New Bass Day with a twist

[Wicked G]

There's a reason why I say there is a twist. This story will change in a bit.

So I originally purchased a Sire M6 in Sand Blasted Black about two weeks. I had read before about how Sire has great QC and they are better than basses that cost more, you know, you've read it all before as well. So when I saw that Sire had released a headless multi scale bass in a beautiful sand blasted black finish, I was in.

As you can see by the pictures it's a really nice looking bass and the gig bag is one of the best I have ever seen. Really nice. As I plug in about to play is when I start to notice things. There are pieces of wood glued on one of the horns and lower bout like it was put together like a jig saw puzzle . The horn has about a one inch piece of wood glued on and the bout has about a 6 or 7 inch piece. Extremely noticeable on a sand blasted bass. Pictures coming up.

That was one turn off, now on to the second. The tuners are ridiculously hard to turn no joke. You actually need an allen wrench to turn them. I almost lost the allen wrench at a show so the next time I tried to tune it up, this is going to be embarrassing to say, I strained so hard turning the tuners with my right hand while looking left at my tuner that I actually strained a muscle in my neck .

That bothered me for about 3 days. I've never been injured by a bass before much less by just tuning it up. Unbelievable. That was pretty much the final straw. It sounded ok, not great and I knew I wasn't going to be using it much even if I got new tuners from Sire. I've got way better sounding basses so what was the point in keeping it? Here is where the twist part comes in: so back it went and I decided to get something better from a company I already know and trust which is either EBMM, Fender, Spector or LTD.

I had seen really incredible prices on Reverb for these basses and they have received very good reviews so I decided to give one a try even though I do find the body shape a bit odd. I submitted and offer on Reverb and it was accepted. I literally cannot believe my offer was accepted and I got beast of an American made bass way lower than I have seen them advertised. A Fender American Ultra II Meteora in Solar Flare.

Now this thing just screams quality. It feels quite light, there is no neck dive even with the crazy body shape and short horn, the neck feels awesome and fast, super comfortable to play, very low action, spot on intonation, gorgeous sound passive and active, beautiful sturdy case and the tuners did not injure me. Kinda funny to say that but it seems to be an important thing in buying a bass now, at least for me lol.

So far I have been using it with the tone control wide open, mid selector switch at 750 and a very slight bass boost in active and it sounds so sweet. I'm actually very happy now that the Sire was such a let down or I wouldn't have been able to buy this magnificent bass. I'm enjoying it so much I'm kind of thinking about putting in another low ball off on another Meteora in Texas Tea and see what happens .

That's my story. Thank you for reading.

 

[Bassic_desires]

Gorgeous bass

 

[el murdoque]

To my untrained eye, it looks like it's a multi piece body on which they chose poorly where to cut it.
Multi piece bodies and sandblasted finishes are hard to get to work in a pleasing way. The reason for the sandblasting is pure eye candy, to make the grain pop more, and when you glue two pieces together, the line where the two different grains meet pops out, too.

Here's a picture of the five string version from the Thomann website:

...where the line immediately pops out (at least to me).
However, it seems not all of them are multi piece in a bad way.
The four string on the Thomann website looks awesome:

...seems like with these, you'll play the wood-lottery and hope for the best.
Do you know if yours was the first issue with the old tuners or the updated version? I think I remember that the BassTheWorld guy on YT tested the bass and complained about the tuners and Sire apparently changed the design to something better.

 

[jimmydean]

I bought a headless Sire a couple of months ago and it was impossible to turn the tuners . I called Sweetwater and was told to contact Sire and they would send me the new tuners that you can grip . I returned the bass , but I would not sell that bass without changing to the new tuners .

 

[mikecd1]

There is a section in the Ibanez EHB headless thread about putting on thrust bearings to alleviate problems turning tuners. You'll see the thrust washer is a sandwich with two channeled washers with a ball bearing insert. The bearings make moving the tuner much easier. I had them for the Ibanez and if you measured the hole in your tuner washer and the outside diameter I think you could find thrust bearing to make the tuners much easier. The Ibanez has a hole size of 4mm and the washer a diameter of 10 mm so they used a 4x10x4mm thrust bearing to fix the tuner problem. The Sire tuners must have a washer in there somewhere and replacing with a ball bearing thrust washer should help. Hope this info helps someone.

Hello everyone, this is my first post on TB !

I just wanted to share my experience on these two previously discusted mods :

1. Replacing nylon washers with thrust bearings

View attachment 7164856

This is a common mod on Steinberger headless basses.
I used ZEN BA4 bearings (inner diam. : 4 mm, outer diam. : 10 mm, thickness : 4 mm)
Tuning is now much smoother but still stable.

Note : a thrust bearing contains a shaft washer and a housing washer.
You can ditch the shaft washer to avoid shortening the effective length of the tuning screw.
The housing washer has a slightly larger inner hole than the shaft washer, don't mix them up.
View attachment 7164859

2. Using CA glue, cotton thread and heat shrink tubing to install flatwound strings

View attachment 7164857

Since I didn't want to ruin a set of my favourite strings (GHS precision flats 45-95), I used a combination of methods mentioned on this thread.

E and A strings :
- soak the tip with liquid CA glue
- install heat shrink tubing
D and G strings, due to the thinness of these strings the tubing didn't "grab" enough :
- soak the tip with CA glue
- wind a cotton thread, firmly and tightly, while the CA glue is still wet
- install heat shrink tubing

Note : CA glue may fail at temperatures above 80°C, don't heat the tubing forever.

I hope this will be useful !

Edit : spelling

 

[Giffro]

There's a reason why I say there is a twist. This story will change in a bit.

So I originally purchased a Sire M6 in Sand Blasted Black about two weeks. I had read before about how Sire has great QC and they are better than basses that cost more, you know, you've read it all before as well. So when I saw that Sire had released a headless multi scale bass in a beautiful sand blasted black finish, I was in.
View attachment 7527132View attachment 7527133View attachment 7527134View attachment 7527135View attachment 7527136

As you can see by the pictures it's a really nice looking bass and the gig bag is one of the best I have ever seen. Really nice. As I plug in about to play is when I start to notice things. There are pieces of wood glued on one of the horns and lower bout like it was put together like a jig saw puzzle . The horn has about a one inch piece of wood glued on and the bout has about a 6 or 7 inch piece. Extremely noticeable on a sand blasted bass. Pictures coming up.

View attachment 7527153View attachment 7527155

That was one turn off, now on to the second. The tuners are ridiculously hard to turn no joke. You actually need an allen wrench to turn them. I almost lost the allen wrench at a show so the next time I tried to tune it up, this is going to be embarrassing to say, I strained so hard turning the tuners with my right hand while looking left at my tuner that I actually strained a muscle in my neck .

That bothered me for about 3 days. I've never been injured by a bass before much less by just tuning it up. Unbelievable. That was pretty much the final straw. It sounded ok, not great and I knew I wasn't going to be using it much even if I got new tuners from Sire. I've got way better sounding basses so what was the point in keeping it? Here is where the twist part comes in: so back it went and I decided to get something better from a company I already know and trust which is either EBMM, Fender, Spector or LTD.

I had seen really incredible prices on Reverb for these basses and they have received very good reviews so I decided to give one a try even though I do find the body shape a bit odd. I submitted and offer on Reverb and it was accepted. I literally cannot believe my offer was accepted and I got beast of an American made bass way lower than I have seen them advertised. A Fender American Ultra II Meteora in Solar Flare.

View attachment 7527160View attachment 7527161View attachment 7527162View attachment 7527163View attachment 7527164View attachment 7527165

Now this thing just screams quality. It feels quite light, there is no neck dive even with the crazy body shape and short horn, the neck feels awesome and fast, super comfortable to play, very low action, spot on intonation, gorgeous sound passive and active, beautiful sturdy case and the tuners did not injure me. Kinda funny to say that but it seems to be an important thing in buying a bass now, at least for me lol.

So far I have been using it with the tone control wide open, mid selector switch at 750 and a very slight bass boost in active and it sounds so sweet. I'm actually very happy now that the Sire was such a let down or I wouldn't have been able to buy this magnificent bass. I'm enjoying it so much I'm kind of thinking about putting in another low ball off on another Meteora in Texas Tea and see what happens .

That's my story. Thank you for reading.

I couldnt help but laugh when you said you turned the tuner so hard you threw out a neck muscle...sorry lol
It reminded me of how my boots tried to kill me in 1975 when on-stage doing a Kiss song.
I was about 25 and a bricklayer at the time with an already bad back. I had not long purchased a (blue) Rickenbacker 4000 bass and was using it this night at the gig. The stage was about 4 foot high and I was dressed in my bell-bottomed pants (pic shows the blue and white "uniform" at the time) and was wearing very high heeled platform shoes (boots) that I had painted blue and white with a colour change liquid dye. They looked great and matched the Ric bass colourwise.
I was pounding away during the Kiss song Rock n Roll All Night stomping my foot so hard the boot heel snapped and sent me over the side-edge of the stage. Mid-flight all I think of was "PROTECT THE RIC" ... It's the only thought i had time for when I hit the floor and landed on my back with the Ric pressed hard against my front. It was truly amazing that I didnt hurt myself at all and after a few seconds realizing this I laid there and continued to play the song. Not sure how many notes I missed but It's truly astounding how well the human body can withstand some falls without serious injury.
So there I am flat on my back finishing the Kiss song on my new Ric 4000 and then clambered back onto the stage. The crowd thought it was part of the show and gave me a hearty round of applause. Needless to say I was very sore when I got home after the gig...but the bass was still in perfect condition thankfully. It would have been a different story had I fallen face first and landing on top of the Ric. Possibly 2 broken necks lol
Pic supplied of me and the bass mid 70's but a diff gig. True story and my old band mates from that era still remind me of it loll

 

[Wicked G]

To my untrained eye, it looks like it's a multi piece body on which they chose poorly where to cut it.
Multi piece bodies and sandblasted finishes are hard to get to work in a pleasing way. The reason for the sandblasting is pure eye candy, to make the grain pop more, and when you glue two pieces together, the line where the two different grains meet pops out, too.

Here's a picture of the five string version from the Thomann website:

...where the line immediately pops out (at least to me).
However, it seems not all of them are multi piece in a bad way.
The four string on the Thomann website looks awesome:

...seems like with these, you'll play the wood-lottery and hope for the best.
Do you know if yours was the first issue with the old tuners or the updated version? I think I remember that the BassTheWorld guy on YT tested the bass and complained about the tuners and Sire apparently changed the design to something better.

Yes that one looks very nice. Mine looked pretty nice also until you begin to inspect it further. But the jigsaw puzzle look, meh tone and evil tuners was too much. The Meteora on the other hand is pure perfection.

I think the Sire was the first issue because it had the smooth diamond shaped tuners. That wasn't the issue though because I could grip it. It was an internal problem making it impossible to turn without an Allen wrench. Still SMH.

 

[Wicked G]

I couldnt help but laugh when you said you turned the tuner so hard you threw out a neck muscle...sorry lol
It reminded me of how my boots tried to kill me in 1975 when on-stage doing a Kiss song.
I was about 25 and a bricklayer at the time with an already bad back. I had not long purchased a (blue) Rickenbacker 4000 bass and was using it this night at the gig. The stage was about 4 foot high and I was dressed in my bell-bottomed pants (pic shows the blue and white "uniform" at the time) and was wearing very high heeled platform shoes (boots) that I had painted blue and white with a colour change liquid dye. They looked great and matched the Ric bass colourwise.
I was pounding away during the Kiss song Rock n Roll All Night stomping my foot so hard the boot heel snapped and sent me over the side-edge of the stage. Mid-flight all I think of was "PROTECT THE RIC" ... It's the only thought i had time for when I hit the floor and landed on my back with the Ric pressed hard against my front. It was truly amazing that I didnt hurt myself at all and after a few seconds realizing this I laid there and continued to play the song. Not sure how many notes I missed but It's truly astounding how well the human body can withstand some falls without serious injury.
So there I am flat on my back finishing the Kiss song on my new Ric 4000 and then clambered back onto the stage. The crowd thought it was part of the show and gave me a hearty round of applause. Needless to say I was very sore when I got home after the gig...but the bass was still in perfect condition thankfully. It would have been a different story had I fallen face first and landing on top of the Ric. Possibly 2 broken necks lol
Pic supplied of me and the bass mid 70's but a diff gig. True story and my old band mates from that era still remind me of it loll

View attachment 7527342

I don't blame you for laughing. I was embarrassed to post that but it is a true story. I want everyone to know just how ridiculously hard it is to tune that bass. I'm glad you saved your Ric and yourself.

 

[el murdoque]

Yes that one looks very nice. Mine looked pretty nice also until you begin to inspect it further. But the jigsaw puzzle look, meh tone and evil tuners was too much. The Meteora on the other hand is pure perfection.

I think the Sire was the first issue because it had the smooth diamond shaped tuners. That wasn't the issue though because I could grip it. It was an internal problem making it impossible to turn without an Allen wrench. Still SMH.

Glad you found that Meteora! Was it the same ballpark, price-wise?

 

[Wicked G]

Glad you found that Meteora! Was it the same ballpark, price-wise?

Oh no. The Sire ran me about $979 while the Meteora runs around $2400. However I got the Meteora for way less on Reverb. I think it was an overstock or something. So I only had to pay a few hundred dollars more with my low ball offer. I don't really want to post the price here, but I will gladly tell you if you want to PM me.

I still find it hard to believe it was accepted. Honestly it's worth the $2400. I would easily put it right up there with my EBMM Stingray Special HH's.

While the price difference is huge and not a fair fight, I didn't find the Sire to be worth it's $979 price.

 

[brushfirewolf]

Glad to hear the twist wasn't in the neck of the bass

 

[Wicked G]

Glad to hear the twist wasn't in the neck of the bass

Lol, no the neck was fine. Actually the neck was one of the things I really liked about it. It was pretty thin and easy to play. BTW I have read about the nut hurting some people playing at the first fret. I didn't have that issue at all.

 

[wboyd68]

Congratulations. The Ultra IIs are very nice. I got an Ultra II Precision about a year ago and find it hard now to touch my other basses.

 

[OldShark]

I want everyone to know just how ridiculously hard it is to tune that bass.

Well, I had thought at least it would be easy to tune the lowest string on a M6 – just press the instrument on the floor and then turn it around, thereby rotating the tuner...

 

[Dincrest]

It can sometimes be easy to get swept up by hype (especially on TalkBass) so I always prefer to try any bass I can in a brick 'n mortar store. Sometimes the thing that gets hyped up just isn't worth it to me.

Dunlop SuperBrights are some of the most lauded strings on TalkBass, so I bought a set and gave them a shot. Some of the worst strings I've ever used. I tried giving Dunlop a second chance with the Hybrid Nickel strings, and though those felt good, they sounded timid and died quick.

And sometimes a bass that's meh on TalkBass is a winner in the real world. For example, most TBers are lukewarm on the Schecter Stiletto Studio bass, yet over the decades I've seen several of those in the wild (4, 5, and 6-string) among gigging/working bassists. So it goes to show that what's valued in our little clubhouse may not translate to what's happening in the real world.

And it looks like the Meteora (that's usually slept on) was a winner for you whereas the hyped up Sire wasn't.

 

[Wicked G]

Well, I had thought at least it would be easy to tune the lowest string on a M6 – just press the instrument on the floor and then turn it around, thereby rotating the tuner...

Lol. Yeah I don't think that would work too well. They are so hard you'll probably just scrape up the floor with the E string tuner.

 

[MrVentures]

Glad to hear the twist wasn't in the neck of the bass

I was actually hoping for a story about a Torzal Twist, but glad the OP ended up happy!

 

[Wicked G]

It can sometimes be easy to get swept up by hype (especially on TalkBass) so I always prefer to try any bass I can in a brick 'n mortar store. Sometimes the thing that gets hyped up just isn't worth it to me.

Dunlop SuperBrights are some of the most lauded strings on TalkBass, so I bought a set and gave them a shot. Some of the worst strings I've ever used. I tried giving Dunlop a second chance with the Hybrid Nickel strings, and though those felt good, they sounded timid and died quick.

And sometimes a bass that's meh on TalkBass is a winner in the real world. For example, most TBers are lukewarm on the Schecter Stiletto Studio bass, yet over the decades I've seen several of those in the wild (4, 5, and 6-string) among gigging/working bassists. So it goes to show that what's valued in our little clubhouse may not translate to what's happening in the real world.

And it looks like the Meteora (that's usually slept on) was a winner for you whereas the hyped up Sire wasn't.

Oh yeah I hear you. I've tried TI Jazz Flats before, due to the hype, on several basses and I am definitely not a Flats person. Give me rounds where I can hear the string windings any day.

I think the Meteora has two things going against it here on TB. One is it's a Fender and there is a pretty vocal "I hate 7ender" crowd. And second if it doesn't look like a P or Jazz bass many will disregard it. I guess we can also throw in a third in that I've read people on here saying that it probably has a ton of neck dive due to the horn not reaching the 12th fret. They are 100% wrong. I can let go of the bass and it ain't moving plus it looks heavy although it is very light.

 

[Wicked G]

Congratulations. The Ultra IIs are very nice. I got an Ultra II Precision about a year ago and find it hard now to touch my other basses.

I played an Ultra II P Bass awhile back in Ultraburst. That was a very pretty finish. Much nicer looking in person than on pictures.

 

[Iridescentone]

Looks like one of those "luthiers joints" as found on lots of cheap bass necks. Evidently Sire decided it's okay to use that wood-saving construction technique on the body too! lol

C'mon Sire, at least cheap out some place where it doesn't show as much.