The Fender Squier
Vista Musicmaster Bass (whew) is a made in China reissue of the Fender
Musicmaster from the '60s and '70s. Like the original, it is a
short scale (30") bass with 19 frets and a rosewood fretboard. The
body is a scaled down version of the P bass. It has only one
single coil pickup. It is also surprisingly heavy. It weighs in at
roughly 8 pounds. That is heavier than some full size P basses!
Unlike the original, this bass has the strings through the body. It also has 4 bridge saddles, the original only had 2 (2 strings per saddle).
I have the bass setup with a medium action. Basically what you would get with Fender's bass setup.
The bass is surprising well made. The pickup is noisy, but what single coil isn't? The pickup is very high output for a passive pickup. The main problem was with the fret edges. I had to file down all the edges to keep from shredding my left hand.
The bass is neck heavy. The horn is short and the tuners on the neck are the full sized 1/2" versions. I keep thinking of replacing the tuners with light weight versions from Hipshot.
I sold this bass.
| SPECS | |
|---|---|
| Serial | YN690409 |
| Scale | 30" |
| Frets | 19 |
| Nut | 1 5/8" |
| Radius | 10"? |
| Weight | ~8 pds |
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Last modified: Sat Oct 30 22:42:08 EDT 2004