I Need Some Advice

[John Perrin]

First, let me give you some information about my situation. I've been a bass player for about 14 years now and always played a school instrument. The problem is that I'm no longer in school, and have lost my source for instruments to play on. To make matters worse, I'm paying off student loans and don't have a huge budget to make a purchase.

I would classify my skill level as at least intermediate, and I play mostly orchestral stuff with a little jazz thrown in every now and then. The complication is that I live in West Texas and the closest bass shops I know of are about 300 miles away so I need to have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for beforehand considering I won't have much, if any, opportunity to try basses out before I buy.

I'm looking at trying to keep my total expenses (for bass, bow, bag, strings, and shipping) to somewhere around $3,500 but I'd like to end up with something playable and I'm hoping maybe you all can point me in the right direction.