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I wanted a cheap bass to lay some ideas down and do some recording. I went for the Squier Affinity P Bass. It didn’t take me long to realise that I couldn’t get it to sound as good as I wanted.
Ive since upgraded most parts of it. I changed the pickups to Seymour Duncan quarter pounders, upgraded the wiring, pots and jack and then replaced the bridge with a Gotoh bridge.
it is now a completely different bass and sounds really good. I couldn’t be happier and competes favourably with our bass players Fender Modern Player Jass bass.
So, final thoughts are that the body and neck on mine were fine and it is really nice to play. Low action and fast.
Tuners are ok and it stays in tune well.
However I decided to invest into it, since I liked how it played. Having done that l, it sounds so much better and it competes with more expensive basses.
Affinity is about £200
Vintage modified is £300
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
I'm still rehearsing, gigging and recording with it. I did the intonation and trussrod myself over the years, got a tech to sort out the fret ends a year ago. Tuners and bridge still holding up, may upgrade pickups within a year or so. Would a regular Squier have lasted this long?
Squier guitars that I have used tend to be pretty decent, so I think a VM would be good as well. There's second hand that could be a consideration as well for similar money perhaps?
The cons of the bass I had were:
Pickguard screws rusted pretty quickly, so I replaced them. Pickguard also faded from white to cream, so that went. Both replaced with all black, as below.
From stock, it also had a very middy sound, which I know is a characteristic of the P Bass, but I found it difficult to work with in a mix.
In case anyone is interested, I ended up with this:
This, pretty much.
To be brutally honest, these sorts of modification are equally desirable/necessary on Affinity, VM, Classic Vibe and the MIM Standard series instruments.
There are plenty of viable alternative new and pre-owned bass guitars in the same price bracket as a brand new Squier Affinity.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
P, J, MM and EMG-35 sized pickups are far easier to upgrade in the future.
Hopefully, yours is old enough to have the Duncan Designed PB101 and JB101B pickups. These make a better output level match than the "Fender Designed" in-house units that succeeded them about five years ago.
I have a 2014 example. I fed mine a pre-owned (passive) EMG-GZR pickup pair.
And then I tried a squier VI which boggled my mind as it is basically a long scale guitar that goes as low as an ordinary bass. Bonkers! But fun!
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
https://www.andertons.co.uk/squier-vintage-modified-jaguar-bass-special-w-indian-laurel-fingerboard-in-3-colour-sunburst-p0378900500-1
https://youtu.be/HKtUSpXbZlI