Finding out that guitar technology has reached a level where it doesn't really matter what electric guitar/bass you buy when starting out has been a bit of an eye-opener; that even the cheap ones for sale at gear4music/Argos/etc are more than 90% par with more expensive instruments, is pretty awesome and also a relief that I don't need to worry about brands for my first bass.
@renbymon It's all in the transducers~
Get a cheap instrument that's got good set-up capability, and later down the line you can upgrade the pickups to get a small but sometimes noticeable bump in tone quality. (Or even a different clean tone entirely, if you switch from passives to actives or vice versa!) :)
@dragonarchitect I'd love to get a beat up/not working bass and fix it and use that. I've heard that a good amp is more important nowadays, so that's what I'll be looking at more once I know what scale of bass I want.
