Playing the bass guitar

I've been shopping around for a nice electric bass guitar for the past few months. Just searching Craigslist and visiting local music stores to get an idea of what feels nice. A month ago I found a really nice Ibanez bass at my local music shop. It was on sale and went back twice to test the bass out, just to make sure it was the one I wanted. After playing the bass more on the second trip really found it wasn’t as great as I thought. The strings buzz slightly and for the money I could find something better.

A few weeks later I was visiting another local music shop and asked the owner for any cheap basses. He showed me a few, first was a no name brand Fender P-bass copy in sunburst for $99. The bass played really nice, felt very solid and had pretty good weight to it. The only slight downside to the bass was the sharp frets on the neck, but I think a simple setup could have fixed this issue.

The second bass I played was a used Ibanez Roadstar II from 1985 and was selling for $100. It was in used condition but still felt nice and broken in. The frets were smooth and only had slight wear to the bass, also it was made in Japan, something rare these days. So instead of the new bass for $99 I choose the used bass for $100.

After taking it home I felt the strings were too soft sounding. They were flatwounds and when playing don’t have the loud sound but a more soft jazzy sound. After a new set of strings the bass sounded great. Unfortunately I only had to listen to the bass through my headphones on a guitar amp.

Last week I finally bought a real bass amp, a small 75 watt Line 6 Studio 110. It’s actually very loud and for my needs is great. Also sounds much better in the headphones than my guitar amp did.

So after getting everything I needed I started to search around for bass instructions on the web. Here’s some that I found.

Fender Players Club bass lessons (decent amount of lessons for beginners to advanced players).
http://www.fenderplayersclub.com/woodshed/bass/bass.htm

Active Bass (Lots of lessons and information about playing bass).
http://www.activebass.com/

Guitar Noise Bass for Beginners Lessons (Good basic lessons on bass).
http://www.guitarnoise.com/bass.php

Rob