It all seems a bit silly to me. What's next, the Stratocaster Bass? And no, the Precision is not already the bass equivalent of the Strat. It was originally the bass partner to the Telecaster, and if anything, the Jazz Bass was the Strat's opposite number in the bass camp, although some would argue that with its offset body shape the Jazz Bass's natural sibling would be the Jazzmaster/Jaguar. But of course these days there's a Jaguar Bass too. I wonder how long it is before Fender/Squier issue a Jazz Bass-bodied 6-string guitar? Hey, I reckon I could work for Fender marketing too with ideas like that.
With the Squier Telecaster Bass having a singlecoil pickup similar to that in the original P-Bass, and the Deluxe version having a 70s Telecaster Bass humbucker in the neck position and a J-Bass unit nearer the bridge, no doubt these new Telecaster Basses will appeal to players out there, although for me the designs are far too Frankenstein-like; for example that pickguard design is quite patently created for a guitar and not a bass. But never mind my nitpicking, if you're interested get yourself over to the Squier website and check out the specs for yourself.
G L Wilson
© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - 10 years and counting!
Working in the marketing or design department in Fender has to be the easiest job in the world. unless you have any imagination of course! I actually like the look of these but then I do love the tele. It looks like they might be a bit on the large side though!
ReplyDeleteI think you are being a wee bit harsh on Fender/Squier in this case. I know your oft stated position regarding Fender's very conservative design approach but Fender FINALLY following the lead of the Modders and builders like Fano, Anderson etc... are coming up with, if not new designs, at least interesting permutations repurposes and pastiches. The Pawn Shop line of guitars has at least been interesting as well as moderately priced. The Squier Vintage Modified and Classic Vibe lines are not only cool, they are brilliantly executed, high quality instruments that have a dollar to value index that is second to none. I personally have been alarmed and dismayed by Fender's massive price hikes on its upper range instruments but their low end offerings are really good and given the hit or miss aspects of many 70s-early 80s era Fenders I think it's fair to say that many of these new lowend instruments are certainly better guitars than the $2000-3000 vintage ones that sucked both then and now. The "new" Telecaster body shaped Telecaster Basses are a great example of taking an old idea (an in the electric solid body guitar world it doesn't get much older than the Telecaster) and giving it a new spin. Personally I have always thought the Hagstrom Swede and Les Paul Basses looked great so it's kind of a mystery why (besides home builders and individual luthiers) no one has ever made a Telecaster shaped bass Until now,that is. The same thing was true about Jaguar basses until a couple of years ago. I would argue that both the Tele and Jaguar basses are interesting enough, sound good and another thing going for them is that they DON'T HAVE the UBIQUITOUS P/J body (I know they aren't exactly the same but they are very very similar) which with the exception of the short lived Coronado Bass the original Bass V and Bass VI was the only Fender Bass Body Shape available for almost 60 years, talk about boring and conservative! At least that trend has been broken!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate all that, I just think that there was a jolly good reason why the Fender Telecaster Bass didn't adopt the guitar body design and had a doublecutaway design.
DeleteYeah, you see lots of ideas like these from modders, things like the Telemaster which is basically a Telecaster with a Jazzmaster-shaped body. It's not particularly inspired, you get the feeling that it's done just because it CAN be done rather than because it's a particularly good idea.
I agree in principle that a lot of modders output can be filed under the "did it because they could, not because it's a particularly good idea" but I am partial to the Telemaster concept, if only because I have been a Telecaster player since I got my first one in 79 when I was 14 and the Jazzmaster is my second favorite Fender design. Since the Telecaster can be thought of as an Ur-guitar (or an archetypical essence to put it another way) and the Jazzmaster is a much more stylish design I find the mixing of the two into a Telemaster interesting on a number of levels: aesthetically it works for me, the overwrought and completely useless (to me anyway, though I don't think I am in the minority on this one) Jazzmaster switching system is gone and since I am so used to and in love with Tele necks that's a big playability improvement.
DeleteI think I have mentioned this before in previous posts but I'll say it again, I really love Guitarz. You have both a great concept and consistently great execution. I look forward to my daily fix of our collective virtual guitar collection. Thank you,
Jack
The Main problem I had when I saw these was 'Wait Leo left the company and they're still nicking his ideas!?' I refer of course to the brilliant and well-built G&L ASAT Bass. Full Tele shape with bolt-on neck and two interesting G&L Pickups. The Body on the ASAt is a decent bit smaller, yet balences quite well according to users. So, Squier's design is... Sound? No idea, really, but I do like the esquire wiring on the Single Coil version.
ReplyDeleteBut is tele basses are what you want, get a Squier Classic Vibe 50's Precison Bass. I have oneand it is completely brillaint, replaced the pickup with a duncan but the feel of the body and hardware still made it worth it.
And, sadly, once again i must say this. When people go to Fender, or Gibson, they once went there looking for high-quality gear in the dark days of the60's. Now they Go there looking for a high-quality Fender, or gibson, thinking moreabout what the brand means than what thye want. It's not major comapnies fault if the wider market doesn't really WANT anything new.
One reason that they look so massive is that they are not full-scale basses - they actually have a 32" scale rather than the usual 34" used on Fender's non-student basses. This makes the body look proportionately bigger.
ReplyDeleteI was aware of the 32" scale. I'd still like to see one next to a Telecaster guitar, because here the body looks in proportion to the neck and - even with a 32" scale - it shouldn't. For example, take a look at the baritone Tele that Fender have recently introduced. The neck looks really long on that. No, I'm still pretty sure the body has been lengthened here.
DeleteI've played one of these basses, and I'll tell you what the real benefit of them is: They're basses with a pickup selector. I don't know why the bass community (or at least those who make the basses) have such an aversion to pickup selectors, because for guitarists they're such a basic need.
ReplyDeleteThe part that does suck about these new basses is that since there's no p-style pickup in the middle, there's no good place to put your thumb when playing. Seems like they could have thought of that and put one of those cheap plastic thumb rests on there for nearly no more money.
I knew Squier made a Jaguar bass (it's got a nice humbucker and a shorter scale), but I also discovered that Fender apparently already makes several models of Jag basses, like this one:
http://www.fender.com/products/deluxe-jaguar-bass
The single pup one looks better if only because it adds some relief for the pup. That straight cut on the other looks awful.
ReplyDeleteOr a big, gooey telecaster deluxe (the on with the 4 knobs) pick guard would work better
ReplyDeleteFernandes already came up with a production line Tele Bass in the 80s/90s if I'm not mistaken.
ReplyDeletehttp://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/l507/ButlerFamily1/basses/DSC_0035.jpg
They even had a Telemaster around 1998!
http://www.sinuata.net/misc/JG-55/IMGP7868.jpg
Yeah, and G&L also had an ASAT Bass which was basically a Tele Bass.
DeleteNot sure if I'd go as far to call that a TeleMaster. The only thing Tele-like about it is its bridge and even then it has a humbucker.
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