Well my gas pains got to bad and my bank account got to fat so I went a little crazy last week.
It all started last monday when I called my friend at a local music store to check on the price of a Marcus Miller jazz bass I saw on fenders website.Lets just say the price was right so buy wed I sould be playing it.
On t-day I was at my mom's house and all the kids were playing, wemon were ah cooking and men was watching tv so I got on ebay and begain looking to pass time.
I just went to look (yeah right)next thing I know I'm bidding on a '78 Ibanez Musician just like the one I had about 10 years ago but had to sell do to some trouble I got myself into.
So ifin I aint to busy playing my jazz bass I guess I will be ah playin my musician.That makes 5 basses in my arsonal so far.
If you want the Ibanez just go to ebay's finshed auctions unader Ibanez Musician.
The jazz bass is at the fender website under artist seies basses(it's the four string I'm not a five string kind of guy).

Damn you rich adults!!! i swear to god if i had 10 000 bux to spend on gear......even 5000 would work......maybe i should get a job this summer so i can get SOME (although a very small bit) of my intesely painful gas out of the system.

I tell you, when I was younger (and I'm still a kid, just one who can legally drive, vote, and drink) I had so few expenses, and I could spend so much of my money on this and that...I bought things that I could never afford now when I was 16, especially after a summer of working. Really, if you haven't had a job yet, then when you get one you (hopefully) won't have to pay rent/food/clothes/etc, and can spend most of your earned cash on some fine bass gear if you really want (without taking out loans!!!). Just be a little patient, and get that job as soon as you can. I really miss being able to take every cent of my paycheck and plop it down for something really cool, before there was rent, student loans, and credit cards (don't EVER use that as an alternative to saving up the money...).

Oh well, I still wouldn't go back a few years, not even if you paid me, but that's one thing that I do miss...

yea well i'm 13 so there are less jobs that i can get at the time being, although a friend of mine made some decent cash this summer when he was working at a golf course and he bought a bunch of snowboarding and rollerblading crap with it.
Still, 3000 bucks (which is around what he made in total) could get some pretty sweet gear. Now i just need some golf clothes....

Well, develop that ear so you can evaluate bargain-priced gear. If you know what to look for and listen for you can sound more expensive : }

ADULT?
That's the rudist thing anybody has ever called me.Just kiddin, hang in there and when you get a career nailed down save don't get laon's and you to will be making sper of the moment ebay purchases.

3000 dollars can indeed buy you plenty of wonderful gear. You could get a new StingRay and a hell of an amp and still be under budget with that (just the first thing that came to my mind)

Greenboy makes an EXCELLENT point. If you spend the time, you can get a decent bass, maybe upgrade some parts (like pickups) if you like, and get a decent amp setup that would sound as good if not better than any expensive bass at your local instrument store plugged into whatever they like to demo basses on. Now, that's not to say the feel of a less expensive bass will be the same as a high end model, but you'd be surprised how close you can get. A MIM Fender can look and sound just like a MIA Fender with relatively little money and effort. In fact, for a lot less than 3000, you could probably get a setup sounding much better, if you get the right parts for your bass and use good sense when picking and setting up your preamp/amp/cabinet. Money well spent is just as good as money in quantity, if you make the extra effort.

Well, don't just think bass - also think rig ; } The main thing you want is a fair amount of true clean wattage, and cabs that have better drivers in them and are efficient enough to get a lot of volume at the frequencies YOU want to hear with that amount of wattage.

The bass equip't manufacturers don't make that easy for you because almost all of them skew their figures, don't adhere to one standard like is taken for granted in the sound reinforcement industry - and to top it off if you like a richer bass sound SPL at 1K, or averaged SPL isn't necessarily going to tell you much about the percieved volume of deeper tones.

Still, if you want band for buck in more affordable gear Carvin and Peavey more often than not lead the pack, but you might have to work harder learning how to set the controls to get killer tone than you do with some other more expensive gear since they both usually have more EQ knobs and sliders that can be abused by the casual "what manual" crowd.

Funny, every time I see a BMW in a high school parking lot or a 17 year old driver cutting me off in their late model SUV with a "Yield to the Princess" bumper sticker, I have similar feelings.

pickpunk,
Your not to young to work. You can cut grass,shovel snow,clean up yards.Just talk with some older folks in the neighborhood to see if there is anything they need help with. I bought a $1600 keyboard when i was 15 by cutting grass for 2 months after school and on weekends.There is plenty of money out there you just have to go get it.

Heh, none of those "what manual" guys could get past my Peavey TNT 115's seemingly complex controls. (Well, some of 'em anyway.) I mean, what can't one figure out after staring at the gain knob, shelving controls, chorus, crossover, master volume and 7-band EQ?

I'm no audio engineer, but I figured out mine in about 2-3 days WITHOUT the manual. I didn't even get a decent copy until I got broadband Internet at home two years ago.

Yeah, if you are listening it can tell you a lot of what is going on. But sometimes the manuals have clues. And sometimes they ought have a few more clues ; }