tredders Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 For a while now I've been GASing for a 51 P bass (not helped by watching lots of old Specials videos with Horace playing an old Telecaster bass). I've never played one, and I'm not sure if the non-contoured body or chunky neck will suit me, but as ever, I have little enough common sense for this to stop me buying one... So, my question is this.... would I be better off getting a CIJ one (which seem to go for about £450 - £500), or buying a Squire Vintage Modified TB for around £230-ish, which leaves me a fair chunk of cash to pimp it up if required. Is there that much of a difference between the two? I admit to being a bit of a label snob, so normally the Squire logo would put me off (pathetic, I know) but I've only read great things about these latest VM models. Anyone played both? Or even better, got one for sale Cheers Tredders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musicman20 Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 [quote name='tredders' post='884963' date='Jul 3 2010, 06:05 PM']For a while now I've been GASing for a 51 P bass (not helped by watching lots of old Specials videos with Horace playing an old Telecaster bass). I've never played one, and I'm not sure if the non-contoured body or chunky neck will suit me, but as ever, I have little enough common sense for this to stop me buying one... So, my question is this.... would I be better off getting a CIJ one (which seem to go for about £450 - £500), or buying a Squire Vintage Modified TB for around £230-ish, which leaves me a fair chunk of cash to pimp it up if required. Is there that much of a difference between the two? I admit to being a bit of a label snob, so normally the Squire logo would put me off (pathetic, I know) but I've only read great things about these latest VM models. Anyone played both? Or even better, got one for sale Cheers Tredders[/quote] GW will be able to comment as he has both! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lo. Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 I played the Squier recently - it was superb, so good I snagged this recently (CIJ) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvc9C2wRCZg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvc9C2wRCZg[/url] (old roundwounds) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VtrYoRvd0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VtrYoRvd0[/url] (new Fender flats + foam mute) The CIJ has a classier finish and hardware, but no real difference. The stock pickup isn't to my taste - I prefer more bottom octave - it's easy to add on an EQ, though. Get any except the Sting model with the signature slab at the 12th fret. It's just a big bowl of wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tredders Posted July 3, 2010 Author Share Posted July 3, 2010 [quote name='Lo.' post='884997' date='Jul 3 2010, 07:07 PM']I played the Squier recently - it was superb, so good I snagged this recently (CIJ) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvc9C2wRCZg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvc9C2wRCZg[/url] (old roundwounds) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VtrYoRvd0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VtrYoRvd0[/url] (new Fender flats + foam mute) The CIJ has a classier finish and hardware, but no real difference. The stock pickup isn't to my taste - I prefer more bottom octave - it's easy to add on an EQ, though. Get any except the Sting model with the signature slab at the 12th fret. It's just a big bowl of wrong.[/quote] Dammit, I was all set to buy the Squire until I saw your Youtube clips! Just ordered a butterscotch CIJ 51 for £499 brand new, which seemed like a great price. Should be with me next week. Cheers (I think!) for the advice.... Tredders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 [quote name='tredders' post='885083' date='Jul 3 2010, 10:08 PM']Dammit, I was all set to buy the Squire until I saw your Youtube clips! Just ordered a butterscotch CIJ 51 for £499 brand new, which seemed like a great price. Should be with me next week. Cheers (I think!) for the advice.... Tredders[/quote] You`ll be happy with your choice, Tredders. I have the same bass and its great, with its own character. I actually sold it to a mate, instantly regretted it, so after a while, swapped a more expensive Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass to get it back. In fact, its the only musical instrument I`ve ever regretted selling, out of a significant number, which I believe is an indicator of how highly I rate these basses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tredders Posted July 3, 2010 Author Share Posted July 3, 2010 [quote name='Lozz196' post='885085' date='Jul 3 2010, 10:15 PM']You`ll be happy with your choice, Tredders. I have the same bass and its great, with its own character. I actually sold it to a mate, instantly regretted it, so after a while, swapped a more expensive Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass to get it back. In fact, its the only musical instrument I`ve ever regretted selling, out of a significant number, which I believe is an indicator of how highly I rate these basses.[/quote] Thanks Lozz - looking forward to getting it now. Did you end up changing anything on yours? I'll (obviously!) put flats on it, but some more popular mods seem to be swapping out the pup, changing the bridge and replacing the pickguard with a 3ply. I'll wait and see what it sounds like stock, but wondered if you'd made any changes to yours? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiOgon Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 [quote name='tredders' post='885088' date='Jul 3 2010, 10:18 PM']Thanks Lozz - looking forward to getting it now. Did you end up changing anything on yours? I'll (obviously!) put flats on it, but some more popular mods seem to be swapping out the pup, changing the bridge and replacing the pickguard with a 3ply. I'll wait and see what it sounds like stock, but wondered if you'd made any changes to yours? Cheers[/quote] You'll be chuffed with I'm sure. Mine's a beauty! Yes it's modified - Hipshot bridge, bass doc p/g & SD 1/4lb + black nylons = it's a real joy to play. I reckon the vintage frets on the maple neck make it for me. Cheers, John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delberthot Posted July 4, 2010 Share Posted July 4, 2010 (edited) its all about rhe pickup - I managed to get my CIJ one for £265. The real thing was to get the Lollar pickup to make it sound the dogs sloblock Edited July 4, 2010 by Delberthot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted July 4, 2010 Share Posted July 4, 2010 [quote name='KiOgon' post='885121' date='Jul 3 2010, 10:51 PM']You'll be chuffed with I'm sure. Mine's a beauty! Yes it's modified - Hipshot bridge, bass doc p/g & SD 1/4lb + black nylons = it's a real joy to play. I reckon the vintage frets on the maple neck make it for me. Cheers, John[/quote] At first I changed the bridge to a Badass, and put a Seymour Duncan SCPB Quarter Pounder pickup in it. Both of these seemed to increase "everything" by 20%. I started however, to find that the simplicity of the original design was what I loved about it, so took `em off, and sold them on Evilbay (I always keep the original bits, when modding, just in case). Yes, I now have to turn my amp up a bit higher, but I`m using, as near as can be, the first ever electric bass, so like having/hearing a bit of history. Agree with the post above too, vintage frets and maple neck - soooooo easy to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Wazoo Posted July 4, 2010 Share Posted July 4, 2010 Hey step away from my soap box you infidels! Well as MusicMan20 said I have both a Squier Precision 50's reissue and a CIJ 51 reissue. Here are the main differences between the two You can pickup a Squier for about £250 upwards or you can find the Fender Jap for any prices nowadays and be advised they've just been discontinued by Fender. So it's either second hand or new old stock, shop soiled or other. I got mine new, probably one of the few last available ones for £499 The Squier is contoured, the Fender Japan is slab bodied. The Squier is made of basswood and as light as a feather, at just 8.0lbs and the Fender is made of a lovely figured ash but it weighs a lot more at around 10.5lbs Out of the box the Squier is ready to go and plays like a dream, excellent construction, extremely well balanced however the pickup is propa-sh|te and I've removed it on the first week, slapped a SD 1/4 pound in it and never looked back. My mates still can't believe a bass below £250 can sound so good on recording through ProTools, and without any effects in between. Out of the box the Fender CIJ also has a fantastic sound and I could have really really lived with the original pickup however I was spoiled by the goodness of the SD 1/4 pound and (there is a long thread about this elsewhere) I've convinced Jason Lollar to make a pickup with the same output as a 1/4 pound on his original bobbin. After a bit of playing with the bridge I finally got the Lollar to work well with the CIJ but at the expense of the original two-saddles bridge because of the neck radius and the fact that the Lollar has flat poles all on the same heigth, I was lucky to have a badass III fitted to an unfinished project bass knocking around in the loft and now is all hunky dory. Incredibly both the Squier and the CIJ have the exact same neck profiles, both nice and chunky but not uncomfortably so. If I was to give a virdict on the fact that the Fender has a slab body to which people immediately imagine that as uncomfortable or painful to play, I have to completely trash that theory with with actual facts: and say "au-contraire" you rest your elbow on the slab edges and your elbow stays there comfortably instead of shifting about on a slopey contour so on that issue if anyone tells you that a slab body is uncomfortable tell them to go and sit on the naughty step until they apologise. One more thing you have to appreciate is that both basses come with not so good wiring and pots, specially the Squier, they were cheap and nasty, the soldering was unprofessional and the pickup was soooo bad it hummed on very high volume. The Fender on the other hand, had slightly better wiring but the pots are cheap and not CTS as in the proper american Fender, as a result I have regutted both basses with vintage correct waxed cloth wiring, original american Fende CTS pots and resistors and now I can confidently say that I own two wonderful basses, I am still undecided as which is better out of the two, all I distinguish one from the other is the light one or the heavy one, as those are to me the only differences apart from the colours. Now a word of warning about the other Squier you've mentioned the Vintage Modified one. Be wary that that particular bass does not come from the same factory in China where the Classic Vibe series comes from, actually from Indonesia, where I am told quality standard are no where near those of the Chinese factory. The Vintage Modified one only has one neck humbucker and and it sounds nothing like a Fender Precision Tele, but much more like a dodgy Epiphone Grabber or something, I was almost going to buy one as I have all the Squiers CV series, but that one put me off, also because the neck is not as nice and it really doesn't feel nor sound like a Fender. here are my two The other Classic Vibe ones together with a Bongo and a Stingray5 Go try one and see for yourself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tredders Posted July 4, 2010 Author Share Posted July 4, 2010 That's great information right there, GW. Thanks for taking the time to reply in such detail - appreciate it. I've ordered the CIJ '51 brand new for £499 (which was significantly cheaper than anywhere else I could find it), so I'm looking forward to that arriving this week. From reading what everyone has put (both here and on a couple of other review sites I found), there are some popular mods to this particular model, but I think I'll leave it pretty much stock at first and see how I get on from there. If needed, I'll fit a new bridge and (probably) a Lollar pup in there, but I'll give it a blast for a month first and see what it's like straight out of the box. If it needs it, I'll get it setup by Peter Allen, and shielded if necessary, though. My CIJ Jazz was noisy as hell when I got it, but that was soon sorted out with proper shielding. Loving the cow print Jazz, BTW - very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Wazoo Posted July 4, 2010 Share Posted July 4, 2010 [quote name='tredders' post='885691' date='Jul 4 2010, 07:06 PM']That's great information right there, GW. Thanks for taking the time to reply in such detail - appreciate it. Loving the cow print Jazz, BTW - very cool![/quote] Yeah that is my pride and joy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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