basses. 😒

 

M. M.

[paul_5]

39 minutes ago, ZilchWoolham said:

 

 

 

 

I actually quite like this. The bonus of this is that, should you decide that you really can't live with the 'bite', there's enough wood left over to cut it off and still make a more aesthetically pleasing shape at the end.

[chris_b]

On 22/09/2022 at 10:30, LeftyJ said:

Beautifully crafted, but em... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/07/25/bass-of-the-week-kio-extraordinary-string-instruments-design-waldeinsamkeit/ 

 

 

 

 

Now, tHat's a bass I would hang on the wall.

[Woodinblack]

5 minutes ago, chris_b said:

Now, tHat's a bass I would hang on the wall.

 

Or battle off an attack by a group of klingons

[Newfoundfreedom]

6 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

And that amorphous blob in your avatar pic is a..? 

 

...

 

 

 

Traben.

[Dad3353]

35 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

Traben.

 

Aha; thanks.

 

Does an ugly name count at all..? Asking for a friend. 

 

...

 

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by Dad3353

[40hz]

Any sunburst Fender. It's just the most unimaginative combo of them all, and also has an 'old' image to me.

 

Pointy 'metal basses' and all singlecuts. Ugly beyond belief.

[dmccombe7]

We are a funny ole lot on BC. That old vintage look is what many seek in life.

I quite like the sunburst and tort combo. My first bass was a Columbas Jazz copy in sunburst / tort. Always liked that in a bass.

Dave

[Rib13Bass]

33 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

We are a funny ole lot on BC. That old vintage look is what many seek in life.

I quite like the sunburst and tort combo. My first bass was a Columbas Jazz copy in sunburst / tort. Always liked that in a bass.

Dave

I personally like sunburst and tort....what I don't like is that it's cliche 

[Newfoundfreedom]

11 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Aha; thanks.

 

Does an ugly name count at all..? Asking for a friend. 

 

...

 

 

 

If they do then I'm definitely putting SDGR on the list. I generally love Ibanez basses, but I bloody hate that logo. 

 

Another example of how to make a perfectly good instrument look cheap and tacky. 

[40hz]

Just now, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

If they do then I'm definitely putting SDGR on the list. I generally love Ibanez basses, but I bloody hate that logo. 

 

Another example of how to make a perfectly good instrument look cheap and tacky. 

On this subject, 'RockBass' by Warwick. I have one - but for a 'boutique' bass brand, The name and logo are incredibly childish.

[Newfoundfreedom]

1 minute ago, 40hz said:

On this subject, 'RockBass' by Warwick. I have one - but for a 'boutique' bass brand, The name and logo are incredibly childish.

 

Yeah I agree. Yet another example of a company taking a perfectly good product, and making it sound naff. 

[Clarky]

Take a look here:

 

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/09/19/bass-of-the-week-wood-guerilla-basses-babytulip/

[Newfoundfreedom]

3 minutes ago, Clarky said:

Take a look here:

 

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/09/19/bass-of-the-week-wood-guerilla-basses-babytulip/

 

Looks like someone put strings on driftwood. 

[Grimalkin]

23 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

Looks like someone put strings on driftwood. 

 

5 string smoked haddock.

 

Well this is what we're going to get when we've run out of design, basses that look like sea creatures.

 

They're making it up haddock.

[neepheid]

33 minutes ago, Clarky said:

Take a look here:

 

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/09/19/bass-of-the-week-wood-guerilla-basses-babytulip/

 

It just smacks of trying too hard to be different.

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 22/09/2022 at 11:30, LeftyJ said:

Beautifully crafted, but em... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/07/25/bass-of-the-week-kio-extraordinary-string-instruments-design-waldeinsamkeit/ 

 

 

Bizarre for sure, but I actually kind of really like it.

 

Like a piece of modern art.

 

As for ugly, by far most "whale hump" single cut basses, only ever seen a couple of those that I actually liked the look of, otherwise they usually look like something that has been deformed by some sort of horrible decease to me, like suffering from elephantiasis at an advanced stage, also those kind of speckled/splashy/smeared color finishes, which gives me bad amateur abstract painter with absolutely no sense of aesthetics, or "fresh" mass produced 80's wallpaper, vibes, especially when the colors used are blue and yellow mixed, which seems to be a very common choice for some reason for this kind of finish, strangely enough most often seen on high end boutique basses, I also have kind of an aversion against very pronounced flamed maple top basses as well.   

 

To me the above mentioned looks like very bad and somewhat kitschy, in the worst possible sense of the word, taste, like wannabe artistic, but being a completely talentless absolute cliché utter failure at it.

 

Like these:

 

Especially the first one though.

 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I couldn't find a picture of the one that had me banned from Talk Bass for speaking my honest mind about it looking horribly ugly (it wasn't even owned by the poster, just a random image they found on the internet ), trust me it would have beaten any of the above pictured basses in butt ugliness, however that is even possible.

 

Also this thread would have earned everyone participating in it a permanent ban had it been on the Talk Bass forum.

 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Baloney Balderdash

[tauzero]

20 hours ago, ZilchWoolham said:

As stupid as it is, this is actually not the worst Fender-adjacent headstock I've seen.

Then they decided to make a 2+2 style headstock instead with the bizarre decision to make it practically as long anyway, to give a bit of extra pop to their carefully chosen gimmick.

Then, of course, here's the worst headstock design I've ever seen. Remarkably, the makers were so confident in the superiority of their design that they had to include a miniature outline of the headstock, on the headstock!

 

Don't forget the Lodestone.

 

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, Clarky said:

Take a look here:

 

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/09/19/bass-of-the-week-wood-guerilla-basses-babytulip/

 

Apart from the looks, and the fact that because the body is asymmetric at the tuner end so there aren't two strap pegs to stand it on, whoever strung it desperately needs a set of wire cutters.