Whenever a guitarist plays bass, there are those who want to question their status.  Guitar players themselves will say “I’m not a bass player, but I’m playing bass on this track.”  As a logical person, I’d like to point out the impossibility of the previous sentence.

I am a bass player because I own three basses and I play bass on my own music and other people’s music from time to time.  Bass is not my main instrument.  I don’t have a main instrument.  If you want to know which instrument I’m best at, I’d probably say keyboards.  But I enjoy playing guitar and bass.

“Get to the review,” I hear some of you thinking.  You must be new here.  There’s no comments section.  This is my kingdom, such as it is.  You can read or not read.  If you’re still reading, it means you have an attention span, and you’re smart by today’s standards, which is great!  I bet you’re good looking, too.  And you have great taste.

I bought a used Squier Classic Vibe 70s Jazz Bass on Amazon for $338.55 before tax.  This bass is $450 new.  Did you know that Amazon sells used stuff?  This is the second used item I bought on Amazon.  The first was a used EV ZLX-12P powered speaker.

Here’s how this works, I think.  Someone bought my bass new on Amazon.  They got it, opened it up, raised the pickups up too high, stripping one of the screws, set the action decently, discovered that some of the fret ends were a bit sharp, and sent it back to Amazon.  The folks at Amazon looked it over and decided it was fine to resell (instead of returning it to Squier) and put it for sale on Amazon.  But give them credit – Amazon doesn’t normally take a hundred bucks off a $450 instrument.  Someone saw the stripped screw and sharp fret ends and said “mark this one down, it needs some work.”  And I saved a hundred bucks for ten minutes with a StewMac fret end file.

The sad truth is that tons of budget instruments come with sharp fret ends, and it’s not always the fault of the worker at the factory.  Wood shrinks in the cold, so if the instrument was exposed to cold, the neck on the wood shrinks and suddenly the fret ends that were fine at the factory are no longer fine.

The Actual Review

The Good

I got this bass “lightly used” with one stripped pickup screw, the pickups set too high, and some sharp fret ends.  There’s a bit of fret buzz, I think… it’s hard to tell on basses.  If good technique gets rid of the fret buzz, then is it really fret buzz?  I fixed those things, put it through a good HX Stomp bass patch that uses an Ampeg amp sim and a big cabinet with eight 10 inch speakers, and when I play it hard, it sounds a hell of a lot like Geddy Lee.

No, seriously, it does.  I bought this bass because I wanted the sound of a Fender Jazz Bass for around $300, and I’m very happy with the result.  It DOES sound like a Fender Jazz Bass.  The Alnico pickups sound really good, it plays good, it looks stunning, and I’m happy with it.  It’s maybe not as good of an instrument as my Schecter, but it’s got single coil pickups that sound very good.  And if you want to sound like Geddy, you ain’t doin’ it with humbuckers.

I want to touch on the heavy gloss finish on the neck.  I thought I’d need to sand it down, but actually, I don’t seem to mind it at all.

The Bad

But the fret ends were sharp and I can only guess about the initial setup, but I’d guess that it wasn’t great.  The other thing is that it plays good… but not great.  My Schecter is easier to play.  There’s something else – the strings are closer to the pickguard than I’d like.  If you want to go all Marcus Miller, your fingers will be smacking the pickguard.  With reasonable (not too low) action, I can get my finger under the string, but just barely.  This has me wondering if I should shim the neck, not to change the angle, but to raise it up.  But for $338.55, I’m not complaining.

The Ugly

If you get an American version of the Fender Jazz Bass and you have it set up by a pro, it’s going to play amazing.  I am not sure this bass could ever play amazing.  I could do a level/crown and it’d play better, but that’s a lot of work.  The pro level basses are easier to play and have less fret buzz.  That’s the thing about playing bass – the better your technique, the less buzz you’ll hear on any bass.  But you have to work a little harder on inexpensive basses like this one.  The players who need the most help end up with the instrument that requires the most technique.  That’s different than playing a keyboard.

Conclusion

Based on what I’ve played in stores, what I’ve heard about from my friends who play bass, buying a Squier Classic Vibe bass means it’s likely you’ll have some sharp fret ends and it will need a setup.  If you don’t know how to take care of these things, you can pay someone to do it.  But someone will need to.  And once you do that, you’ll have 88% of the sound of Geddy Lee (or other Jazz Bass players) for a heck of a lot less money.  I call that a win.

You can watch a video of me unboxing this thing and playing it a little bit.