I buoght one of these. It was inexpensive (<$300), and I didn't have a Jazz yet, so I figured it was a good experiment to see if I liked Jazz basses. Also, I love the maple neck/black block combo.
I will say, it is likely worth the $250-300 street price, but not much more. There are issues with the bass.
- The tuners on mine are abysmal. Terrible. Crappy. Useless. For a kid or a first bass they are OK, but not much beyond that.
- The fretboard needed some work. Anything above the 12th fret and it was roll-the-bones time to see if it buzzed or not.
- The neck is finished nicely, but there were significant pits where the skunkstripe touches maple. Very distracting on the thumb.
- The neck pocket (I think) was routed too deep, resulting in a neck that sits a little too deep in the body.
- The pickups were acceptable, not great, by acceptable.
- Bad quality control however showed that the builders stripped the pickup mounting screws with thier auto-drivers and all the metal flakings were stuck to the pickup poles. Not great. HINT: ball up some masking tape and "dab" the pickup poles. The metal flakes stick to the tape and come right off.
However, since my buying decision was that this was an experiment, I decided to try out things I wouldn't dare try on a $1200 bass. I love tinkering, so I bought some stuff from
Stew-Mac and went to town, knowing if I "screwed it up" I wouldn't be out that much money.
- I swapped out the bridge for a BadAss II bridge. Not needed, but it was fun. Easy to do as well.
- I pulled off the crontrol plate and pickguard and copper lined the cavities. More fun and lessons learned.
- I replaced the control plate with an Audere preamp. Not so much fun. I had to chisel away a little wood to make space for the switch, and the battery just doesn't want to cooperate in the cramped cavity. It works, though very tight.
- I swapped out the pickups for Nordstrand Split Vintage pickups. These and the Audere sound SO sweet.
- I painstakingly localized the high frets and went to work with a fret file and polishing paper. Little or no buzzing anywhere. Stupid low action.
- I used Zap-A-Cap glue and micro polish paper to fill the voids on the back of the neck.
- I pulled the neck off, and shimmed the neck pocket (a fair amout) so I could actually have some string height adjustment with the new bridge.
- I pulled the old tuners off and installed new Hipshot Ultralights.
- I installed a new rolling string retainer instead of the vintage button.
Yes, I know, I spent more money on "upgrades" than the entire bass. But remember, this was a experimental project, and all the parts can be pulled off and moved to another bass at anytime. Or sold.
The result, it is an amazingly good playing bass. Much better than when I first bought it. It plays fantastically, and sounds huge, due to the very nice pickups and preamp of course. The maple body is quite nice, even has flame in it. Some VM70s I have seen in the store have terrible bodies, so it is luck of the draw. The neck is slim and smooth, much like a Geddy Lee neck, but without the heavy gloss finish. Since the headstock says Squier on it, I don't worry about anyone stealing it either
My conclusion. If you need a cheap bass, play a couple, and pick the best one. You can easily get a dud. But then, you could also get a good playing one as well. Don't expect much from the hardware. If you can put up with that part, it should serve you well. It is not a $1000 bass at a bargin. It's a bargin bass. Period. But not a half bad one.
If nothing else, change the strings.
Gord_oh
