Painy

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1425063719' post='2703629'] I had the PJ 5, the only issue was the "tort" scratch plate, it's printed plastic and after a couple of months started to rub off to a whitish smudge where I anchored my thumb.. [/quote] I got round this by covering the scratch plate on mine in white self adhesive vinyl (hated the red tort anyway). At some point I'd like to get a white pearl guard made for it but for now I'm pretty happy with it as it is. I've been playing 5 strings for 17 years and owned basses costing well over 4 grand in that time and it may not be in that league obviously but I've found it to be a pretty decent and perfectly giggable bass (albeit as the OP says, with a bit of a weak output).

Thanks for the info - although I was kind of hoping you'd say the Fender had a neck like half a telegraph pole so I could go back to gassing for the Squier and save myself that £900 difference :/

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1424957484' post='2702306'] I think I'm on the slippery slope! I "accidentally" popped into Wunjo's today and tried one of these. Very impressed. I then tried the USA P5. [/quote] I'm planning on buying the Squier as soon as my bank balance recovers from the Fender Jazz V I bought a few weeks ago but keep wondering if it would be worth saving up a bit longer for the Fender. The thing is though, when I tried the Squier out I really fell in love with the neck which I believe is the same as the VM Jazz V. I kind of imagine the Fender neck to be a deeper, more typically p bass profile which wouldn't suit me so well though and there isn't one near me to try out. Having played them both, how would you compare the neck profiles between the Squier and the Fender - particularly the front to back depth rather than the nut width (which I believe is the same on both)?

Phwoarrrr!!!

[quote name='Weststarx' timestamp='1424449085' post='2696459'] Haha I play a lot with my winky, especially with big hands using it makes playing a breeze. [/quote] Yea God's man, you play the bass with your WINKY?!?

I bought a new Modern Player Jazz V a few weeks ago and, whilst it does sound great, I do really need to change the strings over to my usual Prosteels. The stock fender strings (whatever they might be) are just lacking the bit of grit in the upper mids and zing at the top that I like in my sound and the d'addarios always give me that. I used Rotosound 66s for years and years (probably started using them as a kid just because John Entwistle was mentioned on the packet) and whilst they did give me that tone, the Prosteels give me more of it and stay brighter for longer to boot! Whenever I've tried experimenting with nickels I've always found them too polite sounding for my tastes.

[quote name='Mattmit' timestamp='1424341065' post='2695239'] How does applying these block inlays evenly and symmetrically work? is there any way they come prepared that makes it easier to not have them all a bit skewiffy ? [/quote] You get several markers attached to a single backing sheet pre laid out so you can lay the strip of stickers along the fingerboard in position, press down to stick and then peel off the backing leaving the markers in place.

My pleasure If it helps the email address is [email protected]

Another shot of the flame inlays on my old bass in all its glory These came from ccinlays.com (creative cuts inlays) and were actually a custom order as the design was available for guitar but not bass so I got them to scale it up for 24 fret /34" scale for me. Addis , the guy who runs the company, is really helpful and if you wanted a long thin length to use for neck binding I should think they could help you out. The also do white and black MOP too. Durability has been pretty good too as they still looked fine after about 50 gigs.

These were from a different company, and are abalone flames rather than white MOP blocks but hopefully give you some idea of how good they can look even fairly close up.

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1424022463' post='2691652'] Propaganda Duel (same girl, she had eclectic tastes!) [/quote] This came on Radio 2 this afternoon!

If there's enough room to do it I'd say repositioning the bridge to change the scale length would be the first thing I'd look at doing rather than re-routing out the neck pocket!

The fact that this particular bass has no tone control may not lend itself particularly well to playing through a headphone amp which may in itself have quite limited tone shaping abilities. Assuming the long term plan is to get into a band situation though I'd say it's worth sticking with as long as you like the way it feels to play. It's already a lot of bass for a beginner and as someone else has already mentioned it can be an expensive journey in search of 'the one'!

Ah! That explains why I couldn't find a 5 string version anywhere on line then.

Happy to help

The Sterling could be worth a look used as well then (although it would have to be a fiver - get completely lost on 4 strings these days).

[quote name='inate_hex' timestamp='1423419525' post='2684562'] When I was chasing the MM tone I found out that the easiest way to obtain it was to save up and buy a musicman. It will save you money in the long run. [/quote] 99 times out of 100 this would actually be the advice I would normally give myself. In my case however there are 2 mitigating factors: 1. As much as I like the MM tone, I've sadly never been able to get on with the ergonomics of Stingrays - neither the way the body sits against me or the feel of the neck in my hand. 2. Like mattbass6, this wouldn't be my main bass - just another string to my bow that's nice to have available - so justifying that kind of outlay on a bass that might get used for say 2 songs out of our whole set (and then only on nights when the drummer doesn't start us off into that number before I have a chance to swap over guitars) is gonna be pretty difficult.

Oh the joys of distance selling regulations and Thomann's no quibble returns policy

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1423394298' post='2684204'] I tried the new Squier Dimension bass yesterday and compared it with an SUB. To be honest, as nice as the Dimension was (and it really was up to the Squier VM standards) the pickup sound didn't do the classic MM sound to me. It felt too much like a modern, active bass and lacked a bit of soul. It sounded good though, it just didn't do that funky honk sound. The SUB had that classic tone. I had a go of a mate's OLP 5 string that, despite being passive, got that stingray tone down a treat too. [/quote] Interesting. A bit disappointing as I really do love the look of it but it's the classic Ray sound that I'm really after. Still might be worth trying one out though if the quality is there as you say.

Worked for Jaco!

Congrats and thanks for the info (not sure my other half would thank you for keeping the GAS flowing though). Sounds good to me so far. Looking forward to an update on how it sounds through your rig.

The 2 posts above show the reason I was looking at the Squier rather than the Modern Player - I don't like the look of the pickup with its 3 rails or the idea of the selector instead of any kind of actual tone control. The Squier appears to be more of a classic MM style humbucker and has a 3 band active pre which I was hoping would allow it to give a Ray type sound.

Weirdly I've had no luck finding anything on YouTube for the Squier. There are videos for the Fender USA Standard and the Modern Player (which is a bit of a different animal anyway with its passive circuit and triplebucker). To my ears the Standard does seem to do a pretty good MM impression in those videos so I'm hoping that the Squire version will get as close to the Fender as the VM P5 does to it's own Fender equivalent in terms of tone and quality.