Beginner – Upgrade guitar or amp?

[Mrbigstuff]

57 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

 

 

Sire V/P7 and above tuners (the Grover 142 copies, £24 for a 4 string set from NW Guitars) are generally very good though, I wouldn't confuse them with the budget machine heads you find on ultra cheap basses. In fact in the early days of gen 1 Sire basses they did use the cheap and nasty tuners and a fair few people (myself included) complained about them, they switched to the better ones partway through gen 1 V7 production.

 

I actually put a set of (ex-Sire) Grover copies on one of my Arias and they were a massive improvement, better than the Wilkinsons I have on my fretless.

In that case the OP should get a Sire and pro setup because they’re excellent when done right. If you get a V5 they’re passive and you don’t need to worry about active circuits or batteries.

 

FWIW I had an early V1 and didn’t have any issues with that either.

[ClusterOne]

18 hours ago, SimonK said:

...actually I'd add Sire to the list of reliable second hand (cheaper) basses for the OP to keep an eye out for... getting one for about £150 or so would be fine.

 

EDIT - just looked on eBay and they all seem to be a bit more expensive - around £350ish for second hand instruments. Still a good choice for that price!

Well, actually here on Basschat Marketplace there is one for £250 i think…

 

Local pick up i believe though..

 

Edited Saturday at 04:49 by ClusterOne

[lemmywinks]

Whole setup for you here OP, make a cheeky offer?

 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3678068185832967/

[Jack]

Someone is selling a G&L SB2 in the classifieds, that would be a superb bass if you decide to go that route. I've used mine on plenty of rock music gigs. 

 

Maybe an Ashdown combo if you decide to go with the amp. You can get a pro level amp for budget prices with those and again, great rock sound. 

[soulstar89]

On 24/07/2025 at 12:22, Ducky said:

Hi all,

 

Hope everyone is doing well.

 

I’ve recently taken up playing bass, and have reached a point where I want to upgrade either my bass guitar or amp. I started a few months ago, with an inexpensive Gear4music 4-string guitar and amp pack for about £150. I’ve gradually improved with consistent practice, but always felt that my plucking / pulling never sounded “clean”. I thought it was down to poor technique, and tried to work on it, but didn’t make any real improvement.

 

Last weekend I happened to stumble into a high-end guitar shop and tried playing a fender bass with a fender amp, and it sounded incredible. I don’t think my playing has ever sounded so clean, which led me to realise that it wasn’t me / my technique that’s the issue.

 

Now that I’ve come to that realisation, I want to upgrade either my guitar or amp. What do you recommend I do first? My budget is around £300, and I will eventually upgrade both, but right now I only have budget for either the guitar or amp.

 

Also, I should mention that the guitar I tried in the shop was £900, and the amp was probably also a very expensive one. Will a £300 guitar or amp provide an improvement in tone like the one I just described?

 

I like playing heavier music, like metal, and will also buy a distortion pedal at some point.

 

Thanks in advance for your help.
 

Hey bud, 

 

congrats on the journey of learning a instrument. 
 

I started with an inexpensive squier p bass. As when I was younger and broke my left wrist (fretting hand) I took my bass to get professionally setup at the bass gallery in London. My combo I think was a stagg. When I decided I wanted to commit more due to feeling improvement I was asking myself the exact same question. 
 

I went down the bass upgrade route but in all honesty I should have got a better amp/cab or combo. I say this as my old bass sounds great with my genzler Magellan combo. The crappy combo had probably been over pushed and exhausted the speakers. 
 

A proper setup makes a world of difference on how the bass plays and sounds. I would suggest either learn to setup your bass (it’s not hard at all) or go and get it setup. 
 

You can pick up a decent combo, cab & amp  for such great prices on here. The used market is your friend. 
 

Also a change of string makes a drastic difference also. 

[jd56hawk]

Sire, very popular for a good reason. 

Sure, many will suggest getting an amp, but I'm betting you buy a nice bass like this and you won't be able to put it down.

 

Andertons

Sire Version 2 Marcus Miller V3 4-String Bass in Red Satin

£249.00£439.00

Edited Saturday at 16:13 by jd56hawk

[Ducky]

Hi all, I've attempted to setup the bass properly using THIS video as a reference, and must say that the results were pretty awesome (Thanks BassBuzz / Josh Fossgreen, in case you're here)! Adjusting the truss rod made the biggest difference, and everything sounded substantially cleaner. Thanks to everyone who directed me down this route.

 

However, the most noticeable improvement was when I plugged in a pair of headphones to the amp. That made it sound incredible!

 

I think that perhaps it's time to upgrade my amp. Keeping in mind that I only plan to play at home in a pretty small room, what kind of specs and brands do you think I should be looking for? I definitely won't need an immense amount of power and volume, and I would prefer to not use headphones. In terms of size, the smaller the better. I like playing heavier music, like metal, and will buy a distortion pedal at some point.

 

Thanks again for the invaluable advice!

[MichaelDean]

Having been in this position and chosen an amp, I'm glad I did. It really elevated my experience and I hope it does for you too. 

 

A little Fender Rumble, Ampeg Rocket or the new Laney Digbeth Foundry would be a big step up for not all of your budget. An 8" speaker might be ok, but a 10" one generally sounds better to my ears. Always keep a lookout for used deals too. Here, Gumtree or Facebook marketplace are worth a nose. A little MarkBass or Gallien Krueger might pop up in your price range, or any of the others I've already mentioned could be a second hand bargain. 

[Jack]

The TC Electronic BG series of combos are everywhere for super cheap. Any one would suit you and the tone print means you get to try out effects for free. 

[prowla]

My first bass was a £50 Columbus Jazz (in 1976) - it was ok to get me going.

My second bass was a £220 (in 1977) Rickenbacker and I've never once regretted buying it.

So, my advice is get a good bass.

You can get Fender MIM basses for not a lot. (For illustration and not for sale), I have a beat-up one which cost me £100; I wasn't sure if the damage was structural so bought it on spec, but it turned out to be rather good.

One remarkably good bass with wild fluctuations in price is a Westone Thunder under £200 will get you a 1 or 1A (though you could see asking prices of £500+); they are quite heavy though.

I'd recommend buying used: check Facebook, Gumtree, etc.

 

Amp-wise, as suggested, Trace Elliot gear can be had cheaply; the gotcha is that the cabs (and thus combos too) are heavy.

I recently bought a 300W head for £150, which is ridiculous!

 

Reasonable fx pedals shouldn't be expensive - a decent one should be under £100 (eg. a Boss Bass Overdrive can be had for £40).

[HeadlessBassist]

Ducky, being as you're playing in a confined space at the moment, you only want something small for the time being. Maybe a small Laney combo, or a Roland Cube 100, or the super lightweight Fender Rumble 100. Bear in mind though, that these will need upgrading when you come to play with others in the future. So if you want to future-proof yourself, as it were, maybe the correct answer ia a used TC Electronic BG250 combo. These come in three variations, either a 12", 15", or 2 x 10" speaker(s) and can be had for around £2-300 used. Have fun!

[prowla]

Here's an example of what can be had, on FB.

 

[Ducky]

Thanks everyone. I noticed that nobody mentioned Orange amps. Are they not as highly regarded as the brands mentioned so far? 

[Jonesy]

1 hour ago, Ducky said:

Thanks everyone. I noticed that nobody mentioned Orange amps. Are they not as highly regarded as the brands mentioned so far? 

 

Good to hear that a bit of tinkering has made your setup sound better!

 

Orange make good bass amps, especially if you're looking at playing heavier stuff, and they'd be perfect for you at some point. The only reason they likely haven't been mentioned is your budget and current playing situation. 

 

If you're just using the amp to play at home then you don't really need more than a small 15w combo. I have a Fender Rumble 15w and it's a great little amp that I'd happily recommend to anyone, it's one of these:

 

https://www.andertons.co.uk/fender-rumble-15-v3-bass-amp/

 

TBH, anything like a Fender Rumble, Ashdown Studio, Ampeg Rocket, Orange Crush, Laney Digbeth etc will be perfect for home use. Keep it in the 15-25w range as anything else for home use is overkill.

 

If you have your eyes on gigging in the next year or so then you'll need 250w minimum, so it might be worth picking something up that's a bit bigger and louder. The stuff like the Trace recommendation above will be perfect and will sound great, they're just a little out of fashion so tend to go on the cheap side nowadays.

 

I'm not sure what Orange stuff is within your budget at the gigging level, probably not much unfortunately. I had an Orange Tiny Terror head and it sounded huge, so I'd definitely recommended it, but you're looking at £580 new and that's just for the head, so you'll need to buy speakers on top.

 

If you're looking at pedals to add a bit of spice you have a few options. Seeing as you're a beginner then you could pick up a multi-fx unit like the Zoom B1four (£90 new, or £100 with the expression pedal) there are a few benefits to this like - it can be used as  headphone amp so your practice setup is nice and compact and it'll have a ton of other effects to play with eg. tuner, preamps, distortion, fuzz, phasers, wah. You might not use 90% of the effects on there, but they're a good introduction to pedals. 

 

If you just wanted to stick to a cheap pedal to add some grit (not heavy distortion - but that should be OK depending on what sort of heavy stuff you play) then you can't go too far wrong with a Behringer BDI21. It's £20 new and is a clone of the Sansamp Bass Driver DI, so you're talking Ampeg in a box and you'll be able to get a decent tone for heavy stuff. 

 

 

[SimonK]

...at this point I can't help but post my "practicing at home rig" which only cost me £150 (granted the amp was broken but it was only a single transistor that needed replacing) and now it works fine. The crazy thing is if you go second hand there is no need to think small!

 

Edited 36 minutes ago by SimonK

[ClusterOne]

On that Trace Elliot note - I recently bought one off eBay for peanuts, TE GP7SM 150.

My bid was £70, starting price was £56, it went for £66..🤦‍♂️😁 The only annoying thing is i had to go & get it = 2 hours drive each way..🙄🤦‍♂️

 

The pre-shape option on it - could not believe how low it pushes the amp and it still sounds clean..

 

That is head only though, i’ve got Ampeg 15 inch cab hooked to it that i bought for £90 few months ago..

Edited 2 hours ago by ClusterOne