Wife considering an instrument

[Glacies]

That's pretty cool that your wife is looking for an instrument as an outlet. As a word of unsolicited advice, I would encourage her to pick out whatever she is most interested in and don't make it about your family band and be very careful to avoid pressuring her at all. I know you have the best of intentions, but it's really easy for things to get misconstrued in these sorts of situations. At least that has been my experience.

Good luck with helping her to find something she finds fulfilling.

I realized i was doing this and backed off quite a bit. I told her to let me know when/if she was interested. So this weekend, I had most of my gear at her sister's house because my BiL has a drum kit and we like to get crazy. She asked if she could hit some bass notes for some of the songs we were playing. So I grabbed the acoustic, just taught her how to play the roots with the songs and we went through Badfish, Kryptonite, What I got, Stiff Parrot (my original), and one or two others. She loved it and I could see her getting into it pretty well towards the middle of the song where she found the rhythm. Then afterwards she told me she had a blast and that she wants to give it a shot.

Playing with a full band is one of the pleasures in life I wish everyone gets a chance to do, and her first time even trying an instrument was like that - and she kept the rhythm pretty well on most of it. It told her the real bass will sound better. She was on my 60's strat so even with the bass up it was a bit tight, but still filled out the acoustic nicely.

My wife is considering an instrument, too. She says that if I buy another amp or guitar, she's going to come after me with a scalpel. I won't say what part of me she'd come after....

That's funny man. I expect to hear that soon. I want a gibby gold top with p90's and either a white gretch hollow body. I told my wife that and she rolled her eyes.

My stepdaughter has an SX bass beginner's pack. It came with a gig bag, strap, tuner, and a small practice amp, along with an instructional DVD.

The fit and finish on the instrument was great, especially for the price. It's got a nice medium action and is easy to play. The one we got was a short scale (30") bass, and it's a great size for my stepdaughter's smaller hands. The pickups and amph sound decent, and we haven't had any problems with the electronics. We haven't had any problems with high frets, or sharp fret ends.

One word of caution, though: the tuners suck. They had to cut corners somewhere to get to that price. It's not THAT bad, though, you just have to twist a tuner or two after playing a song. That's a small complaint, though.

The SX is a great bass to have around. If your wife decides playing bass isn't for her, then you aren't out much money, and you have a convenient outlet for those times when you need to rumble!

How good is that amp? She is scared of the full sized bass so she wants the 3/4. This one because of the color: http://www.rondomusic.com/product6117.html

I was hoping she'd get something with 2 pickups to try out some versatility, but she wants what she wants and if she is going to get more serious, she can get something higher quality.

[Eric***]

I was hoping she'd get something with 2 pickups to try out some versatility, but she wants what she wants and if she is going to get more serious, she can get something higher quality.

Being somewhat entrenched in the bass world at this point, I will caution you that it's less about versatility with bass and more about finding your spot, which a P bass generally does well. Opinions will of course vary on that, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that other than the occasionally bulky neck, I think the simplicity and it-just-works aspect of a P is what I would recommend to almost any beginning bass player.

I'm happy to hear that you're taking a her-first approach to this; I think it will yield way better results for both of you.