I Bought 5 Cheap A$$ Basses (To See if They Sucked)

Do $100 basses actually work? Find out in this cheap bass shootout. No affiliates, no sponsors, no punches pulled.

Here are the five cheap basses I reviewed, in order, with some ‘interesting’ highlights from their product pages:

Good source for tech specs, plus more reviews. However, I clearly read this - “Buy a guitar and we will send a rich gift package.” Still waiting on my treasure chest, guys!

You can read a bunch more reviews on this page, which largely reflect my experience with this instrument in the video. Kudos to Harley Benton (and Glarry) for posting detailed specs on an instrument this cheap.

“A perfect instrument for emitting wonderful bass effect” - I read this sentence weeks ago and I still think about it sometimes. My main goal is life is just to emit a wonderful bass effect.

Tired of basses made out of rubber and foam that bend when you’re trying to play? Fear not - “the electric bass guitar is made up of a wooden body, which is characterized by firmness that allows you to play freely.” Revolutionary!
(note: this company has already disappeared since I did these reviews)

The cheapest of the bunch. According to this page, “To create faultless bass effect, you can not lack a professional bass guitar during guitar performance.” Can’t argue with that! Usually “professional” bass guitars have a brand name though…

In this video, I’ll take you through detailed tone demos for each bass, plus talk about playability and build quality (which is just as important as tone).

Then I’ll pick a winner, and battle it against a more expensive bass to see it’s true that “you get what you pay for.”

Finally I’ll wrap up with some closing thoughts on whether cheapos are worth it, if you should buy used instead of new, and other general bass buying tips.

#CheapBassReviews #NoobJoshApproved

[BassBuzz]

What do you think? Are any of these $100 basses worth it, or should you stick to brand names? 🎸

Timestamps for this lesson:
0:00 - Do you get what you pay for?
0:48 - How I Reviewed the Basses
1:45 - Tone Battle: Rock
2:14 - Tone Battle: Motown
2:54 - Tone Battle: Pick
3:32 - Tone Battle: Slap
4:45 - Glarry GP
5:39 - Harley Benton PB-20
6:37 - Z ZTDM
7:31 - Polar Aurora
8:42 - Ebay Mystery Bass
9:14 - And the Winner Is… (+Why)
10:33 - Blind “Tone-Off” with Pricier Bass
11:32 - The Reveal: Did You Guess Right?
12:10 - Were They Any Good?
13:05 - Why Not Buy Used?
14:04 - General Buying Tips

[KnuckleThruster]

Honestly, they all provide an acceptable tone.

[jsgovind]

A good bass player can make any bass sound good as long as it is set up properly. Too many people fool themselves into thinking that an instrument upgrade will make them better bass players.

[thxcuz]

I’ve got a Glary and I love it. It’s sounds great to me. Not the model he reviewed but I still only paid 100 bucks for it. I’m not here to impress anyone. Just to contribute a little low end thump to my dad band.

I love cheap instruments. They are fun to hack up and customize

[chuckschillingvideos]

They all sound damn good to me right out of the box. A beginning bass player has nothing to complain about with any of these.

[WellMefisto]

One thing that is pretty much true is... A bass always seems to sound good in the hands of a good player.

[imnowhacko]

I was a young teenager looking for a cheap bass. I found a used one for $100, including a hard case. I had never heard of the brand and it looked a little strange, but I bought it anyway. After taking a few lessons, I realized that I couldn't learn how to play it. But I kept it anyway, which was a good thing, because my Vox Constellation IV is worth a lot more now.

[fearghal]

I've bought loads of cheap Harley Benton instruments and they always seem to be the best in the budget price range. I think a big part of it is that they are one of Thomann's in house brands (Thomann is a huge online music shop) so they essentially have their own distribution network and can cut out a bunch of middlemen, like Amazon but less evil. Really makes a difference at the lower levels of the price range.

[folkuey_artster]

The amount of RELIEF I felt that my glarry bass was okay is unimaginable. I was so scared that I’d gotten a bad bass, but I didn’t so I’m glad!

[MaestorRasanen]

Not big differences but Polar Aurora seemed to have the best tone of all of them.

[MichaelJ]

In the 80s if you bought a new bass for under $100 it would most likely be almost unplayable. Back in those days there was no way for a company to steal outright a digital file of the design and program a cc machine to make them pretty much exact as expensive guitars. So most of them had the frets eyeballed into the wrong place, bodies made of plywood or worse, no truss rod, pickups that were just made to appear correct but under the cover were actually a crude bar magnet wrapped with wire which were microphonic as hell, random scale length, and tuners that would seize or strip out. Oh and necks that were warped in two directions at the same time. It’s a great time for beginners to find gear these days.

[thecollective]

I have used cheap basses mostly my entire career. When I was a relatively new bassist with only a year in, I got an SR1000e for $1200 and LOVED it.. It felt right.
Since then, I have used Squier P Basses, Cort Basses, Peavy Foundation (and Fury), and the Ibby SR 200 (with aftermarket Dimarzio pups) and SR300 with the EMG P/J set up. (which was what the SR1000e used) which is my current show bass and can be seen in my photo. I have played that bass in front of multiple multi-thousand theater and outdoor gigs, and in front of too many "name" bands to count. The ONLY person to give me grief was a price queen/brand whore who tried to give me shot for using a $300 and a $200 bass because his Daddy bought him a $1500 bass and $2500 rig. Of course, the ONLY thing anyone noticed about the difference in our bass rigs was I could play better than he could. His $4000 outfit couldn't outdo my $300 bass and Behringer amp/cab (also being used in the photo). A decent inexpensive bass is all anyone needs.

[SuperShecky]

Polar Aurora had the most distinct tone. I hesitate to say better, just a punchier quality. The others sounded similar enough as to be indistinguishable.

[armignac]

"neck-heavy is bad"
cries in thunderbird shape

[oliviercatrice]

I am a Harley-Benton bass and guitar player and I confess I find these instruments are of a really high quality/price ratio. And the seller (Thomann) pays attention to their customers and always finds a solution when there are issues with their products.

[jeffreyjhouser]

I purchased a Squier P-Bass package for just under $400 that came with the bass, strap, cable and a 15W Rumble amp, which is quite loud! The bass out of the box was playable but I ended up getting it set up, which made a big difference! I would recommend looking at that package for a beginner, like me. It got me off to a good start!

[JDWDMC]

I like the Harley Benton. It had a consistent clarity of tone in each piece.

[Shelsight]

Love that you donated them all. You're a damn decent bloke, Josh.

[LeglessWonder]

I’d love to see a follow up video where the basses are properly set up. To compare what they can be, at their best

[diphylleia]

I feel like the harley was definitely fuller and easier to hear and feel in the tone downs, but the polar aurora was pretty distinguishable in the tone ups