Bassdude BE

Another small tip for the people who buy this bass and are a bit disappointed with the low end and low mids coming from these pickups; Yesterday I took a decent look at the bass to set it up to my liking and get it ready for today's rehearsal and found the pickups to put out quite a lot of high end, but lacking some lows and low mids. I then (as I usually do with basses from a lower price range) put some extra foam under the pickups so that I could bring up the pickupsa little closer to the strings. The P pickup is now set to 3.2 mm from the E and A strings (everything measured up with the string pressed on the last fret of course) and at 2.4 mm under the D and G strings. The jazz pickup is now set at 2.8 mm under the E string and 2 mm under the G string, With this adjustment, the pickups have clearly more output with more lows and low mids and the balance in volume between the P and J pickup now seems to be a lot better as well. So I would definitely recommend everyone to experiment with this before you might consider replacing the pickups, as the difference in sound quality can be significant after this easy and small adjustment. 　 Greets & Grooves, Bassdude's Bassment

UPDATE: Replacement Sire U5 (and it´s much better this time!) Hi, as mentioned at the end of my OP I contacted Sire concerning the issues on the U5 and they agreed to send me a replacement right away. This replacement already arrived yesterday morning and I´ve spend most of the day playing it and going over it in detail. This new U5 is definitely much better than the first one I got, which kind of confirms my suspicion that I got a bad apple the first time around. This new U5 doesn´t have any of the aesthetic flaws of the first one, no rusty bridge saddles, no scratches on the knobs or truss rod cavity and it came with an almost perfect set-up straight from the factory. One thing I noticed is that there´s still a small gap on both sides between the neck and the neck pocket, but it´s a lot less obvious than it was with the first U5 I received. This doesn´t seem to affect the sound though, as this particular bass has sustain for days. A few other things that I didn´t mention in my review is that I opened the electronics cavity and was very happy to see that everything was nicely shielded with conductive paint and that Sire didn´t go cheap on the poti´s and wiring. They´re using Alpha pots, which are good quality and the wiring and soldering seems to be up to a quality standard that is rarely seen in an instrument at this price point. The standard string spacing at the bridge is 20 mm, but as they use threaded saddles this can be adjusted slightly to your personal preference. The total length of the bass from the top of the headstock to the bottom strap pin is 108,5 cm and I managed to find a suitable guitar bag for it at Thomann which should fit the bass without issue. (link to fitting gigbag: https://www.thomann.de/be/thomann_gigbag_deluxe_egitarre.htm) The weight of the new one is exactly the same as the first one I got, weighing in at 3,78 kg, so these basses seem to be very consistent weight wise. All in all I´m very pleased with this replacement U5 (which is obviously a lot better than the first one) and as the neck and fretwork seems to be even better than on the first one, this is definitely going to be a keeper. NOTE: For everyone buying this bass in Europe I would strongly recommend buying this bass from Thomann as they now have an in house quality control for Sire basses, thereby greatly reducing the risk that you would end up getting "one of the bad ones". The fact that I got the first one with all the issues via another European distributor kind of shows the value and importance of this extra quality control i.m.o. For the modders: There don´t seem to be any drop in replacement bridges and tuners for the 2nd generation of Sire basses, Hipshot made a drop in replacement tuner set for the 1st generation Sire basses (the HB-14), but as these used a different size tuner, the HB-14´s don´t fit the 2nd gen Sire basses. The stock tuners and bridge work fine though, so replacing them is not really a necessity, but as I am a bit of a nitpicker when it comes to tuning stability and love to personalize my instruments a bit, I´m planning to install a set of black Hipshot ultralites to reduce the weight a little bit more, increase tuning stability and make the bass feel even more balanced on a strap. I also plan to replace the bridge with a black Hipshot Kickass as these allow the adjustment of the string spacing at the bridge, so you can line up the strings with the pickup pole pieces (set for 20 mm spacing) perfectly. (most other after market bridges are set for 19 mm string spacing at the bridge, which would cause a slight misalignment of the strings over the pole pieces) Please note that both these upgrades require filling up and re-drilling some screw holes, so if you don´t feel comfortable doing that I would definitely suggest asking your local luthier or guitar tech to do the work for you. I was also planning to experiment with some different value tone capacitors as the bass sounded a bit bright to me, even with the tone rolled off completely, but installing a set of Labella short scale flatwound strings seemed to balance things out nicely, making it unnecessary to do this mod. Greets & grooves!

Unbiased review: Sire U5 short scale (30" scale) P/J bass First Impressions: Straight out of the box I notice some flaws that shouldn´t have gotten past quality control, but I´ll get into more detail regarding that later.* The neck looks wonderful and the rolled fret board and fret edges, combined with the satin finish on the back of the neck make it really comfortable to play. The body on this one is finished in a nice tobacco sunburst with a white binding which just radiates class. The bass is nice and light with a total weight of just 3,78 kg. With the bass hanging low on the strap I could notice just a small amount of neck dive, but when strapped higher on the body it appears to be nicely balanced. The neck: As mentioned above the C-shaped, hard maple neck feels really smooth, the rolled fret board edges make this neck a joy to play and the fretwork is nothing but excellent. The nut is made out of synthetic bone and 38 mm wide, which combined with the shorter scale makes it very easy to play for people with smaller hands. The fretboard has a 9,5" radius, which will make Fender players feel right at home when playing this bass. The black dots on both the fret board and the top edge of the fret board make it really easy to navigate around the neck without getting lost. The shorter scale length certainly makes a difference, making it a lot easier to do those wider stretches and fast runs, thus reducing hand fatigue. The body: The body is made out of North American alder with a very beautiful flamed maple veneer top that pops up nicely through the see through tobacco burst finish. The back of the body has a see through dark red finish which shows the nice grain of the alder underneath. It is a slim carved body shape that feels very comfortable while playing both standing and sitting down. Factory set-up: Straight out of the box, the playability was excellent, it was set-up with a medium low action, and I was able to set the action even lower with just a few tweaks of the bridge saddles and the truss rod, making it play even better without any disturbing fretbuzz noises. The split coil Precision pickups needed some tweaking as the pickups were set higher under the E and the G string than under the A and D string,resulting in a lack of volume in the mids. The same problem occurred with the bridge pickup which was a bit too close to the strings on the treble side and a bit too low on the bass side, but after some light tweaking with a screw driver I was able to balance the string to string volume pretty easily, which made the pickups sound a lot fuller in no time. Neck pocket, tuners, pots and knobs: Here we get to some of the flaws i mentioned in the beginning of this review. On this particular test-model there was a noticeable gap in the neck pocket (as seen in the pictures), also there were some scratches in the black paint on the aluminium knobs. Everything worked fine though, the tuners feel solid and do their job, the pots turn smoothly and seem to be of a decent quality and the black aluminium knobs that are used for the passive tone controls (volume/volume/tone) are definitely a nice touch. The bridge: The bridge is a sturdy vintage type bridge with threaded saddles, with grooves underneath that keep the saddles from moving sideways. It´s bolted firmly into the body and it allows for both top-loading and string through body stringing. Although there´s a lot of discussion concerning the up- and downsides of both these options the fact that you can choose between top-loading and string through body stringing definitely makes it easier to find a suitable set of strings for your personal style of playing. Again I was slightly disappointed in the quality control of the Indonesian factory where these are made as one of the bridge saddle was completely covered in rust. Amplified sound: After raising the pickup height to my preferences I was able to get a nice Precision bass tone out of the split coil pickup really easily, the jazz pickup sounded nice as well and although it might sound a little thin compared to more expensive jazz pickups it certainly had a nice tone and it combines very well with the Precision pickup. Some of the people that are used to having the very versatile pre-amp that comes standard on most Sire basses might have the feeling that they are missing out on something on this bass with only having the volume-neck pickup, volume-bridge pickup and overall tone controls, but to me, being a fan of passive basses, these easy controls really made me feel like coming home as you can have a variety of tones at your disposal without having to worry about running out of battery in the middle of a gig and/or accidentally touching a knob of the active pre-amp and thereby possibly overpowering the gain stage of your amp. All in all both these pickups sound really good considering the price point of this instrument, especially compared to the pickups that are in some of the similarly priced alternatives like the higher end Squier basses and although I will probably replace the pickups by a set of more expensive after market pickups at some point I can easily understand that 99% of the people that buy this bass will see no reason to change them at all and are totally happy with the sound of the bass as it is straight from the factory. Acoustic sound: Even when playing unamplified you can definitely hear you´re holding a quality instrument, the bass has plenty of natural volume and the hard maple neck gives it a snappy attack with plenty of brightness and resonance which makes it easy to hear all the details of your playing when doing some late night acoustic practice. Pros: - Superb playability - Rolled fretboard edges, rounded fret edges, excellent fretwork - Compact and lightweight - Despite it being a passive instrument it is still very versatile and it has wide range of tones on tap - The stock pickups sound pretty good, especially considering the price point of this instrument - The flamed maple top, body binding and aluminium knobs definitely give the instrument a classy look and make it look a lot more expensive than it actually is Cons: - * QUALITY CONTROL! As mentioned above a couple of times there were a couple of issues on this particular bass that should have not got past the quality control. As shown in the pictures there is a noticeable gap on the top side of the neck pocket, one of the bridge saddles is covered in rust, one of the aluminium knobs has some scratches in the paint and also in the truss rod cavity I could see some scratches. I must mention that this could just be "a bad one" though as none of the other Sire U5 owners that I´ve spoken to so far encountered any of these issues. - The tone control could do with a wider sweep, so experimenting with other capacitors might be one of the mods I would suggest for this bass. - The U5 does not come with a gig bag or case, so it might take some time to find a fitting case or gig bag for this bass. - Not really a bad thing, but compared to my Fender Mustang and Medium scale Squier Jaguar the U5 is about 0.3 kg heavier, at 3,78 kg it is still a very manageable weight, but I thought I should mention it anyway. Conclusion: Even though there clearly were some issues with this bass, I´m really impressed with the playability and overall quality and sound of the instrument. As I´ve talked about this with other U5 owners that I know and none of them mentioned having any issues like the ones I found on this particular bass. I choose to believe that I just got unlucky by receiving a "dud" and therefore I mailed Sire concerning the issues I found on this bass, and they agreed to send me a replacement immediately. So, thumbs up for their customer service! Since the (those few issues I talked about left aside) overall sound, quality and playability of the new Sire U5 left such a good impression on me I´m definitely considering keeping the new replacement if it turns out to be a "good one" this time. In the long run I do plan to replace the pickups with Dimarzio´s and while I´m at it redo some of the wiring and replace the bridge saddles with Graph tech replacements, but that has more to do with personal preference than necessity as the bass is probably good enough as it is for most people. At this point I´m really looking forward to getting the replacement as I´ve already tried most of the newer short and medium scale basses on the market today and if this new one has none of the issues this "bad one" had, it could easily be in my shortscale top two next to the Schecter Banshee bass (which has a slightly better bridge, lightweight tuners, carbon rods in the neck, but is also almost double the price and comes with only one pickup) and it could definitely become "my go to bass" for quite some time. Some extra info about the Sire factories: The CEO is Kyle Kim, and the company is an offshoot of his company Dame guitars. Dame is big in Korea but could not break the international market, so they started the Sire company in co-operation with Marcus Miller with the goal of putting high quality, yet affordable instruments in the hands of youngsters and musicians on a budget. While Kyle Kim´s other brand Dame guitars (Sire/Dame, see the link?) is produced in both the Korean and Indonesian factory Sire has expanded it´s factory to China in 2015, having the entire Sire range being produced at both the Indonesian and Chinese factories.*** ***Quote from Sire: "Hello Bass Players! We would like to let you know that our factory has expanded to China. Before, we had only a part of our factory in China that makes other parts of our products. But with a strong demand for our products worldwide, Sire Guitars expanded its full product line-up in China as well. So right now, basses are coming from our Indonesian and China factories. The reason why we expanded our factory to China is that all the component, parts, accessories and the new technology for building better quality instruments is based in China these days. Those who are familiar with musical instrument production will understand this. China has a great potential and possibilities in producing high quality instruments. Such as high quality CNC, 3D printer, preamp parts, coils and all the good components which is necessary in building guitars. So in order to pursue our revolutionary vision, Sire Guitars decided to expand in China, and we will continue to produce quality instruments at an insane low price. We've heard some of our customers who are worrying that our China made instruments quality will not the same with the Indonesians. We at Sire Guitars assure our customers that this doesn't affect the craftsmanship and quality Sire Guitars is known for. Our factory is not an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and we only produce Sire Guitars both in our factories within Indonesia and China with the same high quality standards. For everybody's information, other major brands of guitars and basses are manufactured in a number of OEM factories. This huge OEM factories deal with more 10 brands under 1 factory alone. There are higher risks for quality to be low within that process, but we at Sire Guitars choose not to accept any OEM orders as this can greatly affect our high standards for quality control. (By the way, we had been offered to make guitars and basses for some of the top-notch brand that everybody is aware of, but we refused to do this.)" Ps: I will add an update to this review as soon as the replacement U5 has arrived. Greets & Grooves! Bassdude's Bassment

Yes, I had the same idea about the bridge pickup. I.m.e. this is a very common issue with P/J basses tho and adjusting the pickup height can usually balance things out quite a bit. I´ve been looking around and at first sight there seem to be no direct replacement tuners for the new 2019/2020 Squier CV models as the screw holes are now in slightly different places compared to the older SQ CV models. Either SChaller BML´s, Hipshot HB1 and HB7´s should fit in nicely, but as far as I´ve been able to find out all of them needed some filling and redrilling of the screw holes for the tuners.

The pictures I stole from the web tbh, just had a knee surgery a couple of days ago, so i´m stuck in the sofa atm with plenty of time to write, but taking pictures is a bit harder atm. I´ve measured it up tho and the bridge is 2mm close to the G string and 0.5mm higher on that side as well, The bass plays fine this way, but it is a mistake that i wasn´t expecting to find on a classic vibe squier as they have always been the most expensive and best quality squiers on the market. Most people and/or beginners probably won´t even notice or mind the misalignment, but being a bass/pedal builder myself and being a perfectionist it does bother me a bit..

Unbiased review: Squier Classic Vibe Jaguar Bass, medium scale, 2020 model (made in the Samick factory, Indonesia) Hi, as many of you more experienced bass players may know the Squier classic vibe series has often offered incredible value for money in the past. Personally I´ve owned, modified, played and gigged quite a few of them, and I was always pleased and often even surprised by the craftsmanship and quality of these instruments, especially considering the price these go for. Having played a 2009 Made in China CV Precision bass for quite some time (the made in China 2008-2012 series of Squier CV basses are still considered by many of the pro-players, modders and collectors as the best Squier basses ever made, comparable in both fit and finish to the earlier JV series, which go for crazy amounts of money these days) I was very impressed by the playability and overall quality of these instruments. I´ve had the chance to compare my 2009 MIC CV Precision to several mid- to high-priced Fender equivalents and my CV Precision could easily compete with the Fender versions and it felt, played and sounded sometimes even better than some of it´s much more expensive counterparts. So, when I heard earlier this year that Squier was going to release a new Classic Vibe series medium scale (32") Jaguar bass I was definitely intrigued. I´ve always been a fan of medium scale basses due to their excellent playability, reduced weight and the fact that to me they offer the perfect middle ground between full scale (34") and short scale (30") basses. In my humble opinion they are the perfect compromise, keeping most of the attack and strong fundamental that you get out of full scale basses, combined with the thump, added perceived low end and superb playability that you get from short scale basses. These new CV Jaguar basses come with a Precision + Jazz pickup configuration and a stacked pot Vol/Tone, Vol/Tone control plate. I found this 60´s-style stacked pot control plate to be a nice touch as this configuration adds a lot more tonal versatility to the already very versatile P/J pickup combination compared to the more standard Volume/Volume/Tone control plates these basses usually come with. As I was on the lookout for a versatile, lightweight, medium scale bass to take some of the strain of my left arm during long gigs, this new Jaguar seemed to tick all the boxes. As always I did a fair amount of research before testing the bass and found out that this run of CV Jaguar basses is being made in the Samick factory in Indonesia. Having owned and played a few of the older, original Samick basses and guitars in my early days as a bassist, instrument enthusiast and modifier I seemed to remember that these instruments were well made and offered great value for money. Knowing all this I figured this new CV Jaguar might just be the perfect modding platform for the "Super-Squier" build that I was planning to use with my new rock band, so I contacted my friends at Thomann to see if they could send me one of these as soon as they came in to test and review. The CV Jaguar basses were meant to be released in March 2020, but due to many design changes combined with communication by the Fender company there was a lot of confusion about the scale length (First they were listed as 34", full scale basses, but later Fender changed that to a 32", medium scale length*) and some other design features of this bass and therefore the release date was postponed more than once. So I was very happy to see that this shiny new medium scale Jaguar bass had finally arrived at my doorstep earlier this week. *The neck on this particular model is exactly one inch shorter than a normal full scale bass neck, the bridge has been moved upwards by one inch as well (compared to a normal full scale bass) and as a result the total scale length from the nut to the bridge saddles is exactly 32". First Impressions: The neck: Straight out of the box I notice the excellent quality of the neck. The headstock and the back of the neck are coated with a vintage tint finish, which looks good, feels really smooth and isn´t sticky at all, on this particular example the quality of the paintwork on the neck is outstanding. The jazz width neck plays super fast and easy and the fretwork is excellent. The narrow, tall frets are all seated well in the fret board, and they are rounded at the fret board edges. There are no sharp fret ends. The block inlays look super classy and are completely level with the Indian Laurel fret board which adds to the quality look and feel of the neck. The Indian laurel fret board has a very nice grain to it with some Birdseye maple-like patterns all over the fret board and fret board edges, it has a much darker and nicer look to it than the recent made in Mexico Pau Ferro fret boards and it certainly gives you the feeling that you´re holding a much more expensive instrument. The body: The body is made out of Nato, a type of wood with a density and sound characteristic very similar to that of mahogany, weight wise it is a lot lighter than mahogany tho and the body is noticeably thinner than that of a regular Jazz or Precision bass. The total weight of this particular bass came in at just 3,53 kg. The Nato wood has a very nice grain to it which comes out beautifully through the transparent sunburst finish. Factory set-up: With the set-up from the factory the bass was playable, but the action and neck relief definitely needed some adjustment to make it feel and play good. After lowering the bridge saddles quite a bit, a quick turn of the truss rod to straighten the neck a little and setting up the intonation the bass really came to live and now it actually feels and plays very good. The shorter scale length certainly makes a difference, making it a lot easier to do those wider stretches and fast runs, thus reducing hand fatigue. Neck pocket, tuners, pots and knobs: The neck pocket is nice and tight with no noticeable gaps on either side. The tuners do their job, but are clearly not of the same quality compared to the ones on earlier classic vibe series basses. The stacked pots feel o.k. and turn smoothly, although I had to move the stacked knobs and tighten the screws a bit for optimal efficiency. The bridge: Now this is where the guys at the Samick factory dropped the ball a bit in my opinion. Possibly Fender´s decision to change the scale length of the bass at the last moment has something to do with this, but the bridge isn´t properly aligned with the neck and pickup routing. The bridge is placed +- 2 mm more towards the G-string side than it is to the E-string side and looking at it horizontally I noticed that the top of the bridge on the G-string side is also sticking out a fraction of a millimeter higher towards the neck when compared to the left side. It doesn´t really affect playability, but I found this surprising as I´ve never encountered such serious issues with other top of the line Squier basses. Amplified sound: Personally I was planning to equip this bass with a set of aftermarket Dimarzio pickups, so I didn´t expect much of the Fender Designed Alnico pickups. After a quick soundcheck I found them to sound quite strong in the upper mids, with an aggressive attack, but lacking some bass and low mids compared to my other basses. For a beginner I think these will probably do the job, but for more professional players and/or audiophiles like me a pickup swap would probably be advised as they tend to sound quite thin compared to most aftermarket pickups. Acoustic sound: Played unamplified, with the factory strings I found the bass to have plenty of acoustic volume, with lots of clarity, but again I felt like it was missing some lows and low mids compared to some of my other basses. I thought this might´ve been because of the extremely thin Nato body,but then again I usually use flat wound strings, so that might´ve had an impact on the overall sound as well. Pros: - Extremely well-made and easy to play neck, with a nice Jazz bass type nut width and profile, getting slightly wider than a normal jazz neck at the neck pocket. - Excellent fretwork - Lightweight - No noticeable neck dive when balancing on a strap. - The high quality Indian laurel that was used for the fret board combined with the block inlays and finish of both neck and body make the bass look a lot more classy and expensive than it actually is. Cons: - The hardware is of subpar quality compared to earlier Classic Vibe series basses, the tuners feel kind of flimsy and feel like they would definitely need replacement at some point if you plan to use this bass in a professional setting. - Samick´s quality control definitely dropped the ball when checking the bridge placement on these basses, the bridge plate itself also seems to be of lesser quality compared to earlier CV versions and looks like it would bend easily. - The Alnico pickups sound kinda weak and thin compared to earlier versions. - Price: Considering the fact that Fender definitely cut some costs when it comes to the quality of the hardware used on these basses the price is still quite high. Conclusion: I´m really impressed with the quality and craftsmanship of the neck on this bass and would love to keep the neck in order to combine it with another body and hardware. The quality of the pickups and hardware + the fact that they messed up the bridge alignment on this bass have left me with mixed feelings as to whether it is still worth the investment, especially when compared to the earlier Squier classic vibe series basses which went for the same amount of money, but offered a lot more value for money when it came to the hardware used on these basses. On the competitive market of today there might be better options out there in this price range. On the other hand medium scale basses are still quite a rarity these days, so if this is what you are looking for it definitely is a cheap way to add a medium scale bass to your arsenal and with a few upgrades it can probably become a solid instrument that is ready for both live and recording use as the neck offers superb playability and most flaws (subpar tuners, pickups and bridge placement) can be easily fixed by your local guitar tech, luthier or handyman. At the moment I´m still on the fence if I´m going to keep the neck and/or upgrade the body, pickups and hardware or look elsewhere for my short scale/medium scale needs, but I´ve just gotten notice that I have a Sire U5 short scale P/J bass** coming in to test and review next week, so I´ll have the opportunity to test them both side by side and compare them before making my decision. Average street price for the Squier CV Jaguar bass: 385Euro. **The review of the Sire U5 will be posted on my Facebook page sometime next week. Kind regards, @Bassdude'sBassment