Hi,

My son wants to buy a bass guitar and I'm looking for some good advice on what to look for as a good starter setup. He keeps bombarding me with different web pages but I don't know much about guitars so have been reluctant to buy anything. Here is his latest link http://www.dv247.com/guitars/ashton-ab2-(spab2)-bass-guitar-pack-transparent-red--71910

He is 13 in October and is already 5ft4 or so and wears size 10 shoes so is likely to need a full adult size guitar, if not now, then very soon. I don't want to buy him a smaller size and then he grows out of it within a year.

So, any ideas? Second hand? New? Things to look out for? How much to spend? Essential accessories etc. All advice most welcome!

Thanks,
Craig.

I personally would go for the peavey milestone. I got one as my first bass and it is a great bass for the money. It has a jazz neck so it is fairly narrow as fret boards go, but has good build quality, sounds good for the money and looks good too. Mine is still going strong 10 years down the line!

Regarding bass amps, again, peavey are great for starter stuff. Don't worry too much about power output (it takes 10 times the power to get twice the volume), so 10-15w upwards is plenty for starting out. Just try and get a 10-12" speaker in there if possible. Marshall also did some good starter bass amps when I started out.

Get him using his fingers too! None of this nancy picking stuff!

Family size pack?

speak to Zilspeed ....he will give you a few pointers.........he hangs round a band of muso`s with a bass guitar

My son started playing bass when he was about 14 and smallish and he had a full size one from the start. He's now 21 and we got a starter bass + amp (30W, from memory) + bag + leads for about £225 IIRC from a local music shop. That lasted him for a few years until he started playing gigs when he got a 100W amp and then when he was 18 he got a £500 new bass.

If you have a music (instrument) shop near you I would go and see what they have got and ask for advice. Not sure if your lad is already playing but for my boy we made buying him a bass conditional on having lessons for at least a term so it wasn't a one week wonder. As it turned out, he did keep going and got Grade 8 rock bass within 3 years (http://www.rockschool.co.uk/). He has been in a couple of bands and played a few small gigs and has just had another new bass for his 21st!

Good luck - if he sticks at it I'm sure he will have fun as well as getting a hobby that is probably much more wholesome than some things teenage boys get into

I play lead guitar so can't really offer any specific bass advice. I would definately get a full size, your son will soon grow into it, I started when I was 10 on my dads full size. I don't think you can go wrong with the package you have linked, its light weight and sounds pretty good, made of all the right magerials. However when buying guitars the proof is in actualy playing it yourself. Have you thought about taking your son to a music shop? They offer great advice and theses days will match internet prices and your son will be able to have a go and see which guitar feels the nicest to him, its very individual.

Cheers. Dan

I know jack about guitars either so got my brother-in-law to sort it for me as he's big into it. He bought it all from the states, its a couple of years ago so the exchange rate was better but he got us a Fender Squire Bronco Bass, Marshall amp and rockbag for the same price (£110) as I could buy a crap starter set at the local supplier.

Great advice so far guys, needless to say we're soaking it all up!

BenB probably has given the best advice so far!!

Keep it coming - much appreciated!

My Lads first bass was an Ibanez and a Line 6 amp. The amp is good in that you can also put your MP3 through it to play along if you want. also had Echo, reverb and loas of noisey stuff

My 14 year old was the same a couple of months ago.
He found a used but "as new" Shine bass and Peavey Max 126 bass amp (10w) on Friday-Ad
and got them for £80.
He's a competent musician anyway, playing drums and piano as well, and says this bass set up is more than adequate whilst he masters the basics. He knows he'll get his money back if he upgrades and he'll have the experience of knowing exactly what he wants.
He also spent his own hard earned money on it, not ours, and that can make a difference!

Just thinking along the lines that this is something he pulled out of his backside (or like myself noticed a foxy lady wielding a bass on the back of a friend's cd cover when I was that age ) then any old cheap s**t will do until you both know he's actually serious. My first one was one of them Fender knock off ones that could be bought from Argos for about £50 and lasted me until I got my own cash supply (and found that I'd twisted the neck of it...)

Craig

The bass in your link is obviously a budget brand, but that's fair enough, it'w what we all started on.
What I would add is that the one he's interested in has a single precision or 'P' type pickup.
Many people like what a P bass does, but other than rolling the tone back a bit, it does oen sound.
In other words, it's not very versatile.

If the budget is somewhere in that range, I would be looking to perhpas concentrate the vast majority on the bass.
You can always pick up an amp form somewhere, and the thing in that pack isn't really a proper bass amp. I'ts an amp shaped object.
All the accesories are sweeeteners, there's no real value in them.

Were it my choice, I would go for a Yamaha RBX170.
These are around £166 these days and are a solid and very playable passive bass form a well known and respectable manufacturer.
Having a Jazz bridge pickup and a Precision neck pickup, it will give a far greater range of tones than the Ashton in your link. It's a relatively skinny neck, so very playable and they sound great.
Regarding the amp, £55 will by you an Ashdown Tourbus 10. Ashdown are a hugely respected manufacturer and a lot of big names play their gear. I've had an Ashdown 300 watt stack with a 1x15" cab and a 4x10" cab and it could move mountains.
This stuff costs a little more than the stuff in your link, but the quality is streets ahead and could potentially last a very long time. I would play a gig with an RBX170 and would be proud to have the little Ashdown amp for practice at home.

In al fairness, the lad won't go very far or do very much with the stuff in your link.

Lastly, and I'm nearly finished.
Take yourself up to the smoke and visit either CC Music in the west end or Guitar Guitar in argyle Street.
We buy all our stuff from CC Music and always do well out of them.
If something is junk, they won't sell it.
It's always best to try before you buy with musical instruments.
You can't spot a bass in need of a setup when doing mail order and a good setup makes all the difference between unplayable and playing like a dream.

(I've been playing bass now and getting paid to do so for just coming up on 30 years.)

I forgot, playing style.

For years, I slavishly refused anything to do with a plectrum.
It was all wrong to use one and I resolutely played fingerstyle and studied the greats.
Jaco, Stanley Clarke, Victor Wooten, yes Mark King.

Basically, anybody that was good at playing fingerstyle.

Then one day, I was introdcused to the most versatile player I had ever heard, Bobby Vega.
I no longer think of the plectrum as the work of the devil.

Not scared to play any style at all, he has fantastic feel.
Have a listen, he's a great and versatile player.
Boby Vega - '62 stack knob Jazz Bass.

[Edited on 24/5/11 by zilspeed]

I've got a bit of catching up to do to get near Zil's 30 years, but I've been playing bass for 22 years so far.

Looking at ads is a great idea so that you know what is out there, but I would thoroughly recommend getting down to the best music shop near you and actually trying some out. If they're any good, then they will look after you and get you something that is right for him.

A second point that nobody has mentioned yet: Get him some headphones. Good ones! I probably do 99% of my playing through them so I don't annoy anyone, and you'll probably get a better sound out of them than from a small practice amp. Mine are Beyerdynamic DT770M's - not cheap, but excellent!

Other things to look into will be drum machine software (great for practicing) and a decent tuner.

Be careful though... it get's addictive! Here's my collection.

Bass collection

What sort of styles and bands is he interested in?

Ed.

And the award for convincingly good advice goes to zilspeed!!

In all seriousness, I really appreciate you taking time to respond at length and as I joked above, it sounds like solid advice indeed. I think you're right, a trip to Glasgow at the weekend is in order and I'll look into the Yamaha you mentioned.

My elder daughter's boyfriend is a bass player in a local band from Kilmarnock, used to be called Energy, now re-branded as Fatherson. He's given my son some good advice too but I didn't want him to feel pressured and in all honesty he is still only 18 himself so has probably only played a few guitars in his time.

I agree that the best bet is to buy a good guitar and worry about the amp and accessories separately. I'm an electronics engineer so I might be able to pick up a good (but broken) amp and fix it up for him. He's keen to plug it in to my iPad and use the garageband 8 track recorder to put some tracks together so maybe the amp isn't essential in the short term. He has a small amp available here anyway which came with my daughter's six string and although I know a bass amp is somewhat different, it will get him through the next few days/weeks until we get something better.

I know that there is a good chance he will get fed up and chuck the whole idea but I have a feeling he will actually stick at it because he has been messing about with an old acoustic and a six string in the house for a while now and is taking lessons at school. He's even joined a school band. I want to encourage him to play an instrument as it is good to relax and focus the mind at the very least and could turn into a serious hobby or even a career, who knows!

So, thanks to everyone for your advice, please keep it coming if you can add anything to what the others have said.

All the best,
Craig.

quote:

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Originally posted by Madinventions
I've got a bit of catching up to do to get near Zil's 30 years, but I've been playing bass for 22 years so far.

Looking at ads is a great idea so that you know what is out there, but I would thoroughly recommend getting down to the best music shop near you and actually trying some out. If they're any good, then they will look after you and get you something that is right for him.

A second point that nobody has mentioned yet: Get him some headphones. Good ones! I probably do 99% of my playing through them so I don't annoy anyone, and you'll probably get a better sound out of them than from a small practice amp. Mine are Beyerdynamic DT770M's - not cheap, but excellent!

Other things to look into will be drum machine software (great for practicing) and a decent tuner.

Be careful though... it get's addictive! Here's my collection.

Bass collection

What sort of styles and bands is he interested in?

Ed.

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Hi Ed,

Thanks for your post....headphones....yes!

I've got a decent pair of Sennheiser's which should be just the ticket, especially if he wants to play via the Garageband app on the iPad.

He'll still need an amp I guess but I have a dolby 5.1 sound system on the TV which he can plug into. It has a good Yamaha A/V receiver and amp and has a set of Pioneer speakers including a decent sized subwoofer which he can probably use. I guess he will need a pre-amp though.

By the way, someone mentioned something about it meaning more if he spends his own money. The good news is that this will be mainly his own money as we get our kids to earn their allowances by doing jobs around the house. His job is dishwasher duty and he has saved a few hundred quid over the past couple of years. We'll make a contribution and maybe a good way to do that is to buy his amp and then his guitar is completely his own purchase. That might encourage him to look after it more...

Thanks again,
Craig.

ps. Not sure about styles or bands to be honest. He's asleep or I'd ask him. Maybe tomorrow.

[Edited on 24/5/2011 by craig1410]

I've been playing for over 40 years. Take that! Not very much of it on bass however. So you win.

The shape and feel have to appeal to the player, so definitely try before buying.

I would try to convince him to take lessons through a music shop (they don't want their reputation ruined by nutcases, not that there are any of those playing music...). I have recently started taking guitar lessons again, and my audience says that I have improved leaps and bounds. AND now, she rarely tells me to turn it down!

quote:

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Originally posted by RK
I've been playing for over 40 years.

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When I lived in Glasgow I was good friends with an avid guitarist (Whose habit was funded by his Student loans because his scolarship paid for pretty much everything else) I always found service was better at Merchant City Music than any of the other big places. I bought my Bass and Amp there, though I need a leftie and didn't want to order one for complex delivery reasons so I had a choice of about 4 instruments across the whole city. If your making the trip you'd be best to visit lots of places anyway just to compare prices and deals.

It's Sir Paul McCartney to you.




Sorry!

RBX125. The only one to consider. I've had mine since I was 12 and its still the one i'll pick up and play out of choice. I couldn't advise anything other than a Yamaha for any sort of first guitar.