Fender Squier Affinity Series P-Bass

Squier Affinity Series P Bass
Alder Body
Maple C-shape Neck with Rosewood Fretboard
34" scale
20 medium-jumbo frets
Volume and Tone chrome controls
1 ply pickguard
Artic White (580)

See their website for more info on this specific guitar:

http://www.squierguitars.com/gear/show_specs.php?product=0310400&feature_id=1:0:0

I give it a 9 for features since they are exactly the same as the Fender Standard P Bass.

It has the nice Fender P Bass growl. I have a Fender Standard P Bass sitting right next to it and they sound identical.

Remember, the P Bass is not meant to be the tonal king of the bass world. Running it into a GK Backline 110 for practice. Shakes the house down when I want it to!

Here is the real SURPRISE.

This is the ONLY guitar that I have ever bought that actually came ready to play from the store. All the others need work (some lots of work).

No fret buzzing, no weird noises, strange vibrations. Just pure P Bass sound.

The control knobs are fitted snugly and turn cleanly. They make no noises in the signal when being adjusted.

I was surprised how well this "cheapo" bass was setup and how nice it played.

The tuners are cheap and will probably be the first to go (many years from now). The bridge looks identical to my Fender P Bass.

Who calls Tech Support for a $159 bass? Come on. Be real.

I have been playing for about 2 years now. I am hardly a professional.

This is a great first bass and a nice backup bass. At this price, you don't have to baby the bass or worry about it being stolen.

But I must say that I was surprised at how well mine plays.

If stolen, I would definitely buy another.

I love the color (Artic White), but am not too fond of the tuners (which work, but...)

4 strings
21 medium jumbo frets
2004
Standard P-bass pickupd
Volume and Tone Control

I play new metal and death metal so this bass isnt really what i was quite hoping for. I need a more sturdy bass because it keeps falling apart. Flat sound. Better for studio, not performance worthy. Really loud. it hums too much

Poor paint finish. Very unstable neck. when playing the 4th String the neck makes a weird sound... Not very good pickups.

My input jack keeps falling off so i have to use tape to keep it on. Not very reliable at all. I dont use this bass on a gig without a backup because after about 3 songs it starts to fall apart

neveer dealt

i have been playing for about 6 months and its already falling apart. DONT BUY THIS!

Standard Precision. Split pickup, one volume, one tone, 20 frets, rosewood fingerboard...Hey it's a precision! Mine is a 1997 model that I've sanded the finish down on and haven't yet had time to finish, it so it has a nice bare wood ingrained with dirt finish at the moment. I'll leave the rating blank for this section because I believe it's a little unfair to give this bass a low rating for features because it is what it is.

The basic sound of this bass is good. I've played it through small amps and large concert rigs and it has a reasonable amount of weight and definition if played that way. It has the very distinctive Precision character.

As a beginner instrument I can't fault the Squier P. The finish on mine was well applied (before I sanded it off), the frets are well dressed and the setup was good. It didn't need much adjusting to get it to play well.

This bass isn't as heavy as some of its cousins (which could be a great advantage for many younger players) but quite simply if you look after it there shouldn't be a problem. One of the split pickups fell away from its cover on mine but that was easily removed and glued back together. The Precision is a pretty simple bass in terms of the way its assembled so if anything does happen it's generally very easy to strip it down and fix basic things. That aside I haven't had any reliability problems whatsoever (although I now play a G&L L2500 for the most part and not so much the Squier but it still gets the occasional outing.)

Never had to deal with Fender/Squier.

I really do have to stick up for the Squier Precision here. I understand this may sound like a bit of a rant and I understand that people have their opinions and their right to express them, but I do find it strange that people who have only been playing for 2 weeks or so can write the Squier off as a piece of c**p. Getting good tones out of a bass required a lot of technique which takes a long time to learn. Sound and feel are the most important aspects of music to me (personal opinion here of course) and it took me a few years to get really good, solid positive tones out of the Squier, but it taught me a lot about technique, and of course if you learn on an instrument that isn't quite as easy to get tones out of as some, when you upgrade to a 'superior' instrument you'll sound much much better! I would urge anyone reading this and thinking of ditching their Squier after a few weeks of playing to spend a little more time learning how to control your instrument. It is, after all your fingers and your heart where the real tone comes from. It just takes a little time to learn how to get it out and no matter what make or model of bass you may be playing, you will always sound like you. I honestly can not say how much of a perfect bass the Squier is to learn on. The music I play ranges from Steely Dan to The Eagles, Dennis Brown, Joni Mitchell, Keb Mo and lots of other stuff. As mentioned above my main bass is a G&L L2500, I also play a fretless Fender Jazz 5 String and a Sting Signature Precision, and I still enjoy gigging the Squier sometimes because even next to the #1200 G&L it plays and sounds well. Apologies if this is slightly off-topic. I just felt I had to say it! Happy playing!

Same as the rest...
Made in China 1998 or so.
Torino Red
4 bass strings
volume & tone knobs
single split pick-up
Has everything you need... nothing you don't
Its a bass guitar... what else could you possibly need?

This bass sounds great. It has been played at least
once a week for three to five hours at a time for two years in a jam band
situation. It is played thru a Kustom KBA100 bass amp.
Between the bass and the amp, virtually any bass tone you want
can be had. I typically use the tone knob to roll off the high end
so my playing is more of a supporting role for the two guitars and
keyboards. If one of the guitarists and keyboardists don't make the session, I turn the tone knob up for a brighter, more prominent sound.

I bought this guitar off the showroom floor at Guitar Center
in San Jose California. I tried other basses, but this one had the
best action, fit and finish. It is a solid wood guitar, not plywood
as others have stated. If you don't like surprises, I suggest
going to a music store and finding a quality instrument as opposed to mail-order where you get what you're given.

This bass can and does withstand live playing. I have, do and will use this bass for gigs without a back-up. The only problem with this bass is the pick-guard. It is too thin... and has cracked
where the input jack is. Tape is now holding the pick-guard
down and together... I will be putting a three-ply pick-guard on
to replace the single ply one. This bass has never broken
or stopped making sound during a gig. Very reliable, very durable within reason. Rarely needs to be re-tuned... I can play it for months at a time without having to tune up. Haven't changed the strings.. still have the original set (keep 'em clean and they last a long time).

I couldn't care less what name is on the headstock. I am not looking to impress anyone with how expensive a bass I play.
As a matter of fact, the less expensive the better for me...
if it breaks or gets scratched... no real loss. I've known people
that play $5,000.00 guitars and are constantly fretting about
tiny scratches or whatever... forget that shit. I compared this bass to about six other basses in the store... bought the best one for me. If it were stolen or lost... I'd shop for another... or give the junkie who stole it ten bucks for it so they could buy crack. No one in their right mind is gonna steal a Squier...

WHAT EVERYONE ELSE SAID

only dislike is the neck is big and it is a little hard to play cause of that, not so much the action.I have been playing guitar a VERY long time this IS my first bass.It sounds good.It is a musical intstrument not a toy.I am glad I bought it.I use it for home recording.

set up quite excellent could not be much better took it home and started recording.no defects

It is built well.For 173 bucks it is built unfreakenbelievable

I dont put much faith in customer support at this price range.

Its everything I hoped it would be, a decent usable bass.Not the best bass in the world.But maybe the best bass in the world at this price.
I wish I had a expensive bass here to give it a side by side.I think it might hold its own with a bass costing 10 times as much.It would lose the shoot off of course but mabe not by a lot.Oh,it feels good too its light and balance is good.It feels good to pick up and play.

its a 34" scale, 20 frets, no locking tuners, split p config., passive pickups, a volume and a tone knob, p style body, rosewood fret board. made in china.

at the time i bought it i played punk crap now i have moved into the more rock stuff and oldies, anything from the beatles to the who to primus, not a good bass for primus stuff. im now using a dean markley 17 watt bass amp(dont recommend) and a digitech bp200. this bass has a very bright poppy sound. again not good for any primus stuff. ok for punk and beatles. the bass electronics were really quiet when i got it and then it developed a slight hum, i replaced the crappy cord i was using and that didnt help the bass makes the noise. i have had this bass for about 2 years and about 6 months ago it makes this crackling popping noise and the only way to make it go away is to slap the volume knob really hard and you cant adjust the volume while your playing or it goes insane. it is an electrical problem but when it started i switched over to playing guitar but i realized i was no good at that so went back to playing bass on my brothers 6 string brice which is heaven for a 6 string. anyways i dont want to pay the money to fix it so i just keep slapping it. i dont play on stage and what i have recorded i have done was on a 4 track tape recorder which didnt sound good. it also doesnt have much range of sound to it. my likes are the fact that its a 4 string my dislikes are the tuners are inaccurate, neck tends to bend, factory strings sucked, pickups went out, and just wasnt my style of bass kinda big even for me a 6' 5" guy.

i bought this bass just because i thought it looked cool. little did i know how big of a mistake i was making. as soon as i got the bass it had a very loud buzzing on the fret board even after i tuned it. when i took it to my first bass lesson my teacher looked at it, the neck was bent, the frets were popping out, and the action was set way too low. he said it would cost me 30 dollars to fix and it would take about a week before i could get it back. i had my parents pay for it, what a waste of money. the pickups where also too high. the bass had 2 nicks out of it when i got it but didnt really care. i let the warrenty run out before i could send in the card so i cant change it now.

i do not recommend this bass for anything not for recording or live playing or anything unless you are just buying for the body and replacing the neck and everything else dont get it. the hardware is all cheap peices of crap and will need to be replaced if wanting to upgrade this bass. the finish on mine which was artic white and chipped very easily. the strap buttons where solid until the first time you take them off and then you can never get them back in the right groove and i now have shoved pieces of toothpicks down into it and made new holes through those and now i still have a strap button that wont go all the way into it. i wouldnt depend on this bass for anything and i wouldnt even use it for a back up i would buy something better a.k.a anything but this.

not dealt with the company at all.

i have been playing all together about a year and i am now playing my brothers 6 string brice bass and i am also saving up for a sx jazz bass to play stock for a while and then upgrade. i wish i had asked about this bass instead of buying on looks but hey i didnt know anything about any kind of musical instruments at the time so oh well. if this bass where lost i would buy something better and if it were stolen i would laugh at the guy who is trying to steal it and then just tell him he can have it. i basically hate most of this bass. again i didnt compare it to anything, i didnt know that much at the time and just bought it cause it looked like one of the actual fenders and thought it would sound like it...I WAS WRONG!!! i just have to say i think fender should be ashamed to make this bass. thats all i have to say about the squier affinity p-bass.

2003 Indonesian Squier Affinity P-Bass, bought in starter pack with Frontman 15b amplifier
20 Jumbo Frets
1 each volume and tone nobs
Passive Electronics
Maple neck w/rosewood fingerboard
Split Single pickups
Basic Gig bag

I found it decent for playing rock with a little bit of funk mixed in. The sound wasn't as rich on the low end as I would have liked, but for the money it wasn't bad. I have used it both on the Fender Frontman 15b that comes in the starter pack, and a much more powerful Crate, which is somewhere around 120w. I found that the more powerful amp left more to be desired out of the sound, especially compaired to my teacher's 1970's vintage American P. Overall, for the money it wasn't too bad.

Very good here. very playable out of the box, only made minor adjustments to the pickup heights. A little bit of fret buzz on the E string, but overall good. Very smooth. Tuning pegs in perfectly. I have no complaints about the construction other that the fret buzz on the E string.

This is not the kind of bass that you would do a gig with, so I would say that it would not do well on a stage. It's had its fare share of knocks and falls, but it seems very durable. The headstock has some scratches, but that is much better than the horror stories I've heard of the less solid headstocks cracking in half with a little mistreatment. The finish held up very well, as did the laquer on the neck.

Never dealt with Fender customer support, never had to.

A very good starter bass. The tone does leave somethig to be desired,but for the money it is good. I've been playing for about a year now, so I think I'm ready to move on to a more versitile bass, so I probably would buy sometihng else if it were lost or stolen. When I was buying it, I was compairing it to a low end Ibanez, and a low end Yamaha. I chose the Squire because it just had the best feel of the bunch for me. I do wish that the starter pack that I bought came with a better amp, even if it would have cost a little more.

This is a '00 CI China Squire P bass that I purchased used from a pawn shop. The features are listed below by other reviewers. Mine has the large, quarter sized, potentiometes that are marked "250K ohms." Looking in the control cavity, I can see that the body is not plywood. Though alder, light reflection shows the body to be at least two pieces. The body is thinner than say, a MIM P bass. This makes it very light. The pickup has ceramic magnets and measures 8.17K ohms.

Finish is Torino Red. I think that color is discontinued. Too bad. The neck is maple, with a rosewood fretboard and no "skunk-stripe" on the back.

It has all the features that a P bass should have.

Because of it's light weight, it is very resonant and sounds good unplugged. Plugged in, it reminds me of a MM Stingray bass that I once played. I'm doing some recording and have several basses to compare it to. It sounds better than a '91 Fender JP-90, '93 MIM Fender Jazz bass and '01 Squier Bronco bass with an EMG Select pickup innit. A Gibson Victory bass sounds very similar but beats the Squier with better lows & low mids. (The Squier P has better action.)

I replaced the pickup with a Seymour Duncan Performer Sledgehammer which measured ~17K ohms. The SD was horrid & midrange-y. So, I'm sticking with the original pickup. Stock, this is a very good sounding bass! Plenty of high end sparkle. The low end could be a little warmer but that is easily dialed in with my amp. It has most of that beloved P bass "growl."

It had a poor lead from the volume control to the output jack. I replaced it with a piece of silver wire. To those reviewers who say the controls are scratchy, you need to learn what electronic contact cleaner/lube is. The controls work fine.

The original strings still sounded good after four years. I replaced them with D'Addario 45-105's and they sound glorious. Very piano like.

This thing was hanging in a pawn shop and had never been set up. It still had pickguard protection plastic around the jack, knobs and screws. The neck was bowed from drying and it still had the original strings. No fret wear. There was a small chip in the paint where the body received a blow. Some red fingernail polish corrected the defect.

After a pro setup, the action is very low and free of buzzes. Several musicians who have played this bass want to own it. The neck is wide but thin. Though not a Jazz or JP90 neck, it is easy and fun to play. Of the aforementioned basses, this is the one I always reach for.

You could use this bass to defend yourself in a fight. Though the tuners are economy units, they work fine. Amazing, huh? The paint does chip easily. When I masked off the ding to touch up the paint, tape removal pulled another chip loose. The pickguard is a single layer of plastic. It is warping and cracking. I have a new W/B/W PG on order.

I will use this live, if I can get over the "Squier" stigma. Perhaps I will follow the fellow below's suggestion and sand off the headstock face.

Fender is a big inhuman, alien monster that does not care about people. Let Godzilla sleep. Find a nice Fender, but it, tweak it, play rock and roll and use their warranty card to level a wobbling amplifier.

I've been playing guitar and bass since 1965 or so. If lost or stolen, I would buy another one just like it. Heck, if I found another one today for $75 I'd buy it for my kids!

For you people who don't like this bass, why did you buy it?

Same as all P's

I use this with either (A)a Behringer BX3000T 300w head, or for a very crisp modern sound, (B) Aguilar DB 924 preamp into the effects return of the BX3000T head.

The P-bass sounds is very good. I had been EQing the single pickup for less edgy sound (e.g. church), but I recently bought a jazz pickup ($8 on ebay) and a routing jig ($5 from Stew-Mac) to add to this bass. The new controls consist of a single master volume and a single blend pot. That makes this the be-all-end-all pefect bass for me.

I may build another the same, just to be sure that I always have one. Even after the second one, I will have spent less than what you'd usually think it would cost for a usable bass.

I will try a hand-wound P-type pickup in this bass when it is convenient to afford, but I have no particular problems with the stock pickup. It's just that in my strat experience, hand-wound pickups have some kind of lively quality - a little more character for some reason, possibly psychological...? I guess what I'm saying is that the voicing of the stock pickup suits me fine; I would just prefer handwound. You can get a more modern sound with a differently voiced/hotter pickup, or just use a preamp.

BTW - I have a guitar performance degree ("classical" guitar), and I rely on right hand technique to get a broad range of tones. If you are using a pick or a right hand technique that yields a single color, the pickup will exert more influence over the sound.

I got this for a song as a blem at Musician's Friend, and as a blem, it had a ding in the paint already (tho out of sight for any audience). I really don't care much about finish, except that I don't like gaudy colors, glitter, or anything with graphics. Looks like classic Fender white.

Action came just like I like it, but I don't know where all this bass had been before I got it. It may have been set up by a good tech after its factory setup. I don't know.

A P neck is supposed to be cumbersome - according to consensus, anyway - but I like it best. My hands are big and the spacing, width, and radius feel right for me. I might have a hard time slapping on a narrower neck. I have no problem playing fast on this instrument.

From about 5th position to about 16kth, it all feels perfect for my hands. Either side of that is totally usable, too, just not effortless.

Just extrapolating my experience with Fender and the relative simplicity of this instrument, I think the only thing that might go wrong with this instrument is that standard P-bass neck warp. While you are waiting for that to happen, save up your nickels for a Warmoth replacement neck.

I think that if you like P-basses but you have some bad feelings about your Squier affinity, you could just sand off the graphics from the headstock. That's what I did - LOL, more for the sake of esteem among peers than for myself.

When you consider the price, this is an unbelievable deal.

For me - and with my own mods - this is as close to a perfect bass as I care to buy. It seems like this is a golden age of manufacturing; every single piece of my bass rig is very inexpensive and it all sounds top-notch.

This is a Precision Bass, red in color, maple neck. The body is said to be "hardwood", made in taiwan or somewhere over there. Split humbuckers, sealed tuners, volume and control know. Somewhat light in weight. String thru bridge.

I play in a blues band and blues is all I play. This guitar can rumble. I turn the volume all the way and the tone all the way down. I have always preferred split humbuckers over singles or any thing else I have heard. I play walking bass lines and this guitar is great for it. The signal is sent thru a Digitech BP50 of which I use the compressor and noise gate only, then out of a Peavey TNT 115. I thought about changing the pickup but I am forgetting that line of thought. I have had to adjust height to my liking but these stock cheapies are doing fine. Strings have been changed and lowered. Changing the strings made a huge difference in sound for the better.

Action was high so I brought the strings down and even. Paint and neck finish are perfect. No flaws that I can see. I had to bring the pickups up some and then lowered them a bit. Adjusted to my liking. I had to file the sharp edges of the frets and then rub 'em with some steel wool but they are smooth now. I can run up and down the neck now in comfort. These guitars are pretty simple and simple to adjust and fix.

This bass is a bit light in weight but seems rugged enough. I keep it in a gig bag, wipe it down after playing. With care this bass will go on down the years. I don't abuse it.

Don't really need it. The bass was fine out of the box and all repairs, if needed, will be done by me.

I bought this bass to practice with at home. The guy whom I am jamming with has a very nice bass he wanted me to play on but I am going to use this cheapie. I like the feel and the sound. The red color is nice on the eyes and the sound is easy on the ears. It's a solid guitar. I don't have much money so cost is a factor. This guitar will go on stage with me soon. I believe that an electric guitar should be simple. This bass is simple. There is not much to them so paying $700.00 for one does not sit well with me.