Reveiw - Squier Vintage Modified 70's Style Jazz Bass

[Hungrycat]

Squire Vintage Modified 70's Style Jazz Bass

 

Year - 2009

 

Purchased From - Johnny Guitar's, Murfreesboro, TN

 

Price Paid: $250 (plus 9.75% TN Sales Tax)

 

Features:

Soft maple body

One-piece maple neck/fingerboard

Black block inlays

Bound neck

20 Med-Jumbo frets

34" scale

Chrome hardware

Vintage-style butterfly tuners

Vintage-style 4-saddle bridge

3-ply black/white/black pickguard

2 single-coil Duncan Designed JB101 Jazz Bass pickups with AlNiCo V magnets

2 volume and one tone knob

 

Finish: Natural & 3-Tone Sunburst

 

MODIFICATIONS: Replaced stock Duncan Designed JB101 single coils with Duncan Basslines Vintage Hot-Stack single-space humbuckers

Refinished Neck

Schaller Strap Locks

 

 

Sound Quality: Squier's Blurb about this bass reads "A retro-inspired funk machine that anybody can afford," and this Jazz Bass really does live up to that. The combination of the soft maple body and maple neck give this particular model a super bright tone that is indeed great for slap and pop, tap, or typewriter styles. It also excels at traditional finger style when you want a little extra clarity, but I tended to dislike using a pick with it as pick-style just made this bass sound brittle with it's original pickups. The Original Duncan Designed JB101 pickups were indeed fine pickups and made this bass sound great, but I felt that because they were single coil, I could replace them with humbuckers to fatten up the sound some, and that's just what happened. The new Duncan Basslines Vintage Hot-Stacks retain the biting bright tone, while adding much to the bottom end. Messing around with the tone knob now produces a range of classic Jazz Bass tones that run from early 60's rock ala John Paul Jones to modern funk ala Marcus Miller. I will note that I didn't just toss the original pickups. I put them in an MIM Standard Jazz Bass with a Poplar body and a Rosewood 'board. (I decided that it was too muddy with it's original pickups and it's new set of JB101s really opened it up and made it sound great.)What I'm getting at here is that the main reason I changed the pickups in the first place wasn't because they were bad pickups, just that I felt that they were a mismatch for this particular model. The same pickups come in the Squier VM '77 model as well, and it has an Agathis body. They probably sound great in that.

 

Fit and Finish: The fit and finish is as good as you can get for a $300 instrument. The only things I have bad to say about it are nit-picky. The wood choice on this instrument is absolutely stunning. The body is two-piece, center-seamed, and very well matched. From what I understand, Soft Maple is a very knotty wood, and Squier did a very good job of cutting the body where there's no weak spots left from the knots. There are little brown spots left from being near the knot, but there is no actual hole in the wood. The figuring in the wood grabs light and warps it around these little marks in circles, giving the wood an even more beautiful grain in my opinion. The neck also has a very attractive grain, in lots of little bird's-eye stippling in the figuring. The binding and inlays are flawless and the frets are perfect. The only problem I had with the whole instrument was the finish on the neck. I just didn't like the way the matte felt and it kind of made the wood look green, pale, and sickly. Some will love the way it feels, but I just didn't. I sanded down the whole thing, stained it with brown shoe polish and then gave it a light coat of Tung-Oil/Varnish mix. Also, the nut is a cheap plastic but it gets the job done. Same goes for the bridge and tuning machines. Not the absolute best quality in the world, but they are the same tried and true designs that Fender has been using since the 1950's.

 

Overall, this a FANTASTIC entry point to the Jazz Bass model. It needed a few mods to fit my tastes, but I'm picky. I really don't see any reason to move up in price from this one, unless it's a Fender Custom Shop Jazz Bass. 9/10

 

Before the refinish, the neck looked kind of green, now it looks like Maple should. The logo was a casualty though.

 

Here you can see some of the "Nearly Knots." I think they look good.

[RaSTuS]

Great review HC, seems to be great value, thanks for sharing your opinions of it.

[Hungrycat]

Great review HC, seems to be great value, thanks for sharing your opinions of it.

They really are a great value. I've only run across one or two American Jazz Basses that were only marginally better, and like I said, I'm picky. I honestly think that you'd have to spend into the $2000+ price range to get a bass that's a true "step up." It is absolutely my #1 bass and will be for the forseable future. Unless I win the lottery tomorrow so I can run out and custom order a $30,000 Alembic...

[animalfarm]

Senor HC - You've written an excellent review, Tells it like it is,

Good and not so Good. Lets a potential buyer know what ANOTHER player thinks!

I was already leaning torward a Squier before the Ibanez Bass dropped in my

lap, and wasn't sure WHICH squier I wanted. Reviews like this are going to be

very useful to folks! Yes, Yes.....

 

I spotted your review as I was passing by. BTW, I'm obviously a GIT player who

is "playing" a Bass for fun - What the heck are "tap, and typewriter" styles???

[Hungrycat]

What the heck are "tap, and typewriter" styles???

 

Tap is exactly the same as it is on guitar. Typewriter is kind of like traditional finger style, except you strike the string with the tips of your fingers instead of plucking. John Entwistle pretty much invented Typewriter style, you can get a real good look at it from the headstock-cam in this video, which also features some example of tapping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPnWDimkZnI

[RaSTuS]

Loved the fret markers on Entwistle's bass, roman numerals of the actual fret number, very cool.

[brianh]

Extremely informative review H-cat, many thanks.