Good Advise for Buying Your First Bass Guitar
Good Advise for Buying Your First Bass Guitar
When you play the bass guitar professionally for many years, you learn some pretty amazing things that no one ever knew enough to tell you about at the time when you first needed to know them. It's unfortunate but, most of us learn by making mistakes and then learning to correct them as we continue on through life. Here are a few ideas you might want to consider before you purchase your first bass guitar and amplification system that (had I known about them) would have saved me a lot of time and money and enabled me to sound more like a professional bass player a lot sooner that I did.
First, you will want to purchase a bass guitar with two pickups on it. You will get a much better variety of tone from two pickups. One pickup will be positioned close to the bridge (where the strings attach on the body of the guitar) and the other will be positioned closer to the middle of the body or where the neck connects to the body of the bass guitar. The bridge pickup delivers a tone that sounds a bit harsher with a greater treble sound to it and the middle or neck pickup will deliver a more mellow sound. So, you can see that it is important to have both pickups for a variety of tone. As far as price is concerned, purchase whatever you can afford but, understand that the more expensive bass guitars will have better sounding pickups and better hardware on them and they will also be easier to sell if you decide you don't like playing the bass. In addition to sounding a little better, the more expensive basses are also a little easier to play and will stay in tune longer. Don't forget you will also need to budget for an amplification system so you will be able to hear yourself playing while you practice.
If you want the ultimate bottom end sound from your bass, you will want to purchase a 5-string rather that the standard 4-string bass. The bottom end delivered from a 5-string sounds so much more awesome especially when you drop tune the 5th string (normally a B note) to a low A. It's also easier to sell a used 5-string bass than a 4-string. Why? Because experienced players who already play a 4-string are more likely to consider a used 5-string but, when trading up from a 4-string to a better 4-string you're not looking at used bass guitars. You want a new one in that case.
Since the bass amplifier, speakers and effects processors are the more expensive part of playing the bass, let me suggest that you may not want buy a bass amplifier right away. Why? You don't need one yet. You're still learning to play. Instead, buy a good pair of studio quality headphones (20 Hz to 20 kHz response) and instead of a bass amplifier, purchase a really good bass multieffects processor. If you do that, you can play your bass through the bass effects processor and listen to it with some great sounding headphones and with awesome sounding bass effects too. You will also not be disturbing anyone in the house or your neighbors (if you live in an apartment) while you are learning to play. That also translates into longer more quality practice time.
If you should decide you don't like playing the bass, you can very easily sell the headphones and the bass effects processor and get most of your money back. If you have purchased one of the better base guitars (not the best but certainly not the worst) you will easily be able to sell that also. Most beginning bass players pay good money for a cheap bass amplifier that does not sound very good and nobody who plays the bass wants a cheap used bass amplifier. That, in my opinion, is just throwing your money away on something you will only use for a little while anyway as you learn how to play. A bass effects processor sounds better than any bass amplifier (even the expensive ones) and you will continue to use it even after you are playing well and decide to form or join a band.
The amplifier, speakers, and bass effects processor are way more important than the bass itself in terms of sound quality. So, when you get ready to play with a band, you will want to invest in a quality amplification system at that time. Never play a bass through a guitar amplifier (you can actually damage the amp or the speakers). You will eventually want to purchase a bass amplifier that has an AUX or SUB output so that you can configure a powered subwoofer with your bass amplifier. Why is that important? It's important because most bass amplifiers contain woofers (a type of full range speaker) which typically provides a low frequency response down to around 50 Hz (cycles per second). The low E-string on a 4-string bass vibrates at approximately 41.2 Hz. Therefore, most bass amplifiers will sound a little muddy in the low range when you're playing that E-string. That can also make it difficult to tell whether or not your E-string is in tune. A good subwoofer should provide a frequency response as low as to 20 or 25 Hz (some as low as 15 Hz) which will more than adequately provide for a 5-string bass that is drop tuned to a low A (27.5 Hz).
When you are ready to play with a band, you will then need at least a 150 watt (or higher) bass amplifier. It just takes more wattage to drive those low tones and to be able to compete adequately (in terms of volume) with a 100 watt guitar amplifier. Before you start playing live for an audience, you will want to add a good low end subwoofer to your amplifier. Make sure that whatever amplifier you purchase, has an AUX or SUB output port to allow you to connect a powered subwoofer to your amplifier. With that subwoofer, you will no longer just hear the bass; you will feel the bass as well.
So, with a relatively inexpensive bass guitar (still your starter guitar), and a really good bass effects processor (your original practice amp) and a 150 watt (or higher wattage) amplifier and a powered subwoofer, you are going to sound much more professional than your average bass player. Many of them will come up to you on a gig and ask about your bass sound and what kind of amplifier you are using. I know. It happens to me all the time. Good luck to you! You're going to love playing the bass, it's one of the worlds highest paying part-time jobs and one of the highest paying full time professions in the world, if you become really good at it. Thanks for reading; your comments are always welcome!
The author, David M LaBuda is a professional songwriter, singer and musician who writes and records music daily in his home recording studio located in Albuquerque, NM. If you have any questions or wish to communicate with Dave, he can be reached through MySpace, Facebook, or Yahoo Answers. To hear samples of some of his work, we invite you to come to http://soundcloud.com/ultralife_music_studios
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