Jono Bolton

The Chinese Classic Vibes were excellent; even if you took the price out of the equation, they were just good instruments. I think it was definitely intentional to merge the VM and CV lines to drop the quality on them and move them further from the lowest rung of the fender ladder.

I had one of those in Daphne Blue. Really good quality and one I wish I'd kept hold of. I paid £800 for it 2 years ago and sold it for the same price about a year later.

I had the Classic Vibe Bass VI. It was decently made and I really liked the pickups in it, but ultimately I didn't use it much, and the string spacing at the nut was far too narrow for me to play comfortably so I sold it at the end of last year.

It's absolutely sickening to think that a bass made in the 90s would be considered 'old'.

I took the scratch plate off last night and had a look at the wiring. I've got a 1 Meg CTS pot in the tone position, but the solder on the volume pot is covering up the details; is it likely to also be 1 Meg or would it be lower? I didn't get a note of the cap values while I had it open so not sure what it is. Given the volume pot doesn't have a smooth sweep, it is worth just replacing the whole harness?

What pots and cap have you got in there already?

How can a product on pre-order be discontinued?

I'd be more interested in the P if the neck had dots instead of blocks. I don't know why Squier (and Fender) have blocks on their 70s Precisions when almost every genuine 70s Fender P I've seen has just had a normal neck on it.

Are we looking at the same picture?

In terms of build quality, I have no issues at all with mine. The first one I had was returned due to a dent in the finish under the top coat, but this one is fine build-wise. I'll probably open it up and re-wire it at some point, but I suppose my main issue is that I don't know what it's supposed to sound like to begin with as I'm not that familiar with the pickup. I've watched a few YouTube vids and in some there's a clear difference between the tone at 0% and 100%, similar to a P Bass, but I've seen a couple where the sound isn't hugely different. The volume pot is definitely a duffer, but I can live with it for now.

I did think that, though it's a bit shite to have to replace the wiring in a 4-month old bass that cost a grand

I probably wouldn't have questioned it but I can hear the difference in my P Basses very clearly. I didn't wonder if it was perhaps a duff pot as the volume control in the Telebass is garbage; once you turn it down to about 8, it's off completely.

I've updated the thread title rather than create a new thread as the issue seems to be wiring related, rather than the pickup itself. This might be a daft question as I've got one of the Fender Vintera Telecaster Basses, but I'm a bit perplexed by the Wide Range Humbucker in the neck. The tone control doesn't work in the same way as a P Bass does where turning it down rolls off the top end; rolling it from 0 to 100% seems to provide different voicings to the pickup but the difference is quite subtle. It could be because I'm usually playing at low levels at home, or my ears are a bit duff. Perhaps that's just how they sound, but I'm struggling to find much information on them and how they're wired. I was expecting a big boomy sound with the tone turned right the way down.