shoulderpet

Ok so a couple of observations that may be useful to anyone looking at this bass since I have now had the bass a little over a week

The tuners are ok, they are pretty similar to what you get on MIM Fender, they work fine and hold tune fine and I will be keeping them.  The bridge although it is a bbot style it is fine and the quality is good and the option for string through is good, as the saddles are ridged it is possible to set the string spacing incorrectly if you are careless when you restring however the ridges mean that you can tweak the spacing slightly if you desire. 

Had a look inside the constrol cavity and seems to use 250k pots, I may swap these out for 500k volumes and a no load tone control, amybe Quarter pounder pickups also but this is not a priority at the moment and the tone of this bass sounds great as is.

Bridge pickup height was on the low side which was causing a slight volume drop and a mid scoop with both pickups, checked with my action ruler and the bridge pickup was around 5mm from the strings when fretted so have added some additional foam and raised the pickup height to around 2.5mm when fretted and is a definate improvement, if anyone is experiencing the aforemention volume drop and mid scoop it may be worth checking the bridge pickup height

After some research I found out the stock strings are Ernie ball, these sound ok but are already starting to loose their brightness, I will be swapping these out for some stainless steel strings for some extra bite

12 hours ago, funkle said:

Where have I been? I've only cottoned on to Precisions in the last few years in a proper way....and this bass....absolutely killing. 

https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/squier-electric-basses/precision-bass/classic-vibe-50s-precision-bass/0374500501.html

I very rarely gush about instruments. I have owned many very fine and expensive ones, and still do. But I am telling you right now, in a way that is very rare for me, that this is an absolutely astounding instrument. Not 'for the money'. Just plain great. I could easily recommend everyone have one in their collection.

Originally, I was looking at getting a Fender roasted maple neck for a project P bass, then realised I could basically just buy a new inexpensive bass and be content with project one 'as is' for now. Been tempted by the Harley Benton version of the 50s P bass for a while, but didn't want to do any fettling at all....so stumped up £339 on the Squier on the assumption that if I didn't like it, back it would go to Thomann. Was very inspired by this video and its super gnarly tone - linked below for your pleasure:

 

Now all I can say is this bass - or at least this particular one - is killing. It sounds just like the video, which was my main criterion.

The fit and finish is excellent. Two tone burst is well done, I like the vintage tint on the neck, the neck pocket is tight. It looks great. I will take the pickguard off and report whether there is routing under there or not, but reports from others are good on this. 

The hardware is good, not Hipshot, but good. The bridge is BBOT with threaded saddles - I like this and find it perfectly functional. It intonates well and the strings don't move side to side. The tuners are better than those that were on my cheapie SBMM Sub Ray4; they aren't so stiff and they work fine. Tone and volume pots feel and work fine and tone pot gives a fair bit of variability to the sound. I do have a niggle here - the edge mounted jack doesn't feel as 'tight' when I plug into it as it could. I may need to open it up and tweak that. 

The nut and fretwork is frankly unbelievable for this price. I was surprised. Proper bone nut, properly cut; I don't need to file it down at all. Narrow tall frets with no sharp ends and well seated. I can get a setup of my customary low relief (0.003" - 0.005" at 7th fret with capo at first fret and holding down strings at last fret) and 5/64" action on E string 12th fret going up to 4/64" at the G string 12th fret. No buzzing anywhere. This is good quality fretwork in my view - I won't need to consider a fret level.

The neck is a modern C profile and is glossy. I have no issues with this finish. I have plenty of instruments with different finishes on the necks and find it easy enough to accommodate them all. Nut width 42.8mm and feels comfortable.

It comes with 45 - 105 D'Addario nickel rounds. My favourite string brand and one of my preferred gauges. Sweet.

It's a light instrument. I need to weigh it, but it feels just under the 9lb mark I think. I will report back. There is a slight tendency to neck heaviness on the knee, but not on the strap. It's about normal for what I see with most Fenders or Fender-style clones. Unlike the Ibanez Talman TMB505 I bought earlier in the year, I see no need to get lighter tuners. 

Sound. Everyone's hands vary, but I think this bass could cover any style. I played slap, pick lines, fingerstyle, jazz, funk and felt delighted with all of them. This pickup is really responsive to right hand dynamics in a way I haven't appreciated in a while and it has a beautifully gritty tone if you dig in just a little. I see no reason to change the stock pickup. The sound responds nicely to where you place your right hand; I think it by and large sounds best directly over the pickup, especially digging in. There is hum if you take your hands off the strings - it is a single coil - but when your hands are on the strings, I hear no hum. The tone knob is useful. I don't see any need to mess with the pots/electronics, apart from my previous comment about having a look at the tightness of the connection when I plug a cable in. 

It could well be the one I picked up is one of the better ones out there. But this particular instrument is an absolute peach. I can heartily recommend this instrument to anyone, which is relatively rare for me. It's not a good bass 'for the money', it's just plain good.

 

Thanks for reading.

Pete 

 

Nearly forgot...pics or it didn't happen... 

 

Nice, the tone in the video has a certain bite to it, makes me wonder what a Split coil P middle pickup and a single coil P bridge pcikup would sound like together , I reckon that would make for a super gnarly aggressive tone

Honestly if the existing nut functions as it should I would leave it as is , a brass nut will only affect the tone of open strings, even then it is debateable, brass does look good though

Is meant to be mint green but is more of a turqouise colour really, they do them in natural and tobacco burst also

Or new bass week since I have had it since Saturday. 

Was after getting a new bass and  was looking at this bass and also looking at the Squier CV Mustang bass that I also really liked the look of however the Sire being a short scale P/J bass with a maple fretboard was what swung the deal for me , I like the look of the Fender Mustang P/J with the maple fretboard but with this being nearly £200 cheaper and me not being able to stretch to nearly £600 it was a no brainer to get the Sire.

As I would expect on a £400 bass there were some minor cosmetic imperfections for example the truss rod routing and the paint job around the truss rod routing could be a little neater but for £400 it really doesn't bother me and I have seen bigger flaws on much more expensive basses.

Quality wise this is fantastic bass, this is easily on par with MIM Fender, the neck feels great and satin finish is very well done, the fretboard also has rolled edges which feels nice and the through body stringing is a nice touch as well as the option to top load the strings. 

Sire claim "You can play it comfortably straight out-of-the-box, needless of any initial set up,” and this does seem to be true, from the box the bass arrived with the action just a hair above 2mm at the 17th fret and played flawlessly which makes a nice change from receiving basses from online retailers with half an inch action, I was able to drop it down to 2mm and I suspect with a setup I could probably drop it further still.

Plugged in this bass sounds really good, probably due to the maple fingerboard this bass has a bright, full tone, if you like a darker tone you may find yourself rolling off the tone control but I like a really bright tone so this suited me fine, the pickups in this bass also sound really good.

All in all very pleased with this bass, as said earlier this is as good as MIM Fender and nearly 200 quid cheaper

Excuse the terrible mobile phone pics

Hi

Just got a Sire Marcus Miller short scale bass, lovely bass, was hoping someone can help me ID what strings the bass comes with, they look at least a gauge heavier than the 95-40 sets I use on my other basses  but they feel nice and flexible, not stiff at all, they seem to be nickel as they dont have that dull grey colour to them that most stainless strings have and they have brass colour ball ends no silk and they are just about long enough on the winding length to string through body, I know some of their basses come with Daddario but I dont think these are as the ball ends are not colour coded.  Pictures below , thanks

On 19/10/2020 at 23:33, Greg Edwards69 said:

As the title really. I’m neither for or against short scale - indeed,  my first bass was a no name beaten up short scale jazz-ish copy I bought of a mate for £35 so I’m not adverse to them.

I know they've been around since the 60s, but I’m seeing more and more of them lately and even big brands not associated with short scale are getting in the act, such as Sire, musicman, Ibanez and even Jackson. 

Is it the royal blood or Justin mendelson effect, is it just a passing fad, should I join in?

I think it has to do with the changing perception of short scale basses.

To elaborate further, if you look back to the 70s a lot of budget basses were short scale, there was Kay, Jedson, Columbus and a couple of others, pretty much all of the output from Kay, Jedson and Columbus was poorly made junk, microphonic pickups, cheaper than cheap machine heads, dreadful bridges, terrible electrics.  

Even Fender during that period in time seemed to treat the short scale with a degree of contempt with the (IMO) dreadful Musicmaster bass that was usually put together from the leftover parts from other models like for example the strat pickup that was under the black pickup cover.

Then there was the false perception that short scale automatically meant mud, this was largely a result of the kind of basses that were short scale that were available , the above mentioned basses were tonally limited due to their cheap electronics combined with the flatwound strings and the poor amplification of the time, this perception was not helped by the Gibson EB0 and EB3 that had massively overwound pickups and the trend of those times for short scale basses to be hollow or semi hollow.

Fast forward to nowadays and the sands of time have helped for those perceptions to be largely forgotten, a lot of the people now playing bass don't have memories of learning on those dreadful cheap basses of the 70's and the short scale basses that are around nowadays are far superior because to put it simply people expect better nowadays and it is now possible to make better instruments nowadays and so people are trying these basses and finding that they are actually more comfortable to play than long scale basses (for most people ymmv etc) and actually sound pretty damn good which of course drives demand for more short scale basses.

Controversial perhaps but I would be willing to bet that the Squier Jaguar ss bass has played a large part in the resurgance of the short scale 

Have got GAS for a Squier Mustang bass and current covid situation means spending time in a music shop trying out basses (if you are even allowed to at the moment) is probably not the best idea so I will be buying online.  Which retailers have good customer service in terms of accepting basses back if there are any issues with the least amount of fuss? Thanks

3 minutes ago, Beedster said:

BTW not a good idea to let a buyer pay by PayPal and then collect, plenty of people have lost out doing that 

Yes I agree with this although in this instance it was a large bulky item and being a non driver it was the logistics of getting the item to the nearest courier/royal mail drop off point 

Just wanted to post here about my frustration about the lack of any clear answers on this.  Sold an item on Ebay about a week ago, the buyer messages me to ask if Paypal and collection is ok, I message back saying that is fine, the buyer pays for the item and I then realise of my 2 Ebay accounts I have used the one that I haven't actually sold from before so my money is held by Ebay   with a date of sometime in November for me to receive my money, thats like 3 weeks later.

 A week later the buyer collects from me, googling that it seems that they usually realise the funds once feedback is received or after 3 weeks if not received, fortunately on the same day that the buyer collects he leaves positive feedback, great I think , after a week of held funds I can receive the money and a few hours later I get an email saying the Ebay funds are available, fantastic! Would be great to have the extra money at the weekend.   

I login to Paypal and transfer the balance to my bank account using what is described as an "Instant transfer" hahah Instant you are having a laugh ,my Paypal account now says "Pending" next to the transfer, clicking on the activity it says to expect the money by the next day so the next day I check and it still says "Pending" so I google this and my googling leads me to page on the Paypal website that gives a timeframe of 72hrs, and another page from Paypal that tells me that "If you fulfill the order, but don’t provide any shipping information, your payment should be available after 21 days, as long as your buyer doesn’t report any issues with the transaction."

I decide that I should call them to try and speed things along so I call there number which takes me to an automated service that tells me that I can expect to receive the money 3 to 5 working days after they have checked the payment.

Honestly I understand buyers wanting to use Paypal as you are pretty much guaranteed your money back if something goes wrong but to be given so much conflicting information and then try to call them only to get through to an automated service makes them a real pain to deal with as a seller,  anyhow rant over

On 26/09/2020 at 14:56, TheGreek said:

Wonky pick ups...why??

https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Fender_Jazz_Bass_Special_OW.html

Why tilted that way? I could understand if they tilted them upwards to balance out the tone of the DG coil being closer to the bridge but this makes no sense, still a nice looking bass though

Hahaha , a bargain at £998

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1964-GIBSON-EB-0-BASS-made-in-USA/174489470196?hash=item28a06204f4:g:DUgAAOSw9wxbd0lm#viTabs_0

Damn, in my local cash converters all we get is bottom of the barrel entry level stuff for £85, the better basses in there are barely any cheaper than buying new

Just to show how loud this beast is, I was practicing at home and not particularly quietly either and this is how I had the volume set, I have done tiny venues and venues that hold hundreds of people with this amp and it has handled each scenario admirably and with power to spare

Hoping someone takes this before I move this to Evil bay, is a great amp but overkill for me at the moment and I need the space

For sale/trade is my Fender Rumble 500  500watt bass amp, brilliant amp but with a tiny flat and no band at the moment I have decided its time to move it on. 

That being said with my mention of my tiny flat that is not to say that this amp is big, it is quite compact for an amp that has 2x 10" speakers and quite light. 

Soundwise it is really loud and very versatile, have done a number of gigs with this amp and it is plenty loud, it has the usual bass,mid,treble controls as well as a built in overdrive, a switchable hf horn and vintage, bright and countour buttons (vintage darkens up the tone, bright boosts the treble and contour seems to scoop the mids), on the back of the amp there is an effects send and return, aux in, headphones socket, an input for a footswitch (labelled FTSW I assume it means footswitch) and a line out.

Am looking for £250.00 (which i think is a crazy good price as they go for around £580 on Anderton's and Gear4music) or will trade for an MIM Fender P bass or a decent short scale bass ( Fender MIM Mustang, Chowny SWB-1, Sire Marcus Miller short scale, Squier VM Mustang, Rockbass short scale) , collection from Croydon 

20 hours ago, danbowskill said:

I play Drop C with a 4 string P ,I've always used Rotosound 110-50 sets.....love the sound and feel of rotosound, I've tried many other brands over the years but keep coming back.... Lately I've been wanting to play harder but with 110 gauge it's a little to clacky.

Anyone recommend a 115 set the sounds similar to Rotos?.... As roto don't do rounds in 115 🤷‍♂️

They do 115 singles but obviously  you will have to buy a set of strings and purchase the 115 separately

Thanks for the replies, one I am giving serious consideration is an Ampeg practice amp, I think it is called a 10 8, looks good, quite small, normal size headphone jack, line in .

Hi

Am looking at downsizing and at some point in the near future will have to look into practice amps and after suggestion. 

The thing is that whilst there are decent practice amps out there they are generally a little too big for my tiny studio flat so what I am after (if it exists) is a very small practice amp with decent-ish sound, I have seen a couple with 6.5" speaker but no idea if they are any good, although it will be for practice I still want a useable sound so that I enjoy practicing and so bass response is important, doesn't have to be low end dub monster but I would like as much bass response as I get from an Amplug , tried the Vox Pathfinder and the bass was non existent on that practice amp

Thanks

They are great, great strings, im not usually a fan of Daddario strings but the Nyxl's are really good and they are very aggressive sounding for nickels, definitely as stated above a bit of a stainless steel vibe to them, sadly I stopped using them as they don't do them in short scale and although I am not totally against long scale strings cut down to size I do like to use a dedicated short scale set if possible.

On 19/05/2020 at 14:56, TrevorR said:

Presume everyone knows that Aimee Mann is pretty tasty on the bass as well as being a top singer and guitar player. When we saw her live she and the "other bass player" in the band swapped between bass and guitar all evening.

No one's mentioned Canoe Reeves but I guess that's well known.

Less well known is maybe Ryan Gosling...

 

His band is actually really good, not to everyone's taste but if you are after something a bit lofi, melancholy and strange then it certainly fits the bill

On 03/09/2020 at 21:54, Beer of the Bass said:

I think they stopped making them, but Sadowsky Black Label flatwounds also had similar mid thickness to TI Jazz flats, but in a much higher tension, stiffer feeling string. The D'Addario Chromes, Ernie Ball and Fender flats I've also used don't have that same midrange character.

Chromes have barely any mids 

I always thought that Nickels were meant to be more mid focused but I could be wrong, Rotosound are very good strings in terms of strong mids, both the ss and the nickels but the nickels are much less bright than the ss, GHS Boomers are said to have strong low mids though I have never used them myself so I cannot say from 1st hand experience, they are also said to be pretty dark sounding for rounds

3 minutes ago, Russ said:

I guess he just hasn't made his presence known in the music - there's very little in the way of exposed bass parts in the albums they've put out since he joined, and he didn't play at all on St. Anger. Which is a shame, as you rightly say, Trujillo is an absolute monster bass player - check out his work with Infectious Grooves, Suicidal Tendencies and Mass Mental for some absolutely immense playing. 

Yes, I think you are onto something there, his bass playing is very low in the mix on their albums and as you say there is little in the way of exposed bass parts, for all the bass you can hear on their recent stuff he could be playing a bass uke 

Having seen the Roswell pickups webpage they have some really interesting P and J pickups including Sandberg/Delano style with huge pole pieces (see below link), however a search on google on where to buy them pretty much comes up blank other than dv247 who seem to have loads of there guitar pickups but barely any of there bass pickups, anyone know where else supplies them?

Roswell p pickups

Roswell J pickups