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Thoughts on Squire Basses for Professional Musicians?

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.

Same goes for the late, great, Jeff Healey. I guess since he was blind, what was on the headstock couldn't have mattered less. But his playing and his tone killed...and he did it with a Squier guitar in his lap like a steel guitar. And that was decades before VM or CV quality. If you aren't familiar with him, look up "see the light" on you tube.
 
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?").
That really is the question.

I'm trying to impress girls. Hence the Burberry plaid basses, no rig.
 
The Squier line today is excellent and in most cases equal in quality workmanship and great tone to Fenders main lineup. The Squier stuff tends to be more adventurous and experimental than Fender traditional variations. Squier is now "kool" to olay (whereas peavey should be continued to be avoided)...
 
I think I'll play my newly acquired Squier J Standard At my next gig. My "nicest" bass is an Ibanez SR500. That is sitting out. My back up is an Ibanez SRX300 that I ripped the preamp out of. That thing plays and sounds awesome, without all the extra knobs. But that Squier has gotten all my attention
Lately. It sounds good, not great, but good, and has higher action and wider spacing than my Ibby's. but there is something about it that may get it a starting role at my next gig.
 
The Squier line today is excellent and in most cases equal in quality workmanship and great tone to Fenders main lineup. The Squier stuff tends to be more adventurous and experimental than Fender traditional variations. Squier is now "kool" to olay (whereas peavey should be continued to be avoided)...

OMG THIS

'cept for maybe the peavey thing, if I knew more about it I'd have an opinion.

I recently got the Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar Bass V (Long Scale) in the shop, and it's pretty sweet. Adjustable pole pieces on the J pickup, and a pretty sweet neck. Squiers are a great deal for people who don't care about where their instrument is made (which I've found to be irrelevant these days. Had Chinese Blueridge guitars that sounded better and adjusted better than a Martin D-18). Anymore, foreign guitars are on par with most anything except custom shop type stuff. Squiers are great. Check out the James Johnston Signature if you haven't already.
 
I love seeing pros rock squiers - or any 'entry level' bass for that matter. It shows that they're all about the music, not the gear.

I love it too. But what it shows is they ARE about the gear and NOT about what people think about the gear! In other words they choose gear to best fit what they are trying to play. When they find it (or mod into it) they use it without worrying about what someone else will think of the name on the headstock. One is supposed to be listening with your ears and not your eyes.
 
I rocked out my Squier J Standard at its first gig last night. I left the "good basses" at home. I got compliments on the sound from a friend of the band who is an old time bassist. This thing plays really well since I leveled the frets and lowers the action. The Squier is my new #1 bass. We got paid to play(hardly) and free food and drinks all night, so that makes me a "professional" bassist, right?
 
Squiers AND Peaveys ROCK!

This:

CVP50-front-large.jpg


And THIS:

3b18010b-d51a-497f-baac-114d5b66bfe9.jpg


They both KILL!
 
I'm a recent convert - I own 5 pro-level basses (2 Rickenbackers, a Gibson, a Gretsch and a Musicman), but am away from my beloved babies for 8 months and needed a plank to spank, so I bought a used Squier Vintage Mod Jazz to see me through the dark hours. I am most pleasantly surprised - after a setup it plays like butter and sounds just great. The neck is a very decent piece of birdseye maple, frets well finished and the Duncan Design pickups are fine for my present needs. That said, I wouldn't gig this without changing the hardware - the machine heads aren't the most accurate tuners I've met, the nut is soft plastic and the bridge is frankly rubbish (saddles shift if you pluck too hard). But for the money it's a decent bass, and it won't take much to make it a great bass. Think I might well keep it (subject to the above mods) for the kids to learn on and for those gigs on the seedier side of town!
 
They sucked balls in the nineties and early 2k's, but they were only beginner instruments, seldom ever setup well. The current affinity series has better tuners now, but the addition of these far better series', the standard, CV and VM, makes them absolutely a good brand of performing musician-level instruments, until Fender sees that the reputation has been repaired, and orders gakki or whomever is making them to lower the specs a bit (lower the cost, raise the profit, reinforce the idea that there IS a good reason to buy a guitar that says "fender" on it rather than squier.
 
OMG THIS

'cept for maybe the peavey thing, if I knew more about it I'd have an opinion.

I recently got the Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar Bass V (Long Scale) in the shop, and it's pretty sweet. Adjustable pole pieces on the J pickup, and a pretty sweet neck. Squiers are a great deal for people who don't care about where their instrument is made (which I've found to be irrelevant these days. Had Chinese Blueridge guitars that sounded better and adjusted better than a Martin D-18). Anymore, foreign guitars are on par with most anything except custom shop type stuff. Squiers are great. Check out the James Johnston Signature if you haven't already.

+1
I also got the vm jag v, reg scale. The satin finish is sweet, and I love the tone.
 
My main axe is a Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar Bass Special. It's getting modified with a tote full of Hipshot, EMG, and other primo parts. I love that bass, and so does my new band's tiny audience. They have no idea of what I leave behind at home in their cases, and don't care. It's like putty in my hands, and I love it!!