What to Look for When Buying a Bass Guitar

There are many things to look for when buying or looking for a bass guitar, these include: the body style, neck, tuning machines, intonation, bolt-on, neck-through, fingerboard, number of frets, scale length, pickups, wood, and the finish.

The first and most important of these items would be the body style of your bass guitar. Choosing styles anywhere from solid-body electrics to semi Hollywood, for a rounder sound, will make all the difference in what you want to play.

Next, you have the neck of the guitar, which depends on how large or small your hand is. You may choose from oval, round, asymmetrical, and flat back. If you want a five or six string bass guitar your neck will be much wider.

Many think that tuning your bass guitar is not important, but it is required for you to hold your pitch. The most common tuner would be one that is an enclosed machine that does not need as much replacement.

Intonation is one thing that many people pass over when looking for a bass guitar. Intonation is when your guitar is in tune while moving up and down on the neck of the guitar. This is very important when doing a performance or doing a recording.

There are two kinds of bass necks to look for, bolt-on and neck –through. Bolt-on have a punchier tune, but have dead spots once in a while. Neck-through is the stronger of the two and has much more note resolution.

There are also two fingerboards, coated and uncoated. Coated fingerboards have a tendency to give fretless sounds unlike uncoated, which give a warm sound to the song. Again it depends on what you wish to hear.

There are a certain number of frets a guitar has and a bass guitar has. Bass guitars can have from twenty-one to twenty-four frets. Make sure you get the number of frets that fits you.

The scale length is another thing that you need to make sure you have the way you think sounds best. Scale length determines your vibration by how far your distance is from the nut to the saddle.

One important sound of your bass is from your pickups. Make sure that you don’t choose active pickups if you don’t want to change your battery often.

Finally, last but not least is the finish of your guitar. Though this does not affect the sound of your guitar, you need to find one that is appealing to you and that fit with your style.