First bass.

Hey guys.
I'm looking to learn bass, and I'm thinking of getting my first bass in a few months or so to learn on.

Could you guys help me choose a guitar and an amp?

I'll have around £400 at the time. So.. imagine that I'm giving you £400 to buy me a guitar that'll grow with me and a good amp! - New only, no used please.

Thanks in advance guys.

Well i live in America so i dont know how much (i dont know how to make that symbol)400 is in american currency but id suggest getting a value pack of some sort because you'll end up paying less (most of the time). i also wouldn't get anything too fancy until your sure your gonna stick with playing bass. - hope this helps.

Hey, welcome to the forum!
With £400 you could get yourself some decent gear. I think the best advice anyone could give you is to try some basses and amps out for yourself, and see what seems most comfortable for you. For a beginner, I would recommend you spend most of your money on the bass and just get a cheap amp. When you start you'll want to work on your technique rather than tone so obviously it would be better to get a better bass that will help you with that. To be honest I think you should get the amp used, even though you want something new. Maybe spend £50 or something on the amp, new or used.

As for the bass, you'll have a large selection if you save most of your money for it. Some good brands to check out are Squier, Ibanez and Yamaha... others too, just check out as many different basses as you can

Hope this helps

Ibanez GS200 seems to be the standard for beginners with a budget.

yeah
with 400£ you are in a gold mine

i which i had that much money to spend on my first bass

I was at the local music store today and I tried out some guitars. I think I'm a little too new to be able to separate the good from the bad by ear, so i have to take peoples opinions. So please try and recommend some exact models.

But feel wise, I really like the small, wood look (like THIS) although I dont mind any really.

I've looked on other forums too, and pretty much everywhere I look, someone says that the Yamaha BB414 is a really good all-round bass.
I looked at it at the store today and it looked and sounded and felt real good in my opinion.

Anyone had experiences with it?

The only opinion you need is your own. Some people may love it, some people may hate it, its all subjective. Felt and sounded good in your opinion? Buy it!

id reccomend a bass from the ibenz srx line
http://www.ibanez.co.jp/world/country/frame_uk.html

they are beefed up soundgears
also they come in natual wood colour XD

I'm pretty sure Im going for a BB414. Thanks guys.

dang
my recommendations are always ignored XD

When I got my first bass, I was recommended an Ibanez GSR200, but for some odd reason when I asked the music shop down town if they had one the answer was a rather snooty "No, we don't stock those". So I picked out a bass that looked the most like a GSR200

Straying away from this topic a LITTLEE bit, I teach a little at school ( the younger kids ) what I know to get them interested, and One of them asked me to recommend a bass as he had been using my old Fender Squire P-Bass, and So I looked around online and I bought a Bass by a company called Wesley it was a Jaguar remake a Cougar I believe it was called, so I told the kid, and his parents gave me the money and I bought the bass and set it up and to be perfectly honest it sounded Good!,
And it was only £109, so for a beginner bass I recommend only getting something cheap to practice with because you dont know if you will stick with it and a £400-$500 bass might sound good but if you never play it again what's the point? Plus many of these come with a free amp and so on, and to be honest as Dman himself said there are basses much worse! like one I have its a broken old Warwick T-14 the biggest piece of crap ever!, but yeah. I advise Brand new players to get either a second hand Bass or just a Cheap one!

I'm not after a new bass by any means, but I just checked out that Wesley Cougar you were talking about, SyneRRR, and it looks really cool actually. Swap out the pickups for some Musicman style ones and I bet it'd be epic! Uh oh... The price is starting to tempt me

Yeah I swapped the stock pickups for EMG's , and it sounds pretty good. and if you swap the pickups for Good set it will run you around the same amount as an entry level Bass with okay pickups. though I guess with companies like this its a chance you have to take you might get a good one, or you could get a bad one, but overall its a Nice guitar, if I manage to get some recording equipment I will record some Samples.

Plus with music man pickups I bet it would sound Pretty Darn Awesome.

Edit: Sorry, I lied they arent EMG's got mixed up they are Seymour Duncan SMB-4's.

I just unearthed my old B.C. Rich Warlock, sent it in to be refurbished. I got it back like 3 weeks ago. I originally paid like 250.00 American for it. I like the sound but it's not for everyone. I do tend to use my fender p-bass more for practice.

The BC rich warlock looks like a weapon Still wouldnt mind seeing what its like though.

Not a huge fan of B.C. Rich, but would play the shit out of a Mockingbird.

I got a fender squire jazz bass for my first bass... its a ok sounding bass but since I had it set up properly after owning it for a year I noticed that it has a ton of fret buzz. I know it's still MORE then good enough for me to continue becoming better on. For me it's still about working on technique before I worry about quality of sound.

My honest opinion is not to spend more then $150 USD on your first bass. It will be a decent quality issue that might not sound perfect but will provide a suitable learning experience until your ready to move into a more expensive bass.

about the P and J basses, i forget which tone each makes. I think one had a more treble effect to it naturally and the other was more of a bass sound naturally. help me out?

P is the bassier one

ok thanks, thats what i thought but then i starting thinking about how P stands for precision (i think right?) and precision sounds more like a tone that would have more treble to it.

Well it was given the name Precision because it was a bass that had frets, allowing for precise intonation, I believe. The basses before were obviously double basses which don't have frets. Also the Jazz bass was originally called the Deluxe Model

I sometimes wish my jazz bass had a "deeper" sound to it... but it's only a learner bass for the moment. I'm wanting a new bass but know that I don't need it yet... hopefully next summer.

Well if you've got that much money to spend on a bass I would have to recommend the Squire Classic Vibe Jazz Bass.
Video review

Although if I was in your position I would just get a very cheap bass and amp second hand. Use it for a few months to make sure you do enjoy it and want to carry on, and then upgrade to some real decent gear.