MrFingers

There is no bevel visible, and it appears very thin. I think this is a proper anodized guard.

It's because frequency cancellation, a side-effect of two pickups in parallel². The closer the pickups are together, the stronger the effect. When that happens, the midrange gets reduced. Can be solved by not having both pickups at 100%. (² like that glassy sound on a Stratocaster on positions 2 & 4)

They were very shortlived (2 years end the 1990's) and were quickly shelved because they were EXTREMELY high quality instruments. Better than Fender was churning out in Mexico. Also, what you see is the only iteration there was: translucent red with gold hardware. No other colours.

One of the best that I played was a Squier Pro Tone Precision Bass V. Despite the soapbars...

Here’s to hoping they go the Joe Dart route and make it in a Ray24 version (fretless) under the Sterling brand.

Body does look like a 1970's product to me. It has the straight pocket, so: late 1970's. Neck is from a 1988 Fender AVRI '62 P-bass. Pickguard is way more recent. What does the pickup look like underneath the covers?

Under the pickguard is plenty of realestate for that.

It's a one-piece neck, so replacing the fingerboard is not that easy. And it would show immediately at the walnut trussrod plug, which would have its top cut off. Someone went to town on it by replacing the facedots (as can be seen on the detailed pictures further in this thread, it also shows no gluejoint at the headstock, so fretboard is original), and thus (locally) refinishing the fretboard. New nut is no real biggie. Frets do appear to me to be the original "low and wide" ones as were used after 1966. I don't see any tearout of the maple either that would suggest a refret. To OP: you can rest assured: the bones of the instrument (tuners, stringtree, neck (except position markers and possible new fretboard finish), body, neckplate (with its black backing plate) and likely the pickguard all check out for a 1974-1975 Precision Bass. It might be thrown together from parts sourced left and right (hurray for the modular design of Fender), but the parts do check out. Once in your possession, you can always remove the neck and search for a date-stamp, and maybe the potmeter codes. EDIT: the more I look at it, it might even be that the body finish is original as well. Prior to 1975, Fender used a rather light brown and very translucent colouring, before switching to a darker and almost opaque colouring (because then the wood didn't really show, so they could use more/uglier pieces of wood).

It went to hell, got beaten, and refinished, there and then travelled all the way back... But it's legit. What is an instantly recognisable feature is the 2 filled dowel holes at the rear of the body. One near the end of the body, the other next to the neckplate (prior tot 1969 they were both on the centerline of the guitar, the top one was moved because you could see it on a sunburst). The neck is also a typical 1970-1975 neck, the difference in discolouration between the headstock face (nitro) and the rest (poly) checks out. I bet that if you remove the E-tuner, you'll also see an (unfilled) dowel hole between the bottom two mounting screws for the tuner.

Chris Hillman was (and is) originally a mandolin player, and prior to joining the Byrds he never even picked up a bass (hence his rather melodic style: he approached it as a very big mandolin with very thick strings). That bass was loaned to him to mime in a TV appearance, he thinks it was a Fender body with a homemade neck, and it was absolutely atrocious. He later used a sunburst P-bass with transition logo on Monterey, which was then stripped and stained in brown, and used furher in the Burrito Bro's. As for that '63 P-bass, it has a rosewood fretboard, so I'd suspect that someone took a hacksaw to the headstock, and reshaped it. Also because a true <57 P-neck had the square heel just like the Telecaster, which doesn't fit in the curved neck pocket. Hence you can install a curved neck in a square pocket, but not the other way around.

Guild Starfire I

In order to hit two birds with one slap. Ánd a 5-string for that one time in a month I crave that ánd the classic-ish stingray sound. Didn’t want to fork out the cash for a true stingray, and didn’t really fancy the standard 5-string Ray cosmetics. This appears to be the perfect blend of 4-string looks, somewhat seventies sound and style and at an affordable price point… picked this one up 2nd hand but defacto new (plastic still on the batter cover) for next to nothing… plays really nice, sounds a bit barky, but need to rewire it to parallel. An absolute boat-anchor though!

Danelectro/Silvertone/Harmony,…

Rickenbacker, Guild, Mosrite, Höfner 500/1 with the blade pickups,…

It's like a regular 3 band EQ (so an indent at middle of the sweep where there is no EQ applied, and then a cutoff/boost on either side of that indent),the small knob closest to the bridge is the mid-control for boost/cut, and the ring around is is a stepless frequency selector to select the midrange from a rather broad range, where the mid-control is active on. So you can choose which mid-frequency you boost/cut. It makes for a very versatile tone circuit that basically allows you to ignore the amp EQ, as you can very much build & shape your tone on the instrument itself. Only downside is that you can't switch fast from one sound to another, and that the knobs are very free-rotating. In terms of tonality, that vari-mid reminded me vaguely of a WAL bass of an acquaintance that I once played that had the parametric EQ, you can get the same sweep.