NEW SIRE BASS

[LHBASSIST]

Well, I did it again... I was considering buying Dark Kent's beautiful LH P-5 5 string- then.... I found a screamin' deal, and just couldn't pass it up- and a color I love, too. The price with shipping, from GERMANY, seemed almost too good to be true. It took LESS THAN one WEEK to get here, and UPS delivered it uncrushed! YAY! To all those that shop at Thomann, they and other Euro sellers are pretty indefinite about the import duties and fees on OUR END. This arrived yesterday, no VAT, no import duties, and no hidden, or surprise fees, either. I'm happy about that. Seems it could be an issue if the price is over a certain dollar amount.
These are a 4-5 month wait direct from Sire USA, and they're $641.00. Thomann sold me this, a new in stock bass for $499. and 81 dollars shipping. That's a substantial savings, and a wait of less than a week? If I had the bread, I'd have bought another bass, too!

O.K. what's it like? It came setup really well from the factory, but higher action than I like. Lowered the action, and it still plays great. NO neck adjustment was needed. It arrived detuned abut a whole step. The fret ends, are definitely not comfortable- they're going to be filed and rounded off later this week, after I get an upright I'm working on, off the bench space.
The low 'B' has a weird tone to it. It's not the string as far as I can tell, Lobster's video demo of one has that same tone. I'm thinking it's the pickup's magnetic interaction with it. I lowered the half, it's better, but still there. I'm going to put on a .125 and see if it improves.
The tone pot, is pretty much awful, the taper- it is not nice and gradual, it is effective in the last part of its travel. I'll fix that.
The sound of the bass?
It's the most P sounding P of any P I have! lol!
It nails the so very familiar Precision bass bark and push. Really good output from the pickup- and the tone leaves me at a loss for why anyone would want to swap it for a different one, because it has everything- clarity- and yes, decent bottom, and the most important thing- tone, and output balance nicely with transparency. The tuners work GREAT, and the instrument balances nicely on my Neoprene strap. It weighs-8 pounds, 10.8 oz.
It's pretty reasonable for a 5.
A really nice bass for the money. See pics.

[superheavydeathmetal]

I love the color of the body and that roasted Maple fretboard, and they go beautifully together! I am glad it sounds as good as it looks!

[Matt R.]

Noice!!

[tim]

I second the comment on the finish/neck--really nice! I hope you're able to get the B-string working for you.

[LHBASSIST]

Last night, I did a light fret end dress, just a smooth file, and then three grits of sandpaper, and then re-buffed the fingerboard edge, a big improvement.. then, I reversed the pot direction, because, I prefer clockwise on. I removed the stock capacitor, and put one I had in inventory. I soldered everything up and the bass did not work! I traced it to a nearly severed- at the factory! - pickup ground wire- not at any of the solder points- it was about an inch into the wire! Not good quality control. I'm glad I found it- it could have easily stopped working on a gig!
It was after putting it all back together that it occurred to me that on this bass, and likely other passive Sires- they use righty pots. The taper of both the volume and tone controls improved to a really noticeable degree! The tone works as it should now, and is very effective along the entire sweep not just the last 1/8" of travel! I still think I may install one of the many preamps I have in stock. Possibly an Aguilar- and NO visible mods to the bass. Two stacked pots with chrome knobs will 'hide' it if I do. I'm going to make two pick guards for it- a mint green, and a gold one. I think I will go with the gold one.. Even though I do like the tort, it's my bass, after all... I like these 'surf' and Fender style custom solid auto finish colors with lighter or gold anodized guards much better.
Photos to come.

[paulo]

Congrats looks really nice!

[crescenze]

Last night, I did a light fret end dress, just a smooth file, and then three grits of sandpaper, and then re-buffed the fingerboard edge, a big improvement.. then, I reversed the pot direction, because, I prefer clockwise on. I removed the stock capacitor, and put one I had in inventory. I soldered everything up and the bass did not work! I traced it to a nearly severed- at the factory! - pickup ground wire- not at any of the solder points- it was about an inch into the wire! Not good quality control. I'm glad I found it- it could have easily stopped working on a gig!
It was after putting it all back together that it occurred to me that on this bass, and likely other passive Sires- they use righty pots. The taper of both the volume and tone controls improved to a really noticeable degree! The tone works as it should now, and is very effective along the entire sweep not just the last 1/8" of travel! I still think I may install one of the many preamps I have in stock. Possibly an Aguilar- and NO visible mods to the bass. Two stacked pots with chrome knobs will 'hide' it if I do. I'm going to make two pick guards for it- a mint green, and a gold one. I think I will go with the gold one.. Even though I do like the tort, it's my bass, after all... I like these 'surf' and Fender style custom solid auto finish colors with lighter or gold anodized guards much better.
Photos to come.

I'm with you on the two other pick guards choices. Look forward to the photos.

[LHBASSIST]

I'm with you on the two other pick guards choices. Look forward to the photos.[/quote]


And... VOILA' Mint green. I made it pretty fast, it came out fine, but I'm really looking forward to making the gold one. I like this better than the tort, what say you, my friends?

[Jeroen]

Perfect! Looks classic, and classy. Really curious what it will look like with the gold!

[tim]

Yup, improvement over tort IMHO.

[crescenze]

Perfect! Looks classic, and classy. Really curious what it will look like with the gold!

Same here. Might be a toss up.

[LHBASSIST]

I did a gig with The P-5 a few weeks ago, and decided to mod the bass. I added a Fender stacked noiseless pickup a little further back than 70's position, and installed a 4 band three knob Audere preamp. I put a Pure Tone barrel jack on the side. I'm going to change that, and put an electro socket in instead. But for now, it's done. This bass definitely has big time neck dive as well. I'll address that soon, too. The bass sounds killer now, and the Audere is just a great, really logical, intuitive preamp.

[fivebass52]

Very nice! The new pick guard gives it a nice retro look....

[LHBASSIST]

AND, the likely final evolution.. Fender tug bar added, I used to hate these things- now, I think a vintage style P-bass looks kinda naked without them. My preference.
And, I installed a single 9v Battery box- a Gotoh BB-2 bottom mount, using a nice routing template. Looks factory. The Audere runs on one 9v, and they say two 9v's will not make any difference in the operation. So, here we are- finished. This P-5, actually sounds, to my ears, better than a P-7 that's in my shop right now. This bass can do it all... sadly, that coincides with my involuntary retirement from playing gigs in this area. I guess 30 years was a good run.