{"id":3215,"date":"2013-02-15T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=3215"},"modified":"2013-02-14T11:21:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T16:21:48","slug":"should-you-own-a-beater-bass-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/repair\/should-you-own-a-beater-bass-guitar.html","title":{"rendered":"Should You Own a “Beater” Bass Guitar?"},"content":{"rendered":"

All bass players at some point eventually buy “the good bass”; this is a bass that’s either a premium model (such as the Fender Select Active Jazz Bass<\/a>) or something custom-built just for you by a luthier where you wait weeks to months to get it. Either way, that’s your “baby”; that’s the bass you keep polished and perfect; that’s the “pride and joy” instrument you own.<\/p>\n

And, of course, most players won’t dare take their “baby” anywhere it could get damaged or stolen.<\/p>\n

This presents a problem in the respect your baby ultimately turns into what’s known as a white elephant, which is an idiom for “a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.”<\/p>\n

In plain English: If the super-expensive bass you own is so valuable that you’re afraid to actually use the thing, it then becomes a burden to actually own it.<\/p>\n

In even-plainer English: Sometimes a super-expensive bass guitar turns into a museum-style thing that can be looked at but not touched. At that point it’s furniture and not an instrument.<\/p>\n

Well, even though you may have a super-expensive bass that turned into furniture, it’s not like you’re going to sell it. Even in a “furniture state”, you’re going to hang on to it because it’s yours. After all, there is such a thing as “pride of ownership”, even if you don’t use what you own.<\/p>\n

It’s at this point you need another bass guitar, as in something you can actually use. Something where using a gig bag instead of a hardshell case is totally acceptable. Something that should it get scratched, nicked and\/or dented, you don’t care. Something where if you wanted to hack it up and try crazy things with it, you can and do it without worry..<\/p>\n

..and that’s the beater bass.<\/p>\n

Fact: Most luthiers can make cheap bass guitars play wonderfully, if given time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s say for the moment you picked up a cheap Squier bass from Craigslist. The neck is bowed like a banana, the tuners are stiff as a board, the bridge is grimed up beyond belief, the frets are in desperate need of a fret leveling and you’re 99% sure the pick guard has never been taken off as evidenced by the tarnished and\/or rusted screws (and the bass isn’t even 10 years old).<\/p>\n

Give that bass to a luthier, and give him a two-word instruction: “Fix everything.”<\/p>\n

Follow that up with: “…and take as much time as you need. No rush.”<\/p>\n

The key to establishing a happy relationship with your luthier is simply this: Don’t rush him<\/em> – especially if you hand the guy a crappy bass to work on. That luthier has several projects to take care of before yours, so it’s in your best interest to give the guy as much time as he needs to fix everything.<\/p>\n

Don’t even bother giving instructions on what to fix to the luthier, because he’ll know exactly what it needs in 5 minutes or less just from looking at it. Trust your luthier’s judgment here.<\/p>\n

In about 3 to 4 weeks, you’ll get your bass back. And it’ll be awesome. True, you’ll have probably spent a few hundred bucks by this point (that’s cost of bass + luthier’s charge), but it’s totally worth it because now you’ve got a beater bass that’s ready-to-go with all the problems fixed 100%.<\/p>\n

If you’re a luthier or hobbyist doing your own<\/em> bass repair-work, chances are you’d spend the same amount of time working on that crap bass to make it, well, not crap. The 3-to-4 week period of fixing isn’t like you’re working on it every day. You do a little work on it one day, put it aside, a few days later you work on it a little more, put it aside, work on it again a few days later, etc., repeat until finished.<\/p>\n

“Wouldn’t it be better just to buy a better bass to start with?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, because that defeats the point of owning a beater bass in the first place. Chances are you already<\/em> have “the good bass”, so buying a second of equal-or-better “goodness” won’t count as a beater. <\/p>\n

The beater bass’s sole purpose in life is to be played and played hard. Bang it around, scratch it up, hack it up and do whatever you want with it. There is a great satisfaction from owning a bass that you can just play and not care<\/em> what happens to it.<\/p>\n

There’s only one downside to owning a beater bass: You might like it so much that it gets played more than your “good bass”. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Do you own a beater bass (even if not completed yet)? Post a comment or two below with your story.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All bass players at some point eventually buy “the good bass”; this is a bass that’s either a premium model (such as the Fender Select Active Jazz Bass) or something custom-built just for you by a luthier where you wait weeks to months to get it. Either way, that’s your “baby”; that’s the bass you … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}