CONGRATS!!
Now let's see a pic of your new baby with it's elder sibling!
Very happy for you, Blues_Bassist. May your basses serve you well.
Cheers,
FF
COOL! Congrats on your Jag. Jags of any sort are simply the cats posterior! Pics required.
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Thoughts on Squire Basses for Professional Musicians?
- Thread starter blues_bassist
- Start date
CONGRATS!!
Now let's see a pic of your new baby with it's elder sibling!
Very happy for you, Blues_Bassist. May your basses serve you well.
Cheers,
FF
COOL! Congrats on your Jag. Jags of any sort are simply the cats posterior! Pics required.
I bought an OLP for $60 and traded it for a P bass Standard Special. It felt as good as the $500-$600 fenders at GC. It's nice having the balls of the P pup and the bite of the J pup. I just hate the P body.
Personally I think they're good! I have a Korean Squier that I've used on many a gig. Maybe a pickup upgrade is a good idea, depending upon the specific model, but at the end of the day a CNC machine works the same anywhere in the world. A good bass is a good bass.
I've seen plenty of great players play Squiers. On the contrary, most of the players here with the latest and greatest gear tend to be the duffers, who spend more time talking about and buying gear than they ever do practicing and gigging. At the end of the day, music is art - do painters scoff at each other's brushes? Do sculptors deride each other for using the wrong sort of chisel? I agree there is snobbery in the music business, but in my experience the ones doing the sniping are the ones who can't do the playing - the real players don't care what you use if you can play.
I totally agree with the sentiment...
BUT...
The art world are absolutely brutal when it comes to snobbery. In fact, its one of the nice things about popular music (that playing any beat-up old thing and rocking it is enough!).
In the art world its all... 'where did you school?'
okcrum
in your chest
I went to see my buddy Rich Neville (played w/Poco for a long time) the other night and while we were talking I noticed the bass he was using was so frankensteined, he'd just taken whatever was on the headstock off and replaced it with a decal of a thunderbird - Navajo, not Gibson. Didn't matter a bit to his sound. I'd probably do the same if I modded an instrument that much.
I've noticed over the years that the whole low end vs. high end thing seems to be statistical. As an example, you play X Squiers and find a good one. You play 10*X Squiers and find a great one that gets all the tone you want (non-MIJ!!!). You play Y MIM Fenders (Y being generally less than X) and find a good one, and so on up the Fender family price scale. If I buy a Custom Shop bass I fully expect to try only one. Of course there are exceptions. I'm stating a general rule based on my own observations - something that works most of the time.
The same goes with SX but being so little cost and mail order only, people are more willing to modify them. Another buddy from Phoenix who's toured with Chuck Hall gets killer tone out of a heavily modded Douglas fiver. You can always take that approach too.
I'm talking about basses made within the last ten years or so, since the culling of really bad basses with time tends to drive the X/Y numbers down.
Now that automated manufacturing is common, those X and Y numbers have gotten smaller and closer to each other, but they're still there. As expected, you don't usually *have* to try a lot of high end basses to find a good one. You might, to find a perfect one. Think of the legwork or mods as Squier/SX/MIM sweat equity.
Then there's the folks who just enjoy the name-your-brand Holy Wars.
I have only tried a Squier once in a store, but that bass actually sounded perfect for a jazz. I couldn't hear a qualitative sound difference from my Marcus Miller signature, although they did of course not sound the same. It felt good as well, so I was positively surprised.
I think part of the issue with the whole "I had to go through 10 Squier basses to find 1 good one" mentality is that "good" is very subjective. Good to one person may be complete junk to another. Is the reason I prefer my Squier P/Js to my Fender P because I picked a bad Fender? I don't think so. Or maybe only certain ones of us really know what good is?!? Yeah, that's it. 
okcrum
in your chest
I think part of the issue with the whole "I had to go through 10 Squier basses to find 1 good one" mentality is that "good" is very subjective. Good to one person may be complete junk to another. Is the reason I prefer my Squier P/Js to my Fender P because I picked a bad Fender? I don't think so. Or maybe only certain ones of us really know what good is?!? Yeah, that's it.
"Has my tone" and "perfect for me" is the subjective part. Anyone can see, feel, and hear "good". Honky sounding and bad feel, finish, fit, or frets is not subjective. Bear in mind, 10:1 was an example. It might be higher or lower. Please don't mash together good and great. One is subjective; the other is not.
Not liking a certain neck profile is subjective, as an example. I like some necks better than others. That doesn't mean I can't kill it on a neck that's not my favorite. And that's what I refer to as just "good".
I know we're talking about bass, but Reggie Wooten's main guitar is Squire Strat. He has owned that guitar for a long time! Straight cheap beater guitar, but can blaze anybody who walks up on stage with any high dollar guitar.
I tried a vintage modified 5, the neck felt like my previously owned Alleva Coppolo hippy bass. I was like damn!!!!
Freekmagnet
Commercial User
Those VM's and CV's are pretty nice basses. I'm consistently shocked by how good they are when I pick one up at the store. Not as nice as the upper-end Fenders, but I'm sure that some of your favorite records were recorded with even cheaper instruments than Squire. I know plenty of guys who are completely badass rockin' way cheap guitars - Squire, Dano, Epi... you name it.
Most of the people in the audiance wouldnt know the difference between squire and Zon/Alembic basses. If the squire gives you better sound for you, then the fender version of the bass. And playability is equal. Then the squire would be better choice. For pro or beginner.
I agree that everyone should play what works for them, but an interesting effect of seeing a pro playing a Squier could also be them influencing others to do the same.
Kinda like how Nikki Sixx plays T-birds, and has sold dozens (or maybe more) just because of the "star factor".
People want to emulate their idols. Sometimes that includes playing the same gear. I know if I see a bassist that I look up to using certain gear, I'll check out that gear for myself the first chance I get.
Kinda like how Nikki Sixx plays T-birds, and has sold dozens (or maybe more) just because of the "star factor".
People want to emulate their idols. Sometimes that includes playing the same gear. I know if I see a bassist that I look up to using certain gear, I'll check out that gear for myself the first chance I get.
All of that is subjective:
Honky sounding - Some folks actually might prefer that sound. There is a lot of talk/arguing here about mid scooped and mid heavy bass tones and people always disagree on examples. The same could be said for "honky" sounding.
Bad feel - Says who?? What, is the bass just falling apart and covered in dirt? Sure, a functioning bass can be played by a variety of people but bad feel to one is good/great to another. Subjective like everything else.
Bad finish - Again, says who?? Finish or lack of is hilarious in a day and age when people are purposely aging finishes to look worn in. Someone may stumble in to a pawn shop and see a bass that has your idea of a bad finish but it speaks to them otherwise. Maybe it's a cool finish to them.
Bad fit - What are we talking about here. Obvious gaps and parts not seated properly? How many here have instruments with some issues like this (neck pocket gaps, etc.) and still would classify their instrument as good. Maybe even great?
Bad frets - Sharp fret edges? My MIM had sharper fret edges than any of the Squiers I've had experience with. Logic would dictate that since it's higher quality this should NEVER EVER happen. Well it does, on MIM, MIJ, MIA.
If I had to pick three things that makes a bass objectively bad it'd be those:
1. Bad note to note (and possibly string to string) volume consistency
Nothing screams 'this is bad' than when strings and notes sound too unequal in volume. Of course, if you have a Z string bass (z = anywhere between 6 and a trillion) and have 'dedicated strings' for different jobs obviously this might be irrelevant, but if notes are unequal on purpose it is objectively a problem, you might play a passage and it won't be heard because notes at 6th fret are quiter than the rest of the bass... It's also a case that some notes might be too loud due to resonant peaks due to wood and construction, etc.
2. Terribly uneven frets
If you are a high action player, a few high frets may not be the end of the day, but it's really bad when you try to play in a moderate action and certain notes are just choked out. This goes on to further explain the point (1) above.
3. Tuners that don't hold it
This is something extremely rare with bass guitars. I might be lucky, but I've only played one bass guitar that had tuning stability problems, and that was with all strings dropped a full tone down. Bass guitars tend to have way fewer problems with tuning stability as opposed to standard 6 string guitars, but if tuners simply can't hold strings in tune, it's a grave problem, there's hardly a way around it.
An extra would be a 'ringy nut' which makes loud harmonics when you pluck the string because the nut is broken or not cut to size of the string, but considering there are all sorts of weird people I'd leave that out of the three because some just might like that.
1. Bad note to note (and possibly string to string) volume consistency
Nothing screams 'this is bad' than when strings and notes sound too unequal in volume. Of course, if you have a Z string bass (z = anywhere between 6 and a trillion) and have 'dedicated strings' for different jobs obviously this might be irrelevant, but if notes are unequal on purpose it is objectively a problem, you might play a passage and it won't be heard because notes at 6th fret are quiter than the rest of the bass... It's also a case that some notes might be too loud due to resonant peaks due to wood and construction, etc.
2. Terribly uneven frets
If you are a high action player, a few high frets may not be the end of the day, but it's really bad when you try to play in a moderate action and certain notes are just choked out. This goes on to further explain the point (1) above.
3. Tuners that don't hold it
This is something extremely rare with bass guitars. I might be lucky, but I've only played one bass guitar that had tuning stability problems, and that was with all strings dropped a full tone down. Bass guitars tend to have way fewer problems with tuning stability as opposed to standard 6 string guitars, but if tuners simply can't hold strings in tune, it's a grave problem, there's hardly a way around it.
An extra would be a 'ringy nut' which makes loud harmonics when you pluck the string because the nut is broken or not cut to size of the string, but considering there are all sorts of weird people I'd leave that out of the three because some just might like that.
Dude, you can get a superb axe for low and waist your bucks on a high-priced lemon... any good bass is a good bass! 
Exactly!! Here's the question to ask: who am I trying to impress? Most of your audience will NOT know or care what kind of bass you're playing, what kind of rig you're playing through...or even what a bass guitar is ("so bass has less strings than guitar?"). As long as they hear bottom end that's all that matters. The average club goer will not know or hear the difference between an SX or a Sadowski. The sound guy might hear the difference, but he's busy butchering your tone anyway and it still won't matter what you're playing. So, that means you're out to impress the two other bassists that might be in your crowd and might give a damn about your gear.
I own a Squier Vintage Modified TB that I dropped a 50s style P pickup in. I paid $175 for it and play it more than my American Precision and Jazz Basses because it flat out sounds better. Play what you like and take the ego out of it. And I might add that if you have talent and good tone, but don't get a gig because the band doesn't like your gear...screw 'em. Who needs the headache.
By the way, Aston "Family Man" Barrett plays the daylights out of a $300 Hohner bass.
The necks on Squier fives are no joke! They feel just as nice as higher end Fenders. Even the Affinity J-bass V has a killer neck.
