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Squier Classic Vibe Series,on website

#161
GlennW said:
That's some beautiful work. You (I think it's you) also have the prettiest JT-401 I've seen.

Which bass do you prefer soundwise.? I'm curious about scpb pickups...I doubt if the CV uses the same pickup as the MIJ RI, but I really don't know (not to imply having the RI pickup is a plus). I prefered the Turser pickup to the RI, and was wondering how the CV compared.

I just put a SD SCPB-3 in a bass with DT760FM's and I'm 100% pleased.
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GlennW,
Thanks for the compliment...I do own that bass (JT-401) and It also is fantastic. I have to say I haven't compared them side to side but I can tell you they both sound fantastic. I really haven't had that much time with the Squier yet because I have only owned it a short time and I immediately tore into it to do the neck work. Also, I made a new thumbrest and painted it Lake Placid Blue. That said, I am going to compare them and I will report my findings. In the meantime have you seen this.....
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#163
lostrings said:
Also, I made a new thumbrest and painted it Lake Placid Blue. That said, I am going to compare them and I will report my findings.
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I like the blue thumbrest, nice touch.

Thanks for the YouTube link...I think I've seen it, but I'm not sure. One thing's for sure, after seeing that section comparing the scpb basses I'm an even more firm believer that body woods and string-through bridges don't make a huge difference in tone. On most of those clips I prefered the sound of the Squires.
 
#164
GlennW said:
I like the blue thumbrest, nice touch.

Thanks for the YouTube link...I think I've seen it, but I'm not sure. One thing's for sure, after seeing that section comparing the scpb basses I'm an even more firm believer that body woods and string-through bridges don't make a huge difference in tone. On most of those clips I prefered the sound of the Squires.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have to agree with your findings...There is a slight difference but not enough to justify spending a ton more money...
 
#165
funkbass88 said:
I just got the CV jazz sunday night. Finally got the chance to play it for real today. The neck on it is very nice. The profile is pretty close to my American Jazz. The lacquer has a nice feel to it. It plays smoother than my VM fretless jazz. The pickups are quiet...no noticeable hum. It also has great sustain with that HiMass bridge.

I work at a music store and get to A/B a lot of basses. I thought Squier outdid themselves with the VM series but the new CV stuff kicked it up another step.
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I just got the CV jazz at GC today for 269+tax. I too like it better than the VM, . The tone is what I like better but the VM did seem to be a little better for slap I dont know, I plan on replacing the pickguard and putting in some New PUs maybe Nordstrands.Maybe new tuning machiines down the line as well. Maybe scuff up the neck too its seems too sticky for me.
 
#166
I give lessons to a friend's son - a 12 year old boy. When I first agreed to give him lessons a year ago it was clear that he needed a short-scale bass - so we scored him a Guild that worked out nicely for him.

Well at our lesson last week I was looking at his hand position as he was playing and started wondering what the hell was going wrong... He looked really awkward. Then I realized he was just about looking me eye to eye - the dude grew a LOT in the last year. So when his dad showed up to pick him up I let him know that we needed to go shopping.

Long story short - I had him try a LOT of basses just to see if any of them 'spoke to him'. I didn't want to impose my preferences on him - I was just going to make sure the bass he got wasn't a mistake.

We tried regular Squiers (P and J), some used Ibanez (even an ATK, that I sort of liked...), even a BC Rich - and the Classic Vibe Squier Jazz. the CV Jazz was head and shoulders better than the others in feel, look (subjective, I know) and sound! The pickups were whisper quiet and dialed in all that great Jazz tone! Fat neck, burpy bridge - everything in between. Each of the other instruments had a sort of "specific to the model sound" - but the Jazz covered the spectrum - subtle and subdued to gritty and aggressive.

We left with a CV Jazz - white (shockingly white - too white for my tastes, but Alex liked it) with tortoise shell PG and a Fender Rumble 60.

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Man, I LOVE shopping with other people's money!
 
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#169
TrevorNorton said:
i didnt play one plugged in but the neck was horrible, all sticky and could move around to much on all of them. a big thumbs down for me
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Bummer - the one we played was in fine shape. The neck was solid, great action for being off the rack - the pickups were quiet and sounded great...

Must be inconsistent across the model, though if you found a bunch in such bad shape. That's too bad.

What you describe is what I found the rest of the 'regular' Squiers to be - generally in need of lots of tweaking and filled with little things that would make me keep looking.
 
#171
tZer said:
We tried regular Squiers (P and J), some used Ibanez (even an ATK, that I sort of liked...), even a BC Rich - and the Classic Vibe Squier Jazz. the CV Jazz was head and shoulders better than the others in feel, look (subjective, I know) and sound! The pickups were whisper quiet and dialed in all that great Jazz tone! Fat neck, burpy bridge - everything in between. Each of the other instruments had a sort of "specific to the model sound" - but the Jazz covered the spectrum - subtle and subdued to gritty and aggressive.

We left with a CV Jazz - white (shockingly white - too white for my tastes, but Alex liked it) with tortoise shell PG and a Fender Rumble 60.

Man, I LOVE shopping with other people's money!
Click to expand...

I just recently picked up one of those CV 60's Jazz's and I agree, it's a great little bass for the bucks. I just installed a push/pull volume pot in mine over the weekend to run the PU's either series or parallel. I also didn't like the look of the tort guard on mine (too brown) so I tried a US tort guard. To my surprise it fit perfectly :) I've always been under the assumption that the US guards wouldn't fit the Squiers but at least on mine it does. I now have that nice red tort look on my CV Jazz!

The white IS really bright on those basses but I can live with it. I might shoot it with some tinted laquer just to darken it up. I'm still up in the air on the neck and trying to decide if I want to de-gloss it or not.

Keep Low :bassist:
 
#172
My experience is that the VM J pickups are better than the CV J pickups.

I want to get a CV Jazz at some point, but I would swap out the pickups ASAP if I did. The CV J's I tried were playable but didn't sound great.

That brown tort guard on the CV has to be changed to red as someone said. It looks too much like a "reversal" at the Coney Island hot dog eating contest.

On the VM Duncan Designed pu's: they really sound best with rounds, either on the fretted or fretless J basses. I tried a bunch of different flats on the fretless - the TI's were the best of the bunch, but none of them sounded great.

Many cheap pickups will not do a great job of making flats sound good, IME.

So I would also swap out the pu's on the VM fretless Jazz if I were going to play flats on it. There's a clip on YouTube where a TB'er put Barts in a FL VM and then played a demo. Very nice.

I totally fell in love with the CV 60's P bass. I only tried one out for the heck of it after playing the J's in a store. Instant connection. I'm usually indifferent to P basses, I try to avoid rounds, and I don't care for Sonic Blue.

This bass has blown away all those prejudices. I even like the stock strings. All it has needed has been an intonation tweak on a couple of strings. I didn't even have to tweak the action. It's the first bass I have played in a very long time that's so cool as is that I haven't immediately started to mod it one way or another.

Eventually, I'll mess with it, but right now I'm having too much fun to even remove the neck and clean out the neck pocket. The tuners are totally adequate - much better than the VM tuners. It is a great bass totally without regard to its price tag.
 
#173
60bass said:
I just recently picked up one of those CV 60's Jazz's and I agree, it's a great little bass for the bucks. I just installed a push/pull volume pot in mine over the weekend to run the PU's either series or parallel. I also didn't like the look of the tort guard on mine (too brown) so I tried a US tort guard. To my surprise it fit perfectly :) I've always been under the assumption that the US guards wouldn't fit the Squiers but at least on mine it does. I now have that nice red tort look on my CV Jazz!

The white IS really bright on those basses but I can live with it. I might shoot it with some tinted laquer just to darken it up. I'm still up in the air on the neck and trying to decide if I want to de-gloss it or not.

Keep Low :bassist:
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Yeah, I agree about the pick guard too - most of the aesthetic was pretty 'bright/new' and knowing it's supposed to have a 'classic vibe', seeing that pristine, almost glowing white just doesn't compute. In my mind, classic = old - not necessarily relic'd - but the color shouldn't look like it just came out of the can that morning.

Since the bass was for my student and he's still forming his own opinions about what turns him on, I am not sharing a lot of this with him. I don't want to unnecessarily influence him - even though that's pretty benign.

BUT - that said, I think I may recommend to him that he let me take down that gloss on the back of the neck. Personally, I don't like a glossy neck and prefer the smoothness of ones where the finish has been knocked down.
 
#174
bumpety bump 'cause i took delivery of a CV jazz yesterday! buckle up for another half-arsed review...

impressions:

GREAT qc - flawless, as far as i can make out. I mail ordered blind, too, which i know isn't the wisest thing, & was bracing myself to have to do some serious tweaking and setup...

none needed. not a sausage.

honestly, i could have brought the box onstage, taken out the bass and played a gig. perfect action, intonation - it'd even more or less kept its tuning after travelling the length of the UK. now this could be due to a good retailer, but i reckon has a lot to do with just a solidly built bass.

body - nice and light. not as much natural resonance as you'd get with other woods.
neck - sticky icky ultra thick orangey gloss. this might be a turn off for some. (for the record, it's not quite as fake-tan orange as my MIM50s P, but still pretty bright)
...anyway, the neck has no dead spots and is straight as a razor. plays great.
fit and finish - spot on.
hardware - solid. like i said, the tuning pegs hold up nicely. great sustain from the heavy & brassed-up bridge.
electrics - quiet, smooth. the pots are nice and heavy to turn, none of this rattly s***...

sound - seems to me like just an averagely good jazz tone. not the highest output, nor the most exciting, but definitely giggable. ample lows and highs to dial in and out where needed. oh and great for slapping, which i wasn't expecting... i don't really slap that much though...

all in all - i was completely blown away by the quality and playability. i'm more sort of 'meh' about the sound, but in a good way. i think a pickup upgrade would make it more than the sum (and cost) of its parts, if you see what i mean - to me it feels and looks like a more expensive bass....the sound pulls its weight but could pull harder.

see you in the Pickups forum... :D
 
#177
broadblik said:
I would have to go VM, I'm not really a fan of glossy necks, and I like the Pups in the VMs, now if they could just put the high mass bridge like on the CVs it would be a done deal
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£25 for a Gotoh 201 bridge and you're good to go :) ...got one on my P and they're great.

FWIW i was torn between the CV and the VM. both got a lot of good points.
 

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