Guitar Nerds Anonymous

Zee zee furnace goes doom!

My wife has a CV Mustang. It’s decent, although not as nice as a MIM Fender.

Ta - the laurel fingerboards bother me a bit but considering one of the maple neck (block inlay) 70s CV P-basses and potentially a pickup swap. But not sure if that's worth it vs a Player. Vintera might be a bit rich for me as a bass noob (actually, worse - a guitarist).

Usage is just going to be bedroom recording so no need for it to be super robust or anything, but I'd like it to be playable and have a good basic tone, and a good flexible tone would be even better.

Just occurred to me it’s a Vintage Modified, not Classic Vibe, although I think CV was just the new name for the same range. A mate had a CV Jazzmaster, and it was good too.

The laurel fingerboards are actually quite nice, although not as refined as a good bit of rosewood. The main issue for me is the hardware - while it’s ok, it’s still standard Squier. The pickups aren’t amazing, I’d change them out if it was mine.

Thanks, that's really helpful. And yeah, I think they retired the VM name and straight renamed it CV.

Unrelated - lightweight (if unergonomic) little custom number for sale here for £250:

https://reverb.com/uk/item/42120568-micro-machines-super-van-city-guitar-by-weird-wired-2021-white

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw6qQeSjyH8

6 months ago… Only gonna play acoustic, no need for electric. Never gonna need pedals…
Today
Got myself a Fender Player Strat (I love, wife hates).
Am going to create a wet/dry setup using my Roland Street Cube.
Guitar into a/b switch. Dry signal into instrument channel of amp. Wet signal to comprise of chorus, reverb and delay. My Big Boy delay pedal also takes an effects loop so I’m going to throw a pitch shifter on there. This signal into the second channel on the amp..
That’ll do it and I definitely won’t need anything else.

Ha, not really... I was listening to a bit of guitar I'd recorded on the phone, I saved it from one app to another and for some reason it's slowed it down, it sounds amazing! More jangly than doom I'm afraid but a little lightbulb went off in my head... I've been thinking about getting a Bass VI but think a baritone would be more suitable for what I wanna do...

Cool, I'll chat to my luthier guy and see what he has to say... I was thinking of using the Epiphone Wilshire but that's got a short scale length, hmm, don't wanna spend a lot but I did see those Squires and Gretsches and they're very reasonably priced...

Marcus Miller P7 if you have the budget. Bought mine a year ago and love it. V flexible tone. PJ bass, pre amp and double pick ups. Have got flat wound strings on it and love the tone.

I’m still slowly working my way towards a bass… Anyone with opinions about the Squier CV stuff? Or Mexican/Player? I want P style or PJ, like a Jaguar bass. Though I was listening to a demo of the Epiphone Jack Casady and I thought that sounded great.

In my experience, quality on the MIM fenders and squire basses vary quite a bit even between same models. Play every one the shop has in stock, regardless of colour, and pick the best one to take home.
My MIM Jazz is a keeper, didn't even want a boring black bass but it was miles above the sunburst I'd set my heart on. Rated it above my American deluxe, too.

Over the years Fender have finely honed their incremental improvements across the model ranges so that it really is the more you spend the better you get. There will of course be outliers where you get one good cheapie or an expensive dog but they're rare nowadays.

The Squier stuff is fine for the price but not really great (CV are better than VM). The body woods are not as resonant as decent alder & the finish is applied very thickly.
Specifically on the 70's P this might be a personal thing for me but I don't like the idea of pressing the strings down on what are essentially plastic blocks, I feel like you've got to lose something there.
Having said that, if I was playing in lots of dive bars again I'd use one of these Squiers - better yet a used Matt Freeman model.

Mexican Fenders are solid workhorses - you can change stuff on them to taste but you don't need to. They're not as nicely finished as the American ones but they're better value for money.

American fenders are another step up - depends on your financial situation, they're nice things to have but are probably over kill if it's not your main instrument.

If you're going down the classic passive fender style, I wouldn't bother with a PJ - without pre-amps to change them they don't do the job of a P or a J as well as the originals.

Jack casady basses are nice to play and will sound fine at home played solo - I don't think they would work well in a band settling (outside of the man himself using one).

G&L are a pretty good, cost effective fender tribute act. or you could push the boat out with an active MM Stingray.

Thanks for all the advice! Yeah, sounds like I need to try a few in person.

@dsalmon I've heard a ton of recommendations for the Sire MM basses. Not sure if I want active though, and also my brain gets tangled when I see Fender clones with non-Fender headstock shapes.

@Lw. thanks, yeah, the nato body wood on the Squiers is probably my biggest concern. They look the part though.

@greenhell I do want to check out the G&L Tributes, both the LB-100 and SB-2. It seems like the pickups might be a fair bit pokier than a trad Fender, not sure if that's what I want or not.

6 months ago… Only gonna play acoustic, no need for electric. Never gonna need pedals…

Are you playing similar stuff to what you were on acoustic on the electric? Or has the electric opened up a whole new avenue?

Inevitably, I now need to spend cash on pedal power. I need* 12 x 9v. What’s a better prospect than the gig rig stuff?

*i need none of this shit. It’s all frippery.

It has definitely changed the way I approach song practice between the electric and acoustic sound. For the moment I’m more concentrating on getting a good sound and solid changes.
I’ve been practicing C major scale on open position and the minor pentatonic scales as well. I improvise over the top of backing tracks and for around 30 seconds this week I actually had something that could be described as music!!

Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 3 Plus has 12 outputs but might be overkill given that it’s 500mA on every output.

Or do you maybe have an existing one that can be extended/chained?

I’ve got a few bits and bobs. I have two of those thomann mini things with 5 outs each and an ancient cheapo thing as well. Kinda want to not bodge the “big board” and repurpose the existing bits for smaller boards in future

1 Spot CS12 is quite a bit cheaper than the Voodoo Lab, I have no experience of the Truetone stuff but might be worth looking into.

Been checking out my baritone options, I've decided I really want a tremolo so that limits me considerably... If I grab a used Jazzmaster will an Allparts baritone conversion neck for a Strat fit in the neck pocket? I think this is my best option, Mascis JM (if I can find one) and Allparts neck... If I hate it I've still got myself a JM and I'm sure the neck will be easy enough to move on...

Strat and JM necks are interchangeable, they’re supposed to be the same shape and scale length.

Perfect, Google tells me the same thing so I guess that's what I'll do... Not easy finding a used JM tho', just found a leftie at a giveaway price, typical!?!

Good luck finding a Mascis JM, I know a couple of people who have them and think they’re great. I believe the pickups are actually P90s under the casing? Might be mistaken.

Apparently the Mascis JM has been discontinued - might be a strategic thing as despite them selling well, no one else has a signature Squier, plus they just gave him a signature MIM Tele this year. So watch out for used prices going up.

The Mascis pickups are definitely not regular jazzmasters, I’m not 100% sure if they’re a standard P90 in disguise but they do have screw pole pieces like a P90 does.

1 spot seems to be 9 x 9v, 1 x 18v and 2 x 4-9v. I don't think any of my pedals can run at 18v which kinda rules that out. Voodoo lab has the same issue. the more I think about it the future proofing and flexibility of the gigrig seems like a good idea. https://www.andertons.co.uk/gigrig-bundle-w-1-x-generator-2-x-distributor?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=surfaces&gclid=CjwKCAjw4KyJBhAbEiwAaAQbE6E4v1JhnK3r34T5cvMwXbgIidfluHXxFVcGdSZ7L0Sf-0kFhOCjdRoCNsUQAvD_BwE