Squier

(Originally written by Hobbie/translated from Audiofanzine FR) Squier Telecaster with a pair of Duncan Designed P90 pickups (Seymour-Duncan low-end). 3-way toggle switch, volume and tone controls for each pickup, Tele Custom-style pickguard, C profile neck with maple fingerboard. Vintage blond finish. UTILIZATION Rather thick neck like I like them, good overall finish. Very pleasant maple fingerboard. The instrument is well-balanced, not too heavy nor too light. The only defect in its design is the custom pickguard, which makes accessing the electronics more complicated. SOUNDS I play 70's punk music (thus mainly rhythm parts). I use the bridge pickup mainly with the distortion sound of a Fender Hot Rod. This combination sounds full and warm, and it has a strong personality with a good sound definition when the distortion is not excessive. Small con: this pickup has a lower output level than the neck pickup. Sometimes I use the neck pickup or the combination of both pickups for arpeggios in clean mode with a reverb. The sound is thicker but still quite brilliant. You can sweeten it turning the tone and/or volume controls. But the controls generate noise, which is annoying if you want to control the volume with some precision. But it isn't my case. OVERALL OPINION I've been using it for four years and I'm very satisfied with it! It's a good-quality guitar but not expensive, so I don't get angry when I see new scratches on it. The only problem I've had was with the connector, which got loosen. But that's a well-known problem on many Telecasters.

Model Name: Vintage Modified Jaguar® Bass Series: Vintage Modified Color / MSRP* / Part # : Black $499.99 032-7900-506 Body Body: Agathis Body Shape: Jaguar® Body Finish: 0327900506 Polyester Neck Neck Shape: "C" Shape Number of Frets: 20 Fret Size: Medium Jumbo Position Inlays: White Pearloid Block Position Inlays Fretboard Radius: 9.5" (24.1 cm) Fretboard: Rosewood Neck Material: Maple Neck Finish: Polyurethane Nut Width: 1.5" (38.1 mm) Scale Length: 34" (86.36 cm) Headstock: Matching Painted Headstock Neck Plate: Standard 4 Bolt Electronics Pickup Configuration: S/S Bridge Pickup: Duncan Designed™ JB102 Single-Coil Jazz Bass® Bridge Pickup Middle Pickup: Duncan Designed™ PB101 Split Single-Coil Pickup Controls: Stacked Concentric Controls Volume 1. (Neck Pickup), Tone 1. (Neck Pickup), Volume 2. (Bridge Pickup), Tone 2. (Bridge Pickup) Hardware Hardware: Chrome Bridge: Standard 4-Saddle String Nut: Synthetic Bone Miscellaneous Strings: Fender® USA Super Bass 7250M, NPS (.045-.105 Gauges) Unique Features: White Pearloid Block Position Inlays, Painted Headcap, Knurled Chrome/Black Concentric Control Knobs, Duncan Designed™ Pickups Accessories Control Knobs: Knurled Chrome/Black Concentric Control Knobs UTILIZATION Fender released the Jaguar bass a few years ago. I thought it was incredible - the styling is great, the pickups were very nice, and it played easily. I didn't want to spend the money on it, however - it was around $750 at my local store. So when Fender announced a Squier, low cost version, I was excited. The result disappointed me, but only slightly - I wanted the full scale neck. This shorter scale is cool, I mean, the original Jaguar guitars had a shorter scale. But I was hoping for something that felt like a Jazz Bass, sounded like a P-Bass, and looked like a Jaguar. 2 out of three ain't bad, right? SOUNDS The pickups are very nice. I can get J and P sounds out of it, and they are very clear. The bridge pickup could stand to be a bit punchier, but overall, they are good-sounding pickups, with a broad array of possible sounds. OVERALL OPINION This bass would be a great beginner bass, or good for someone with smaller stature. I was wanting a full scale bass, so I've got to admit some disappointment, but overall the Jaguar Bass from Squier is still pretty cool.

(Originally written by kenny183/translated from Audiofanzine FR) See specs UTILIZATION Pleasant neck and varnish if you like thick necks... Normal access to the upper frets, considering the guitar type. I love the playability: it's a very small, light and well-balanced guitar. SOUNDS It's a vintage-style guitar so fat sound fans should forget about it... Good sound. It reminds the sound of small Fender guitars: Musicmaster, Bronco, Duo Sonic, Mustang, etc. The sound is less twangy than a Squier 51, for example... but I find the acoustic sound is very good, and the electric sound could be very good with better-quality pickups. OVERALL OPINION I just received it. I like its playability most of all. The pickups could sound better... I try affordable guitars regularly and the Duo Sonic does what it should pretty good. It provides a vintage sound at the price of a budget guitar... It has a real personality. Very good value for money considering the high-quality finish. I bought a secondhand Mexican reissue of the Fender Duo Sonic a few years ago... The 90's Mexican Duo Sonic sounds better, but it was more expensive...

Which amplifier? i'play on vox ac30 with my band: https://zoneinfinie.bandcamp.com/album/rester-et-fuir effect(s) do you use with this guitar? nothing only my amplifier overdrive What playing and musical style(s) do you play with this guitar? i play Punk rock: https://zoneinfinie.bandcamp.com/album/rester-et-fuir i play metal in my room What are your thoughts on the workmanship, electronics, and finish of this instrument? How is its intonation? Does its neck, touch, feel, shape, etc complement your playing style? i think evererything is correct for the price maybe need an unpgrade for the microphones. Do clean, crunchy and distorted sounds adapt well to different microphone positions? Are the guitar's different frequencies and sounds well-balanced? i play more on distortion but clean is good: https://zoneinfinie.bandcamp.com/album/rester-et-fuir

Specs: Body: Alder Body Shape: Jazzmaster® Body Finish: (0302800503, 0302800550) Polyester Neck Neck Shape: "C" Shape Number of Frets: 21 Fret Size: Medium Jumbo Fretboard Radius: 9.5" (24.1 cm) Fretboard: Maple Neck Material: Maple Neck Finish: Polyester Nut Width: 1.650” (42 mm) Scale Length: 25.5" (64.8 cm) Electronics Bridge Pickup: Duncan Designed™ JM-101B Single-Coil Jazzmaster® Pickup with AlNiCo 5 Magnets Neck Pickup: Duncan Designed™ JM-101N Single-Coil Jazzmaster® Pickup with AlNiCo 5 Magnets Controls: 3-Position Toggle: Position 1. Bridge Pickup, Position 2. Bridge and Neck Pickups, Position 3. Neck Pickup Hardware Hardware: Chrome Bridge: Fixed "Top Loader" Bridge Miscellaneous Strings: Fender® USA, NPS, (.010-.046 Gauges) Unique Features: Concentric Volume/Tone Knobs, Duncan Designed™ pickups, "Top-Loader" Fixed Bridge Accessories Control Knobs: Stacked Concentric Controls Volume 1. (Neck Pickup), Tone 1. (Neck Pickup), Volume 2. (Bridge Pickup), Tone 2. (Bridge Pickup) The Vintage Modified Jazzmaster from Fender's Squier division is a great entry into the world of low-priced, vintage-style axes. This guitar cops an extremely vintage vibe, yet has a few streamlined improvements over the original Jazzmaster design of the 50s. The original Jazzmaster featured a convoluted control system that most players disabled and rewired. This guitar has a simple 2 dual concentric pot system, with a 3-way toggle switch, so the controls act like a Gibson setup, only taking up less space. The bridge is also now a stop tail piece, as the old Jazzmaster bridge ended up making the guitar frequently go out of tune. This new bridge improves upon that aspect considerably! The guitar itself plays very well - the construction of the guitar is fantastic for the price. And the sound of the Duncan designed pickups is very meaty and cutting, great for classic rock, indie, blues, and surf sounds mainly. One caveat with the pickups is that they do induce a bit of noisy hum into the signal, but I've heard much worse - these pickups aren't bad, I just thought I'd point that out. This Jazzmaster is simpler all the way around than the original, and I like the design better. It's a winner in my book.

I use to fix, buy, sell or trade instruments basses and some bass equipment for hobbie. But off course, I always have my personal arsenal. I really love two sounds. One is the percussive Musicman Stingray sound and the other is the classic Fender Jazz bass sound. For my hands passed four MIM jazz basses, two USA jazz basses, theree MIJ jazz basses and off course, lot of Squiers. Yes, I write a lot but when you have the opportunity to own or try many basses, then you can compare fair. I start telling you that this is not a USA bass. You will find some cosmetics details in some of this basses that you should not find in a USA bass but this is not the rule. I saw many high end basses with tons of terrible details. In terms of paint my bass was OK but not perfect. About the settings, factory action was OK but I love low action so I made my personal setup at home. I can have the low action that I want and have no fret buzz at all. This bass is very light but not feel like a toy so I can play two hours without hurt my back. (I have back spasm). Body is light but doesn't have neck dive witch is great. The most beautiful part of this bass is the neck. Great feel and excellent fret job. Sound is fantastic. I change the strings to my preference too. I put the pickups a little closer to the strings and have a great output sound. I add a baddass bridge to it, but don't get me wrong, stock bridge works find and has good sustain. It was just my personal preference. IF you like the sound and feel of a fender jazz classic sound, and don't have problems like some friends of mine with the "Squier" name on the headstock (the sound is in your hands anyway), you should try this one before broke your wallet with a USA model.

To really understand the appeal of this guitar, you have to know the story behind the Fender Jaguar. It has a unique and tumultuous past much like the underground musicians who have embraced it over the years. The Jag, as it is affectionately known, was introduced by Fender as the streamlined, retro-futuristic follow-up to the Jazzmaster and was marketed directly to the rising Surf Rock movement in the early 60s. While it enjoyed a great deal of success around this time, the rise of Blues and Classic Rock by the end of the 60s saw the Telecaster and the Stratocaster reclaim their thrones. As a result, resale values for the Jaguar and Jazzmaster plummeted as they were ultimately discontinued. Falling out of favor with popular music, the Jag would have a resurgence in the late 70s and early 80s during the rise of Post-Punk. Artists like Jonny Marr and Rowland S. Howard made them their signature instruments. This trend continued in the late 80s and early 90s, as their lower prices attracted startup underground bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, before ultimately become a defining instrument of Shoegaze by My Bloody Valentine. Since the turn of the century, it has continued to be an icon of Indie music with ever-growing popularity. Because of the Jag's resurgence over the past two decades, vintage models have become as expensive as comparable Teles and Strats, whose "collector-item" status has stripped away much of that underground appeal. The Jag's pedigree has also been tampered with by the introduction of several modified variations over the last 10 years. Therefore, finding a vintage-spec, untouched Jaguar at a reasonable price that you wouldn't feel bad modifying has become impossibly rare. This is the unique void that the Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar fulfills! Though built at lower-cost factories in Indonesia, the design and build diagrams seem to follow the vintage specs very accurately. As a result, many American Vintage Reissue parts made by Fender are directly swappable. Combined with good initial build quality, this means the Squier Jag is the perfect platform for customization and personalization. So we know that this guitar is affordable, surprisingly well-made and easy to customize, but what about out of the box? This is the one caveat that might cause a lot of people to overlook these guitars. Firstly, the setup in most examples I've seen has been atrocious. While the frets seem to be finished nicely, the nut, bridge, neck relief and intonation should all be thoroughly addressed. In doing so, the ludicrously light .09 strings should be swapped for at least .11s (remember this is a short, 24" scale guitar, so don't hold back on loading up some heavier strings!). I replaced the strings immediately with D'Addario's Heavy-Top/Medium-Bottom strings (.11-.52), which are ideal if you occasionally play in drop tunings. I then replaced the bridge with a standard Fender Mustang bridge, which facilitated my ability to intonate the guitar properly. However, I ran into issues with the nut being too high. Surprisingly, it was not on the thicker lower strings that were a snug fit, but on the lighter, higher strings where their shouldn't have been an issue. I don't have access to proper nut files, so I'll have to one day take this to a luthier for proper adjustment. In the meantime, I have to endure a few sharp notes now and then when playing near the first and second frets. Also, because of the problem with the nut not being cut correctly, it is difficult to assess how well the tuning heads stay in tune. Aside from the setup having to be readdressed, I found the pickups to be more than adequate. Sporting Seymour Duncan's name, these pickups are wound a little hotter than vintage spec but certainly have more life and character than comparable Japanese-made Fender Jaguars. They also sound more period-correct than their closest rivals, the Mexican-made Classic Player Jaguars. However, the controls and switches are certainly of lesser quality. The tone control for example on the rhythm circuit broke and spins freely, so that will need to be replaced. Being a project-guitar, I plan to replace most of the switches and knobs with AVRI components. Like the Japanese-made Jags, the Squier also features the vintage floating tremolo in its original position. However, the Classic Player and the 50th Anniversary Jags have been altered and their tremolos have been moved closer to the bridge. This to me is the most crucial element of the Jaguar and ultimately the reason why I decided against the Classic Player series Jags. Because the pickups of the Jaguar are essentially Strat pickups with additional shielding, their signature sound comes more from their other design components, particularly the tremolo. Even when not in use, the distance between the bridge and the tremolo allows for immense string resonance, which is an effect that is dampened when the tremolo is moved closer to the bridge. This resonance is crucial as it gives the guitar a natural reverb that is essential for driving the splash of a Fender spring reverb in surf rock and for the expansive tone when combined with alternate tunings in shoegaze and indie rock. With some adjustments made, the Jag is a breeze to play. The shorter scale makes it effortless to explore the fretboard and the pick-up circuit combinations allow for a variety of different tones. The upper rhythm section, with its warmer tone is perfect for vintage jazz sounds or as a compliment to it's more aggressive tones in a recording situation. The Lead Section will probably see the most mileage. The Neck PU is great for rhythm and blues lead and the pick-ups together have that signature, Strat-like sparkle with the added resonance of the tremolo. Combined with the mysterious third switch on the lead section controls, which actually triggers a capacitor that serves as a high-pass filter, you can achieve really crisp, sparkly chord voicings that are ideal when combined with spring reverb or modulation effects. Surf Rock Clip: https://en.audiofanzine.com/embed/audio/473506 Blues Clip: https://en.audiofanzine.com/embed/audio/473508 The bridge pick-up packs a more modern punch and can be used to great effect with overdriven riffs. The high-pass switch can also-really help clean up the low-end when using heavy distortion. Distortion Riff: https://en.audiofanzine.com/embed/audio/473509 In any pickup configuration, the guitar responds equally well to riffing in unorthodox or dropped tunings. Drop D Riff: https://en.audiofanzine.com/embed/audio/473507 The bottom line is that at this price-point, the Squier VM Jaguar is unbeatable. It may seem a profound statement, but from the point of view of a purist, it's closest competitor is the Fender American Vintage Reissue Jaguar, at 10x it's cost. The Classic Player Jags are heavily modified from the originals and the Japanese reissues are infamous for their anemic pickups and in both cases they are more than twice the price of the Squier. Ultimately, with some additional investment into upgraded components and a thorough setup, the Squier VM Jaguar is a magnificent guitar that is easily deserving of a Fender badge on its headstock. Pros: +Affordable Price +Ability to easily upgrade components with those from other Fender Jaguar Models +True to Vintage Spec Components and Design +Surprisingly good build-quality and beautiful finish +Great sounding pick-ups that are more than acceptable until a more substantial upgrade is made Cons: -Poor setup from the factory -almost unusable vintage bridge that should be immediately replaced by a mustang bridge -cheap, plastic electronic components that will likely break and need to be replaced -no locking mechanism for the tremolo -the "Squier" name on the headstock

The Squier Classic Vibe thinline Tele is a ressiue of the Telecaster that Fender introduced under CBS in the late sixties to appeal to a wider audience. It takes the typical Tele layout shape and electronics wise and mates it to a nice semi hollow body for increased resonance and trading some of the inherent brightness for a warmer, rounder tone. The guitar features a mahogany body (unusual for Fender in general, but it works here) a maple neck with 21 frets, standard Tele tuners and bridge, and a pair of classic Tonerider Tele pickups wired to a standard Tele setup of volume/tone/pickup selector. They are built to a certain price point, so Squier has these built in China, but the quality is really a wonderful thing and lots of players are giving them a serious look, sometimes even over an American made Fender. UTILIZATION The design of this guitar is pretty ergonomic to me. The hollow body does give it a bit of nice weight relief, so it is a guitar that's light enough for stage use. Other than this fact, the guitar feels much like a typical Tele, so the shape is devoid of the contouring that is found on many other Fenders. This brings the shape ergonomics down a bit, as does the blocky neck heel which is a common malady of Fender's designs. The upper fret access is not bad considering the neck heel and the fact that it's only a single cutaway. Overall I was pretty impressed on the occasions when I've jammed on one as I was able to do rhythms and leads pretty easily. Getting a good tone out of this guitar is pretty easy. Squier used great pickups in these guitars and they work very well for many applications. The mahogany body and semi hollow construction take away some of that Tele twang, but it's replaced with a Gibson-esque warmth and a bit more sustain. Clean and drive tones sound great with this guitar due to the balanced frequency spectrum that it covers. SOUNDS This guitar, like the other CVs, is much more of a vintage sounding instrument and I found it sounded best with more vintage sounding amps as a result. The clean tones are nice and jangly, but with a punchiness and warmth that can only be had from mahogany. The semi hollow nature of the guitar also adds some heft to the tone by making it sound a bit more airy as well. Using drive (sparingly, mind you, since this IS a semi and will feed back at high gain levels) is great for some raunchy blues or rock tones with those subtle hints of distortion and clipping that so many players are into. You can't go TOO crazy with the gain levels on this guitar due to its construction and the fact that the single coils will start to hum given the distortion. OVERALL OPINION All in all I think the Squier Classic Vibe Thinline Tele is a great buy for the money. It combines the classic Fender feel and jangly tones with a warm Gibson type sound and the semi hollow tone for a very attractive price. At about $350 new it's just a fantastic deal, and being that all the stock parts are of decent quality, there's no real need for modding unless you have to. There's other cheaper options for thinline Teles out there now, but for my money none of them will touch the Squier in terms of feel, looks and tone. Go try one today!

Squier Standard Telecaster Features: Series: Standard Series Color: Antique Burst (Polyurethane Finish) Body: Agathis Neck: Maple, C-Shape (Polyurethane Finish) Fingerboard: Rosewood, 9.5" Radius No. of Frets: 22 Medium Jumbo Pickups: 2 Alnico Magnet Single-Coil Pickups Controls: Volume, Tone Pickup Switching: 3-Position Blade Bridge: 6-Saddle Strings-Thru-Body Bridge Machine Heads: Standard Die-Cast Tuners Hardware: Chrome Pickguard: 4-Ply Tortoise Shell Scale Length: 25.5" Width at Nut: 1.650" Gold and Black Squier Logo Engraved Neckplate Black Plastic Parts Dot Position Inlays UTILIZATION This is one of the worst brand new guitars I've seen in awhile. It seems that a common perception of the Squier brand is that their guitars can be cheap pieces of junk. I was mostly of that opinion, but recently I was getting excited for Squier, and my opinion was changing of them, for the better. The Classic Vibe series are great guitars for the money, and I've seen a few other examples of nice guitars that Squier has been cranking out. However, this particular guitar is utterly not good. Among its design flaws - agathis wood, which is very cheap and dead sounding, no finish at all on the neck (I don't even thing there's a sealer coat on it), pot metal hardware... The example of this series that I played had two fatal problems from the get-go - the neck SHIFTED on me as I was playing it! The neck is a bolt on, like most Telecasters, and I was playing a few chords, and I felt the neck pop, and all of a sudden the action was a lot higher and the strings were now out of tune. The second flaw was a big crack in the neck pickup cover! It's a metal cover, yet there was a large crack in the side of it, which caused the high E string to get stuck in there a few times during play. SOUNDS The pickups are anemic, weak, and lifeless. The electronics are shoddy, and the guitar's inherent acoustic tone is awful. OVERALL OPINION I'm severely disappointed in this guitar. I had hopes for Squier. Now I know I need to be picky with them, and play every example first before buying.

Body: Basswood Finish: Polyester Neck: 1-Piece Maple, Modern C-shaped Fingerboard: Maple, 9.5" (241 mm) Frets: 20, Vintage Style Scale Length: 34" (864 mm) Nut Width: 1.5" (38 mm) Hardware: Chrome Tuning Keys: Open gear tuning machines Bridge: HiMass, 4-saddle bridge with brass barrel saddles Pickguard: 3-ply tortoise shell with thumbrest Middle pickup: Custom Jazz Bass single-coil pickup (Alnico V) Bridge pickup: Custom Jazz Bass single-coil pickup (Alnico V) Controls: Volume, Volume, Tone Strings: (.045, .065, .080, .100) Nickel Plated Steel Unique Features: Olympic White over basswood; 20-fret vintage tint gloss maple neck; 3-ply tortoise shell pickguard with thumbrest; open gear tuning machines; HiMass 4-saddle bridge with brass barrel saddles; Custom Jazz Bass single-coil pickup set with Alnico V magnets. UTILIZATION Here we have yet another winner in the Squier Classic Vibe series. This bass feels just like playing one of the high end Fender Jazz basses! It is every bit at home with fingerstyle as it is with a pick. Slap and pop feel a bit constrained, due to the string spacing, but the techniques are still doable. The weight is solid, not too heavy, and the bass balances well. The finish is spot on, as is the workmanship overall - the fretwork is a lot better than most instruments in its class. SOUNDS For the money, this bass sounds fantastic. I can pull off different tones like Led Zeppelin, Jaco Pastorius, Red Hot Chili Peppers, all very convincingly with this instrument, so the tonal range is very versatile. I cannot think of a genre that couldn't be played with this bass, except genres demanding extreme extended ranges. For a four string instrument, this can get a wide range of sounds. OVERALL OPINION For the price, this Classic Vibe bass is a great buy. It looks fantastic, it plays great, and the tones that are achievable are vast. For any musician that wants to spend money and do some modifications to it, it can be improved upon to get it performing with the very high-end instruments. But for the cost, I give this a 9 out of a possible 10.

The Squier Vintage Modified Telecaster SSH version is one of the company's more recent offerings to branch out to players who are looking for an affordable yet still extremely well made and versatile instrument that has a wonderful palate of tones available. This particular guitar features many specs that confirm to a standard Tele style, but some other ones that deviate from it (IE: electronics). It has an Indian Red Cedar body (not a common tonewood per se, but it is becoming a lot more common on cheaper guitars.) a maple neck with 21 frets, sealed tuners, a standard Tele style bridge with six saddles and a pickup configuration of three Duncan Designed pickups. There is a mini humbucker at the neck, a typical Strat style single coil in the middle, and your hallmark Tele bridge pickup in the bridge position. This is coupled with standard volume and tone controls as well as a 5 way switch for some added verzatility in selecting different pickup combinations. UTILIZATION The Squier Vintage Modified Tele SSH isn't the most ergonomic guitar that I've come across by any means. My particular example was on the heavy side (extremely heavy for a Tele I thought) and the general shape of the guitar isn't the most contoured or whatnot like a Strat. However I don't mind these things if the guitar sounds good and feel right. The upper fret access is decent enough on this as with any Tele, but it's certainly not as good as some other guitars out there with things like contoured neck heels. Getting a good sound out of this guitar is very easy to do because of the myriad of different pickup combinations that are available. Each pickup in the guitar offers a different sort of sound or tonal characteristic and the fact that you can use the 5 way switch to combine certain pickups is a bonus as well. It takes well to many different styles and is quite versatile for a typical Squier guitar. SOUNDS This particular guitar, like most Teles, has very good dynamics and responds well to both clean and overdriven tones with great dynamics, articulation and a certain clarity that I wouldn't have expected from a cedar bodied guitar. Cedar isn't a wood that's commonly used for the building of electric guitars because of its softness and generally mellow tone, so the unplugged sound really isn't much to write home about. However the stock Seymour Duncan Designed pickups really shocked me with how pure and real they sounded. They all have an open and airy quality that brings to mind a nicely preserved vintage pickup. The mini humbucker is great for jazzier or bluesy tones, the middle Strat type single coil has a wonderful "quack" sound that gives a great tone ala cleaner Hendrix or Dire Straits, and the bridge pickup has that wonderfully thick and biting Telecaster tone that has been the hallmark of many country and rock records over the years. When the pickups are distorted they still retain a good clarity to them that allows the tone to stay clear and distinct without getting muddy, and still provide great even harmonics too. OVERALL OPINION All in all I think the Squier Vintage Modified SSH Tele is a wonderful guitar for anyone looking for a fairly priced, well made and versatile guitar. At about $350 new, this guitar is an excellent deal overall, and they can be had even cheaper used. The quality is a little more hit or miss on these guitars compared to the Classic Vibe models for some reason, but the one I owned played and felt really nice despite its heavier weight and somewhat dead acoustic tone.

-Made in Indonesia -Two Duncan Designed single coil jazz pick-ups -Three knobs (Bridge volume, neck volume, master tone) -Ebonol fingerboard with white celluloid fret lines -Thin jazz style neck with 9.5" radius -Available only in 3-color sunburst -No pick-guard -Standard 4 barrel Fender style bridge UTILIZATION The neck is very thin at the headstock end which makes this bass really comfortable for playing for prolonged periods. The build and set up of this bass when it arrived to make this a really enjoyable instrument to play. I don't really like the fingerboard on this bass, the ebonol definitely has a distinctly different feel and tone to wooden fingerboards. This bass is lighter than my Mexican made Fender so it's nice to play for longer without shoulder ache. I find the standard jazz bass set up of bridge pick-up volume, neck pick-up volume and master tone is a really good way to dial in a great tone and not too complicated either. SOUNDS I use this bass with both my Ashdown MAG300 combo and my Roland Bass Cube 30 combo and it sounds great with either. This bass definitely has a mid range growl to the sound which sounds great played with fingers or a plectrum. The tone pot on this bass has a nice range so can be used with great creative effect to provide some good tones. The bridge and neck pick-up volume knobs can also be used to sculpt the tone hugely. I plan on re-stringing this bass with flatwound strings soon as I believe it will suit the tone of the pick-ups better. OVERALL OPINION My favorite thing about this bass is the feel of the neck as it allows me to play fast comfortably. My least favorite thing about this bass is the fingerboard as it feels unnatural to use although I'm sure the material is helping contribute the the nice tone this instrument has. I think this is a good instrument for the price and makes a good first fretless bass to test the waters into fretless playing with. I'd prefer if there where more choices in colour and if there was a pick-guard but these factors don't matter a great deal to me.