Fender Player Meteora Bass

[Git]

I have a Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas V and these seem to be a similar range, that is, Fender MIM but with better hardware. One thing I don't like about my Charvel is the neck dive, which could have been helped with improved tuners. Just like with the Charvel, On the Meteora, Fender included a posh bridge, a pre amp, flash colours, rolled fretboard edges...but still skimp on the tuners!

I get why there is no passive tone control, its an active bass, to be played active, until your battery goes mid-gig and then you just flick a switch and the bass works again, albeit with a dip in volume.

Anyway, 17 pages of posts but no real review yet, I'm hoping we'll get a review from an owner soon.

 

[thornshadow99]

My Meteora is heading back to Fender HQ. Ten days after arrival, I get the refund. I’m going back to the Mod Shop, now that I have found more info about the Mod Shop pickups on order.

 

[defdog99]

I saw the blue one in person and it looked awesome. And it must have barely weighed 9.

The body is dainty. I mean it looks like a huge surfboard in photos but its prolly smaller than a pbass body?

Its tempting as I have a 20% coupon too. $958 before tax.

 

[Snakeman1066]

Guess what happened!?

 

[marchone]

Guess what happened!?

View attachment 4654706

Please post your impressions, good and bad. Particularly when playing it in passive mode.

Which I really don’t understand. Aren’t the pickups active? How does it work without a battery?

 

[deepestend]

The pickups are passive. It has a preamp.

Please post your impressions, good and bad. Particularly when playing it in passive mode.

Which I really don’t understand. Aren’t the pickups active? How does it work without a battery?

 

[Snakeman1066]

Please post your impressions, good and bad. Particularly when playing it in passive mode.

Which I really don’t understand. Aren’t the pickups active? How does it work without a battery?

I literally have only had it for a few hours...Fed-Ex just dropped it off

The fit an finish are actually quite nice...It seems Fender (Mexico) is stepping it up in the QC department as of late...the neck is impeccably dressed...the rolled edges are very nice...the frets were finished quite well...no sharp edges at all...there is some very nice figuring in the maple used on the fret-board...I would have preferred a 9.5" or 10" radius (personal preference) but the 12" doesn't feel all that bad in my hand...the matte finish on the back is smooth and not sticky at all...the burst finish is also very well done

Surprisingly it was in tune and intonated perfectly out of the box...I had to lower the action just a tiny bit to my personal preference...but it wasn't bad to start with...1 fret was a tad high...easily fixed (best neck set up that I have personally encountered on a MIM instrument ever) It came from Sweetwater for those that care...

I actually prefer the Fireballs in passive mode they are quite "Fat" sounding and can be fine tuned in active mode (I dig the panning switch)...I found the Highs to be a bit Shrill in active mode but the low end and mids are nice...they are very hot pickups in active mode and have to be tamed as they really overloaded the input to the point of distorting...i wouldn't want to use them without a pad...though my fuzz and overdrive seemed to like them in active mode...I read a lot of whining about not having tone control in passive mode...but hey that's what an amp or eq is for and honestly they pickups are voiced well enough I didn't miss the tone control at all, but it would still have been nice to be able to have it and my fingertip if needed as an option

I used both a Kliq Air Cell 3" strap and a 4" Neotech Mega Bass Strap and to my surprise there is NO neck dive to speak of!!!

according to the serial number it came off the line in early March and is one of the first 70 off the line...

Haven't tried it in a band setting yet...will do that this weekend...

all I can say for now

overall I'm quite pleased...even more so as it was a anniversary gift from the Mrs...

 

[marchone]

I actually prefer the Fireballs in passive mode they are quite "Fat" sounding and can be fine tuned in active mode (I dig the panning switch)...I found the Highs to be a bit Shrill in active mode but the low end and mids are nice...they are very hot pickups in active mode and have to be tamed as they really overloaded the input to the point of distorting...i wouldn't want to use them without a pad...though my fuzz and overdrive seemed to like them in active mode...I read a lot of whining about not having tone control in passive mode...but hey that's what an amp or eq is for and honestly they pickups are voiced well enough I didn't miss the tone control at all, but it would still have been nice to be able to have it and my fingertip if needed as an option.

Thanks for that. It's all clear now.

I wouldn't want to use them without a pad.

What do you mean by "pad"?

 

[Git]

What do you mean by "pad"?

Some amps have a button that reduces the input gain, to be used when playing an active bass through the amp.
Most basses are passive and I think amp manufacturers assume most basses played through their kit will be passive but should you want to use an active bass and don't want to clip too early, the pad button is there.
You can always just turn down the input gain of course.

 

[Snakeman1066]

Thanks for that. It's all clear now.



What do you mean by "pad"?

Lol...you asked...it was a long day...so hey the pickups sound nice in both passive and active modes; however the highs in active mode are shrill imho...no tone control in passive but it would have been nice to have it for the sake of having it...


“PAD” stands for Passive Attenuation Device. The circuitry in the amp may overload if the incoming signal from the pre-amp is too strong, causing audio signal distortion. Pads reduce signal levels before the active amplification process in order to avoid overloading or clipping the amp circuitry.

Also I forgot...mine weighs in @ right about 10 Lbs...

 

[Ricky Rioli]

Also I forgot...mine weighs in @ right about 10 Lbs.

MARKET: what we really really want is for basses to be 9lbs maximum, aim for 8lbs 8, yeah?

FENDER: In-ter-rest-ting. Hmmm. Anyway, here's the Meteora!

 

[LowNloud1]

I just ordered one. Opal sparkle with Pao Ferro fretboard. I was leaning towards the maple neck but the Pao Ferro sounded better to me. It might just replace my MIJ Jaguar Deluxe II! It sounded great either passive or active!

 

[Nookster]

I've had mine for a while now in the Opal blue. My son was over the other day and noticed it right away in my rack with 7 others and pulled it out and raved about how good it looked. I saw that "Bully" on YouTube did another review which is really good. In my previous post I talked about getting one from Fender that was banged up and they send me a new one within days. As a matter of fact they sent the new one before they got the one I sent back, which surprised the hell out of me. The factory setup was good on mine and I just lowered the strings a tad. I really like everything about it and as far as a passive control, I bought it to play in active mode so it's a non issue for me. According to my perfectly calibrated 10 year old bathroom scale, mine weights 9.4lbs. Over all a beautiful and unique bass that has it's own sound.

 

[Vic]

We just got one in for review. I'll be writing it up soon.

 

[mbell75]

Saw this today on Reverb:

View attachment 4613430

What do you think?

Make it passive and short scale and Id be all over it!

 

[thornshadow99]

We just got one in for review. I'll be writing it up soon.

It would be interesting to know why Fender did not include the passive tone controls on the Meteora.

 

[marchone]

Lol...you asked...it was a long day...so hey the pickups sound nice in both passive and active modes; however the highs in active mode are shrill imho...no tone control in passive but it would have been nice to have it for the sake of having it...


“PAD” stands for Passive Attenuation Device. The circuitry in the amp may overload if the incoming signal from the pre-amp is too strong, causing audio signal distortion. Pads reduce signal levels before the active amplification process in order to avoid overloading or clipping the amp circuitry.

Also I forgot...mine weighs in @ right about 10 Lbs...

Thanks for that explanation. It has killer looks and sounds great in the demos.

But … 10 pounds? That was almost the original weight of my slab-sided Telecaster. It lost a couple/three ounces due to drying over 50-odd years. Not much.

 

[Vic]

It would be interesting to know why Fender did not include the passive tone controls on the Meteora.

i agree. i've been dinging them on passive tone control topics for a while now... even back to the elite jv where the passive tone control is there, but only works in passive mode. there's no reason why it can't just always be there like in... well... pretty much everybody else's implementations i can think of, honestly.

since this bass doesn't have one at all, however, my guess is the earlier poster is correct. passive mode is pretty strictly for short term survival, not really to be used as a normal mode of playing.

 

[marchone]

i agree. i've been dinging them on passive tone control topics for a while now... even back to the elite jv where the passive tone control is there, but only works in passive mode. there's no reason why it can't just always be there like in... well... pretty much everybody else's implementations i can think of, honestly.

since this bass doesn't have one at all, however, my guess is the earlier poster is correct. passive mode is pretty strictly for short term survival, not really to be used as a normal mode of playing.

I shouldn’t like this because that is bad news.

 

[sleddogn]

+1 for wish it was passive and either 32 or 30 inch scale...