Used bass guitars

[Melinda0420]

My daughter (17) has an acoustic and an electric guitar already, and she's expressed interest in a bass. Any recommendations on decent brands that I could look for a used one?

[Bombadil]

Sire Marcus Miller.

[kevinsparks]

Take her to a shop and see what style of bass she likes. Blindly recommending brands? Danelectro, Epiphone, Squier, Ibanez all make respectable "first" basses at a reasonable price that will also last a lifetime.

[sim84]

Depending on the budget, can't go wrong with a used Mexican or Japanese Fender Precision or Jazz.

[BertKoor]

At a party I met this bass player I knew but had not seen for a while. Sort of joking, I said "I don't own a bass yet. Can I buy one of your basses?"

He happened to be a bit short on money. We went to his house, he showed me a b-brand bass that did look somewhat iffy, but it played and sounded ok-ish.

We agreed a reasonable price, I took it home, never regretted it for a minute. It serves me, a guitar player, very well as my only bass. And he did away I guess his worst instrument of the small collection.

Win - Win!

Lessons learned:
- brands and reputation can be misleading
- grab opportunity as it knocks on your door

[The Noodlist]

I got a used Yamaha RBX, It's been solid, with the exception of a tuning peg failing. It was most probably my fault when loosening the strings individually and not gradually across all strings leaving a lot more tension on the last string and peg I loosened.

I'd go for one with 2 pickups a jazz and p-bass style for more variety.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

Sire has solid value as do Squire and Mexican Fenders. This route offers not only a quality product for the money but will resell quick and for a reasonable price. Could also become the bass she never gives up on or lets go.