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In praise of ... the Squier Bronco!


ikay
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I've spent a lot over the years in my quest for 'the special one' and have owned exotic and beautiful instruments from Zon, Rick Turner and Rob Allen as well as many other expensive-ish basses. More recently I've been playing around with budget basses and have been very pleasantly surprised! My latest one is this Squier Bronco which was professionally modded by the previous owner with a Hipshot bridge, Hipshot tuners, new pots/harness and a Sentell 'Big Sis' handwound pickup (http://www.sentellpickups.net/bass.html).  An ebay special for the princely sum of £150. A bit on the steep side for a used Bronco maybe, but it's a little gem! It feels and plays well above it's price point and the Sentell pickup is gloriously rich and sensitive to playing touch. I love it!

Anyone else out there with something rather 'special' at the budget end of the GAS richter scale? Post pics if you can!

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Edited by ikay
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2 hours ago, Groove Harder said:

Wow, that's beautiful! I love mine, they are very playable. I'll post a photo of mine when I get back home, it's an absolute wreck 😂

Got the single coil SD Quarter Pounder in mine and tapewounds.

 

Here you are, told you it was a wreck, hahaha.

 

Bronco.jpg

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The headstock reshape was a brave attempt lol! The SD single coil with the bigger pole pieces is probably quite similar to my Sentell pup. There's something about the sound of a bass with one single-coil that is so open and natural it just feels 'right' to me.

Edited by ikay
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I've not played the Broncos much but I've been incredibly happy with the little Jaguar SS - I bought it because it was the cheapest and lightest bass in the store and I wanted something to throw around, but I've had a lot of use out of it these last two years! Had it in all kinds of tuning and wiring setups too; at the moment it's got one volume knob for the P pickup, an on/off for the J, and a master tone which seems to work quite nicely.

I brought it to a studio session strung up ADGC as an alternative "baritone" sound, but my friend ended up playing it and eventually picking one up to replace his 70s Musicmaster which was getting a bit fragile for touring work. Not gonna pretend it's a pro-level bass, but they're passable out of the box and make great basic mod platforms. With any luck mine will see some very big stages this summer.

I really wish they did the Mustang or Bronco with a rosewood neck but they're different scales so can't even swap a JSS neck onto them.

Edited by borntohang
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54 minutes ago, ikay said:

The Mustang, Bronco and Jaguar SS are all 30" scale so it is possible the JSS neck will fit. The pocket and mounting hole positions look very similar.

 

Same scale but Bronco is 19 frets and Jaguar is 20, alas, or I'd be putting together a rosewood Bronco with a matching headstock sharpish. It's just a case of moving the bridge position but it's more naffing around than I'm game for when I'm perfectly happy with the Jaguar as it is.

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  • 6 months later...

Hi everyone....  I'd like to share my version of bronco bass, I bought this I think .... 9 years ago it was a badtz maru edition. I've always wanted to use a short scale bass but was hard to find one here in philippines. I haven't played it since 2012. Then last year I decided use it . I changed its pick up to a music man and removed the pick gurad it sounded way better to me and louder maybe because of my playing style. Glad to see other bronco bass here. thanks everyone

IMG_20181011_174051.jpg

Edited by enteng44
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Thanks jus.... I saw someone did it first online but it was red body with stripes and has pick guard ... looks very cool as well . actually that guitar gave me the urge to do a make over. Changing the tuning keys I think is good additiom too

Edited by enteng44
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