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mooseherman
Published on 11/29/10 at 11:33
This is a Mexican made Squier guitar. Squier is made by Fender, and generally is their discount models. This is based off of a Vintage Jazz Bass. However, it's not the same quality as the actual vintage ones (Fender doesn't really make many guitars of the same quality, and if they do, they're painfully expensive). There are 3 knobs (one for each pickup, neck and bridge, and then a master tone knob). As the bass has two knobs for each pickup, there is no selection. The bass has a maple body with a maple neck and fingerboard as well. There are 20 frets and a Standard Fender Jazz bridge. Overall it's a standard bass.
UTILIZATION
It's pretty easy to play this bass, as it doesn't have any major flaws. It's not the smoothest playing bass in the world, but it could be much worse. It's a reasonably heavy bass but it's not going to hurt your back as much as a thick vintage P-bass potentially would. Getting a good sound out of it is pretty tricky unless you change the pickups.
SOUNDS
As I said in the last paragraph, I don't think this bass sounds particularly good. However, the trick with Squiers in general is basically to gut them and get new pickups and wiring. The main reason that Squiers are so much cheaper than their Fender counterparts is that the pickups and wiring are worse. Therefore, a simple rewiring and installing new pickups will solve that problem. They probably still won't be as finely tuned or set up as nice as a real Jazz Bass but you can have that fixed as well. This makes this option far cheaper than buying a vintage bass. Therefore, while this bass doesn't sound that good on its own, it does have the potential to sound good. It can sound thick, warm, and smooth like a traditional Fender Jazz bass if you install the right pickup. Otherwise, it's more dead and flat-sounding.
OVERALL OPINION
I like the price of this bass the best. I don't like the fact that you have to do a lot of work on it to get it to sound good, but that's a fair trade. It just depends on whether you have the time or the inclination to get the right kind of sound for it. Having a good idea about what kind of pickups to install in it would help too. I've played many other kinds of Jazz basses, most of them better than this one, but this one is still good.
UTILIZATION
It's pretty easy to play this bass, as it doesn't have any major flaws. It's not the smoothest playing bass in the world, but it could be much worse. It's a reasonably heavy bass but it's not going to hurt your back as much as a thick vintage P-bass potentially would. Getting a good sound out of it is pretty tricky unless you change the pickups.
SOUNDS
As I said in the last paragraph, I don't think this bass sounds particularly good. However, the trick with Squiers in general is basically to gut them and get new pickups and wiring. The main reason that Squiers are so much cheaper than their Fender counterparts is that the pickups and wiring are worse. Therefore, a simple rewiring and installing new pickups will solve that problem. They probably still won't be as finely tuned or set up as nice as a real Jazz Bass but you can have that fixed as well. This makes this option far cheaper than buying a vintage bass. Therefore, while this bass doesn't sound that good on its own, it does have the potential to sound good. It can sound thick, warm, and smooth like a traditional Fender Jazz bass if you install the right pickup. Otherwise, it's more dead and flat-sounding.
OVERALL OPINION
I like the price of this bass the best. I don't like the fact that you have to do a lot of work on it to get it to sound good, but that's a fair trade. It just depends on whether you have the time or the inclination to get the right kind of sound for it. Having a good idea about what kind of pickups to install in it would help too. I've played many other kinds of Jazz basses, most of them better than this one, but this one is still good.