NBD: Squier Paranormal Rascal Bass in CANDY APPLE RED!

[JC BASS 91]

Where did you get the pickguard?

Precision Guitar AZ on eBay

Really nice! First time for me to see a Rascal bass.

And..........you are a Jedi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes...I most certainly am.

This is me and my son a couple of years ago at a local con.

In addition to playing bass, I am also a total Star Wars geek. I build lightsabers and make costumes for my family.

 

[bassdude51]

Precision Guitar AZ on eBay



Yes...I most certainly am.

This is me and my son a couple of years ago at a local con.

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In addition to playing bass, I am also a total Star Wars geek. I build lightsabers and make costumes for my family.

WOW! Great photo!!!!!!!!!! And, you were not kidding. You are a Jedi! Great looking son! Great looking father!

This wonderful photo kind of over shadows your Rascal Bass!

Thank-you for sharing, JC BASS 91

 

[JC BASS 91]

WOW! Great photo!!!!!!!!!! And, you were not kidding. You are a Jedi! Great looking son! Great looking father!

This wonderful photo kind of over shadows your Rascal Bass!

Thank-you for sharing, JC BASS 91

For me and him, it has been a lot of years of doing it together. He's also a bass player! (Photo share incoming!)

He truly is my mini-me!!

 

[vanern]

NBD for me as well. Love the tone and love the finish. A white pearloid pick guard is in order. but only after I swap the rounds for a set of LaBella Deep Talking Flats.

 

[TDR1138]

CAR moved this from the “those are cool” to the “I want one” category.

NBD for me as well. Love the tone and love the finish. A white pearloid pick guard is in order. but only after I swap the rounds for a set of LaBella Deep Talking Flats.

Mrs. TDR1138 surprised me with one of these for Christmas.

Agree with the strings and the pickguard, though I might go for BWB on the latter.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

So, last year when this bass was released I played one at my local store. My wife was with me that day and I told her that I really liked the tone and playability and the design, but hated the green color. She looked it up then and saw that it also came in black and told me to order the black one. I really didn't want another black bass, but thought to myself, and expressed to her that if it came in Candy Apple Red, I would most likely pounce on it.

Months later, Fender's website had the exclusive Shell Pink version. I thought to myself that I could buy that, strip it and repaint in in CAR, and intended to do that once I got where I could do it financially.

I was on Fender's website last week and noticed they had the bass in CAR, now!!! I sent the link to my wife and said, "Of course they have it in candy apple red, now! When I have insurance due for my GTO and Christmas for the family to buy. Grrrr!"

Yes, I realize it isn't a bank breaker, and yeah, I could have bought it, but I try and keep my credit card balance at a very manageable level.

Anyway, my wife and I don't buy gifts for each other for birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's Day or anniversaries. We buy each other things throughout the year as 'just because I love you gifts" and I am off all this week for my birthday, which is Thursday. (I had time to burn and didn't want to be sitting at work as we are in a weird lull right now with not a lot to occupy us.)

I'm sitting here working on a Christmas gift for my oldest boy and there is a knock at the door, and my wife comes running into the room from the bedroom (she works from home) with a big grin on her face as I go to the door and there sits a guitar box.

I bring it, open it and there it is. The Candy Apple Red Rascal. This thing is freaking gorgeous! The color does NOT photograph even remotely well. I can't get the color in the pictures to show up like it is in person. I've tried different lighting and it just doesn't pop in the photos. Anyway, here is what she looks like...soft of.

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She's begging for a different pickguard, though. Really don't care for the stock one. As soon as the vendor has one, a white pearl pickguard will be ordered. I considered black pearl and tort as well, and even with my utter love for tort, I don't think this candy apple red will look good with a tort pickguard, but will absolutely POP with white pearl!

Still love the sounds this bass can do. Very different from anything else I have here. I have seen some people state that this is the "best Gibson bass you can buy". I will admit, it does have a kind of Gibson tone to it, like an EBO or SG bass. Really dig it, though!

Congrats! Nice bass great color..

 

[Hamrlik]

Damn. I have one of these (shell pink) on the way that I just ordered. I'll check that as soon as it arrives.

I figured I should provide an update on my Rascal. It arrived about 3 weeks ago. I'm really digging it. There are very minor cracks on either side of the neck pocket. Absolutely nothing I would go to the trouble of sending back. It's a $350 (at the time I bought it) instrument. Initial setup is totally decent. I'm going to swap strings and fine tune the action. No appreciable fret buzz or sharp edges. It sounds really good. I have to get used to playing a short scale as this my first. It looks excellent. I'm pleased overall.

 

[Seanmo]

Squier made it work, Fender didn't.

Squier does not exist. It hasn't since it was absorbed into Fender as a string company that predated Fender by nearly half a century. But that Squier never made guitars and ceased to exist in the 1960s when Fender bought them. Fender uses the "Squier" name on products that it has, over the years, had made in Mexico, California, Japan, South Korea, India, China and Indonesia. In fact the ONLY country that has made Squier guitars but never made Fender guitars is India. There is no separate Squier division. Fender designs every single Squier guitar and has samples of new guitars and basses sent to them by the overseas factories for prior approval before they go into production. Just like with the Indonesian and Chinese made Fenders. Fender learned its lesson from the failed Rascal, which was designed by Custom Shop dudes, FWIW, and produced the superior "Squier" Paranormal Rascal, which still suffers from being way too heavy with too large a body for a short scale bass. Fender should have fixed that with their "Squier"-branded Rascal and would have had a hit on their hands had they. With excessive neck dive and often weighing an embarrassing 10 pounds, it is another in a long line of "what if" near misses at Fender. And I say all this as a proud new owner of the Shell Pink version but also as someone who wishes they'd make a Classic Vibe Starcaster Bass and a short scale fretless bass.

 

[Verne Andru]

Squier does not exist. It hasn't since it was absorbed into Fender as a string company that predated Fender by nearly half a century. But that Squier never made guitars and ceased to exist in the 1960s when Fender bought them. Fender uses the "Squier" name on products that it has, over the years, had made in Mexico, California, Japan, South Korea, India, China and Indonesia. In fact the ONLY country that has made Squier guitars but never made Fender guitars is India. There is no separate Squier division. Fender designs every single Squier guitar and has samples of new guitars and basses sent to them by the overseas factories for prior approval before they go into production. Just like with the Indonesian and Chinese made Fenders. Fender learned its lesson from the failed Rascal, which was designed by Custom Shop dudes, FWIW, and produced the superior "Squier" Paranormal Rascal, which still suffers from being way too heavy with too large a body for a short scale bass. Fender should have fixed that with their "Squier"-branded Rascal and would have had a hit on their hands had they. With excessive neck dive and often weighing an embarrassing 10 pounds, it is another in a long line of "what if" near misses at Fender. And I say all this as a proud new owner of the Shell Pink version but also as someone who wishes they'd make a Classic Vibe Starcaster Bass and a short scale fretless bass.

Hmm, your thesis seems to be missing a few critical years, models and facts. Fender did, in fact, have a Japanese factory during at least the 70s and 80s producing the JV series. Those are high-end repros of vintage Fender guitars and highly sought after today. When the CBS buyout happened the only factory they got in the deal was in Japan. At that point all the extra US Fender inventory was shipped overseas that became the basis for a lot of Fender and Squier branded gear. Into the early 1990s the new Fender had a US plant up and running and moved the low end Squier stuff to Korea and later further afield so there's a lot more to the brand than your dissertation seems to indicate.

 

[RomanS]

Hmm, your thesis seems to be missing a few critical years, models and facts. Fender did, in fact, have a Japanese factory during at least the 70s and 80s producing the JV series. Those are high-end repros of vintage Fender guitars and highly sought after today. When the CBS buyout happened the only factory they got in the deal was in Japan. At that point all the extra US Fender inventory was shipped overseas that became the basis for a lot of Fender and Squier branded gear. Into the early 1990s the new Fender had a US plant up and running and moved the low end Squier stuff to Korea and later further afield so there's a lot more to the brand than your dissertation seems to indicate.

None of this is correct! Fender does (and did) not own a factory in Japan - the 80s Squier JVs (as well as MiJ Fender models) were built under license by FujigenGakki (and on occasion, other factories).
After the management buy-out of Fender FROM CBS (NOT the sale of the company from Leo TO CBS), indeed they needed some time to get manufacturing up and running, so for a while, the ony new Fenders available were Japanese (but again, made by FujigenGakki, not in a Fender-owned factory).

Fender Japan

During the late ‘70s, Fender saw its business increasingly affected by the countless copies of its instruments manufactured in Japan. So, Fender decided to make instruments made in Japan.

www.fuzzfaced.net

 

[Verne Andru]

None of this is correct! Fender does (and did) not own a factory in Japan - the 80s Squier JVs (as well as MiJ Fender models) were built under license by FujigenGakki (and on occasion, other factories).
After the management buy-out of Fender FROM CBS (NOT the sale of the company from Leo TO CBS), indeed they needed some time to get manufacturing up and running, so for a while, the ony new Fenders available were Japanese (but again, made by FujigenGakki, not in a Fender-owned factory).

Fender Japan

During the late ‘70s, Fender saw its business increasingly affected by the countless copies of its instruments manufactured in Japan. So, Fender decided to make instruments made in Japan.

www.fuzzfaced.net

Fender Japan, Ltd. was a joint venture between Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Kanda Shokai (神田商会), Yamano Gakki (山野楽器) and Fujigen Gakki to produce and sell Fender-branded instruments for the Japanese market. The collaboration began in 1982 and ended on March 31, 2015, with Fender's launch of Fender Music Corporation (Japan) taking over the Japanese business effective April 1, 2015 with a Fender-manufactured product line. The Japanese-made Fender guitars sold by Fender Music Corporation (Japan) have since been categorized as the "Japan Exclusive" series.​

Fender Japan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[RomanS]

Exactly what I said - Fender collaborated with FujigenGakki, using the latter's factory, to produce Fender Japan Instruments. They never had their own factory there.

 

[Anjohl]

Review-wise, I'm not seeing many complaints. One I saw hated the selector switch and they traded it out with a blend knob and were a lot happier with that. The switch works fine for me, so I'm good. It just sounds so different than any other bass Fender/Squier makes.

I had been sniffing around the EB-3/Tele Bass parts of town, including a foray into one of each, neither of which took. The Rascal is perfect. It's like an EB-3 with some Tele Bass spice, and a dash of MM Stingray! I think a blend knob would *ruin* it, as the three tones all sound very different, and are quickly accessible. I normally *vastly* prefer independent volume knobs on multi-pickup basses, but I think on the Rascal, the switch is clutch.

I'm normally a finger style player, but let me tell you, with a pick, this bass REALLY sounds incredible! I told my wife that I might play this bass mostly with a pick because of just how great it sounds with one!

It comes to life with a pick! I played some ZZ Top on it, and that sealed the deal!