Squier CV Bass VI LRL 3TS 4-stars Reviews

Fun to play

As a guitar player, this bass feel much natural to me than a normal bass. Scale length wise it is like a short scale, but the distance between strings brings it closer to the guitar experience. With the original strings and setup it was pretty poor though with plenty of fret noise and bad intonation, but after stringing it with La Bella flats and fixing the setup it became a useful tool. It is baffling though that company like Fender produce a guitar with such a lousy bridge, it is so bad that you simply cannot get a good intonation without modifications and the main problem is that the pin have a different diameter than the hole in which they are supposed to fit. Result is that the bridge will lean forward and elevate the intonation problem. They must have known this after the first prototype. The machine heads are also to small and a low gearing makes it hard to tune. Maybe they don't think it is important to have a bass in tune.

A quality instrument, held back by an underwhelming bridge

Pros:

1) Comfortable neck

2) Good-sounding pick-ups

3) Solid, satisfying switches

4) Well-cut bone nut

5) Stable tuning machines.

6) 3-ply pickguard

7) Delightfully retro style

8) Spotless finish, tasteful sunburst, nice flame along the neck

9) It sounds evil

Cons:

1) Strings - too thin, needs a new set out of the box.

2) Bridge - lacks for an extra 2-3mm of adjustment on the lower strings. This leads to intonation foibles.

3) The body is made out of 4 pieces. If you care about that sort of thing then get one in a solid color.

4) Some rough edges on the pickguard.

5) The knobs feel a bit light.

6) The instrument is altogether quite microphonic, though I think of it as a charming quirk rather than a flaw.

I like it. It's my first Indonesian-built instrument, and I am thoroughly impressed by both the build quality and the finish, as they are miles above those of similarly-priced instruments of the 80s and 90s. I will probably replace or modify the bridge to assuage the intonation issues, but the instrument is playable out of the box. For how much it costs, it's a pretty good deal. Would recommend.