A half-decent cheap bass would be?

I have the same troubles and bought a 5 String Schector pretty much for the same reason, to simplify the process of making music.

Action is low and smooth but my hands get fatigued pretty fast.  Gotta love the Punch Ins  LOL

I have an Indonesian made Squire P J bass. I tried a bunch of different ones and for my big hands with fingers that hardly bend any more, it played the best. The neck was the thinnest at the nut out of all the ones I tried. 

I dont know if it is this particular bass ... or all of them, but it sounds its best with new strings. It gets very muddy after a few days of heavy prqctice.

It sounds great through a tube pre qnd tube comp.

digi2ns


I have the same troubles and bought a 5 String Schector pretty much for the same reason, to simplify the process of making music.

Action is low and smooth but my hands get fatigued pretty fast.  Gotta love the Punch Ins  LOL

I used to like mine too before I had to sell it.  Now I just have a much better than average Ibanez (talk about cheap!).
 

Rain

 
What are the non-bass players folk using for bass?

Trillian

http://www.spectrasonics....cts/trilian-videos.php

It's FANTASTIC.

Before that, I used Prominy SR5 Bass, also really good, but you only get one type of bass so a bit limited.  Sounds great for rock with Amplitube3 trace elliot amp/cab.
http://www.prominy.com/SR5.htm

I have
Gibson RD active (the one with the Moog electronics)(broken)(sorta fixed, I need to test it out).
Aria Pro 5 string.
Epiphone SG bass.


If I can play them for hours with my little girlie hands without getting tired you should be able to...   As with most things, it's not strength it's technique and you only learn that through practise.

Would be hard to find one that would beat this one.Ibanez SR500M.
May have a hard time doing that at twice the cost.

5-piece neck and Bartolini pups with 3 band EQ.

If the price of $600.00 is to much then the SR400QM at $450.00
is the next best IMO.



  

Bapu will sell all of his basses to u for 50 bucks 

Kenneth

Rain


What are the non-bass players folk using for bass?

Trillian

http://www.spectrasonics....cts/trilian-videos.php

It's FANTASTIC.

Before that, I used Prominy SR5 Bass, also really good, but you only get one type of bass so a bit limited.  Sounds great for rock with Amplitube3 trace elliot amp/cab.
http://www.prominy.com/SR5.htm

Will you people please STOP dangling these tasty looking carrots in front of me. I simply cannot take it any more. 

Rain,

Ibanez. 

Mooch has a nice one but I found it's neck was too small for big hands (you know what they say about big hands?.......... big gloves). I have the same issue with Hofner basses. Very narrow neck height. I have too much finger for them.

sharke

Will you people please STOP dangling these tasty looking carrots in front of me. I simply cannot take it any more. 

And Orange Tree has a Rikenbaker library coming soon. That will be one tasty carrot!
 
As keyboard player of sorts I use Scarbee and Orange Tree virtual bass.
 
To back up Karyn's comments, there is a Filipina bass player in my favorite cover band here in Dubai. She plays what I think is an Ibenez 5 string and sometimes a Jazz Bass (may be a copy). They play four 40 minute sets a night and she is about 5 foot nothing but she really rocks!

i have a short scale Ibanez Mikkro, that i love...

and i paid $120 new for it, with a gig bag.

i used it to record the bass tracks on 3 of the last 10 songs i had on my latest album.

if i were to upgrade the pickups, and get a fret dressing, it'd be a killer bass.

From a size/effort standpoint, bass is a much more difficult instrument to play. It's the nature of the beast - scale lengths are longer, string tension is much higher, "low" action on a bass might be really "high" for a guitar player, and strings (especially roundwounds) will rip up your fingers if you don't have calluses. So make sure your expectations are in order.

There are also technique differences - for instance bass players will sometimes just use the first, second and pinky fingers to cover 3 frets rather than stretching. And bass players wouldn't generally wrap their hands all the way around the neck either. And you learn to unconsciously pivot on your thumb to do position shifts (small and large) rather than leave your hand in place (you're probably not playing chords or staying in the box). 

Having said that, shorter scales can be helpful to some, but there are some compromises involved. I don't see skinny necks as particularly beneficial, though many people prefer them. And I always recommend basses with easily replaceable/upgradeable Fender-style components.

Of course there are other possibilities.  Everyone knows how popular the bass theme for Seinfeld is, yet that is actually played on a synth!

Lots of great suggestions guys! Short-scale may be an option - plus, my wife always wanted to learn to play bass, but a full size one would be way too big fore her. Getting one that we can both use would be terrific.

I'm currently using Scarbee most of the time, but, it's a drag to play realistically on the keyboard, considering that, being a guitarist, I could get the track nailed much more intuitively and quicker using the actual instrument. I entertain no illusion that I'd record great bass lines, but, you know, just something that works and sits in the back nicely. It'd actually be easier to come up w/ something that flies under the radar than it is w/ sample and a keyboard - there's just a lot of work to achieve something that won't call attention to itself w/o being too repetitive or unnatural.

Plus, writing grooves on bass is so much fun. :P

I'm confident she'd be pretty good, pretty quickly, being that she's a musician already, can read music, has good ear and great sense of rhythm. But yeah, she's tiny, even w/ high heels. She could probably hide behind a Fender Jazz. ;)