shoulderpet Posted November 5, 2020 Share Posted November 5, 2020 (edited) Or new bass week since I have had it since Saturday. Was after getting a new bass and was looking at this bass and also looking at the Squier CV Mustang bass that I also really liked the look of however the Sire being a short scale P/J bass with a maple fretboard was what swung the deal for me , I like the look of the Fender Mustang P/J with the maple fretboard but with this being nearly £200 cheaper and me not being able to stretch to nearly £600 it was a no brainer to get the Sire. As I would expect on a £400 bass there were some minor cosmetic imperfections for example the truss rod routing and the paint job around the truss rod routing could be a little neater but for £400 it really doesn't bother me and I have seen bigger flaws on much more expensive basses. Quality wise this is fantastic bass, this is easily on par with MIM Fender, the neck feels great and satin finish is very well done, the fretboard also has rolled edges which feels nice and the through body stringing is a nice touch as well as the option to top load the strings. Sire claim "You can play it comfortably straight out-of-the-box, needless of any initial set up,” and this does seem to be true, from the box the bass arrived with the action just a hair above 2mm at the 17th fret and played flawlessly which makes a nice change from receiving basses from online retailers with half an inch action, I was able to drop it down to 2mm and I suspect with a setup I could probably drop it further still. Plugged in this bass sounds really good, probably due to the maple fingerboard this bass has a bright, full tone, if you like a darker tone you may find yourself rolling off the tone control but I like a really bright tone so this suited me fine, the pickups in this bass also sound really good. All in all very pleased with this bass, as said earlier this is as good as MIM Fender and nearly 200 quid cheaper Excuse the terrible mobile phone pics Edited November 5, 2020 by shoulderpet 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madshadows Posted November 5, 2020 Share Posted November 5, 2020 I have a SIRE M2 and it's fantastic, love the rolled edge's on the fret board,superb value for money, your bass looks fantastic, great colour John 😎 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreek Posted November 6, 2020 Share Posted November 6, 2020 Thanks for this, I'm looking at short scale basses currently - being drawn towards a short scale Ray but this has put the cat amongst the pigeons. Not a fan of Baby blue though...available in natural?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoulderpet Posted November 6, 2020 Author Share Posted November 6, 2020 (edited) Is meant to be mint green but is more of a turqouise colour really, they do them in natural and tobacco burst also Edited November 6, 2020 by shoulderpet 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoulderpet Posted November 8, 2020 Author Share Posted November 8, 2020 (edited) Ok so a couple of observations that may be useful to anyone looking at this bass since I have now had the bass a little over a week The tuners are ok, they are pretty similar to what you get on MIM Fender, they work fine and hold tune fine and I will be keeping them. The bridge although it is a bbot style it is fine and the quality is good and the option for string through is good, as the saddles are ridged it is possible to set the string spacing incorrectly if you are careless when you restring however the ridges mean that you can tweak the spacing slightly if you desire. Had a look inside the constrol cavity and seems to use 250k pots, I may swap these out for 500k volumes and a no load tone control, amybe Quarter pounder pickups also but this is not a priority at the moment and the tone of this bass sounds great as is. Bridge pickup height was on the low side which was causing a slight volume drop and a mid scoop with both pickups, checked with my action ruler and the bridge pickup was around 5mm from the strings when fretted so have added some additional foam and raised the pickup height to around 2.5mm when fretted and is a definate improvement, if anyone is experiencing the aforemention volume drop and mid scoop it may be worth checking the bridge pickup height After some research I found out the stock strings are Ernie ball, these sound ok but are already starting to loose their brightness, I will be swapping these out for some stainless steel strings for some extra bite Edited November 8, 2020 by shoulderpet 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4000 Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 It’s the colour that drew me to these. Love surf green/mint green/baby blues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeftyJ Posted November 9, 2020 Share Posted November 9, 2020 I can't tell from any of the pictures I've seen, but I was wondering: are these slab-bodied (i.e. fully flat front and back), or is the top curved like a Fender Aerodyne Jazz? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoulderpet Posted November 10, 2020 Author Share Posted November 10, 2020 20 hours ago, LeftyJ said: I can't tell from any of the pictures I've seen, but I was wondering: are these slab-bodied (i.e. fully flat front and back), or is the top curved like a Fender Aerodyne Jazz? I honestly can't remember , I know the sides are slab (ie non curved) due to the binding, I will check later tonight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yorks5stringer Posted November 10, 2020 Share Posted November 10, 2020 Looks nice but that truss rod routing would result in me sending it back for an exchange! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeftyJ Posted November 10, 2020 Share Posted November 10, 2020 Found my answer Flat back, curved front: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoulderpet Posted November 10, 2020 Author Share Posted November 10, 2020 2 hours ago, yorks5stringer said: Looks nice but that truss rod routing would result in me sending it back for an exchange! It looks worse in the picture than it does in person Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoulderpet Posted November 30, 2020 Author Share Posted November 30, 2020 Ok so just to give an update, I have moved this bass on, I was impressed by the features and the overall quality for the price but as the new bass buzz faded I was finding that in spite of being impressed I just didn't click with this bass and I couldn't help feeling that this was a decent bass but lacked personality 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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