NBD - Sire Marcus Miller V7

[JPJ]

So I live in Holland Monday to Friday, and all my bass gear stays home in the UK. I’ve got a Harley Benton acoustic bass out here for midweek noodling, but with a couple of big gigs coming up I decided to add an electric out here as well. 

Having read all the reviews and plaudits on here and spoken to a couple of local players who rate them really highly, I took the plunge on Monday and ordered a Sire V7 Alder 5 string in black. I tracked my parcel from Frankfurt and was waiting patiently for delivery on Wednesday at the shipyard where I work as being out all day makes this is the safest way to not miss a courier. So UPS duly delivered and the shipyard notified me of receipt precisely 15 minutes after the warehouse closed for the day 😤

So roll forward 24 hours and the bass is in my grubby hands. First impressions are very very good.

The neck is arrow straight, and sits nicely in the hand. It’s neither as wide or as shallow as my Overwater but it’s still comfortable to play and the increased fretboard radius is hardly noticeable. I’ve always been a sucker for blocked and bound necks, especially rosewood with MOP blocks and this is nicely executed although the binding isn’t that deep suggesting only a thin rosewood board. Frets are quite thin but nicely crowned and dressed with no noticeable high spots or sharp ends. The tuners appear to be good quality and have a nice stiffness when turned, and brought the bass into tune easily. The only downside for me is that headstock shape.

The body is finished in a very uniform high gloss black which has been well buffed and finished, again no noticeable defects. The bridge is a bit of a hybrid between the BBOT of old and more modern high mass bridges, and the black springs look good with the black body. The bass arrived strung through the body with D’Addario XL’s, almost in tune, and with a nice low action. 

Moving on to the electrics, there are a lot of knobs. My main Overwater is fitted with a J-Retro which effectively has six knobs in three stacks, but the Sire has seven knobs in five stacks, the difference being the addition of a passive or master tone. So far I’ve only been experimenting via iRig/AmpliTube on the iPad, but it all functions as it should and has a good range of useable tones, and there doesn’t appear to be a big difference in output between active and passive. Sure the black plastic knobs feel a bit sharp and therefore a bit cheap, and hover about 1/4” above the bell plate, but changing to other knobs shouldn’t be a drama, not that I intend to. The bass also shipped with two Allen keys (truss rod and bridge).

Sounds-wise, it sounds like an active jazz bass. As my other five stringers are either 35” or 36” scale, the Sire low B feels a little flabby, but it sounds ok and balances nicely with the rest of the strings.

To sum up, I can only repeat what many others have said before. It’s one hell of a lot of bass for the money (€444 or £389) and based on first impressions, I’d be more than happy to gig with it. 

Edited June 7, 2018 by JPJ