Peavey Cirrus 5 Fretless

Mine was unlined fretless from the custom shop. Basically stock, except it had an ebony fingerboard, trans navy blue on flamed maple over alder, and a solid finished neck. The only drawback was that they put the dots in between the frets, which you DON'T do on an unlined fretless. The previous owner removed those dots and placed one where every fret line would be. Now it works nicely.

It's a wonderful full sound on a fretless. The response is very even. This makes for a very clean and smooth fretless tone that I really like. It works quite well in a direct-in studio setting.

The action was kinda crappy and I bottomed out the saddles. They basically used the same thickness fingerboard that they use on a fretted bass. After grinding down the saddles 1.5mm, the action became perfect and dang near lethal! For my next fretless from the custom shop, I will have the bridge recessed 1.5mm to compensate and add a bit more sustain.

Seems pretty durable to me. The ebony fingerboard will put up with a pretty good amount of abuse from roundwound strings, but not quite as strong as diamond wood. I will subsequently order one with a diamondwood fingerboard some day.

They're decent, but can be unorganized at times.

Aside from the dots in the wrong place for an unlined player and the action being a shade high, it's a great sounding and playing fretless after the proper corrections were made.

It's a 1999 model, USA made, with a lovely maple top. Really,really comfortable. At the begining I though the neck was a little narrow front to back, but regarding the extra long scale it makes sense. Probably some minor cosmetic flaws, but lovely bass overall. It's by far the more confortable bass I have owned.

I can't imagine a better fretless bass. Even the B string has fretless mwah. Records like heaven and cuts awesomely live. Full range sound that you can taylor to your needs.

I adjusted the trussrod some years ago. I've never since. The strap buttons are locking ones.

Peavey has a great web and a forum where you can ask wathever you want.

I've been playing for sixteen years now. I have a great yamaha lbmotion fretted necktrough that is another dream bass and some other. I can compare the peavey with many other 5's and I think that you can say that there are others that are as good, but finding a really better one...um

This bass is just turning 2 years old and it has been a lovely 2 years. It's the big redwood model that starts to weigh heavily on the shoulder after 2-3 hours but man does it sound sweet. Don't be fooled by the Peavey name. They got bought out while back by a company that cares about quality and started producing some serious eqipment. This creature is a neck through with 2 active pick-ups - one for that natural woody sound. The other for a little more bite. With a nice, lacquered finish and 34", extra long scale, this bass is a beauty. Volume, 3 tone controls and, my personal favorite, a pick-up fader knob are at your fingertips. It comes with a hard case and minimal accessories. You'll need two alkaline batteries for the electronics.

If you want that Ernie Ball treble sound - stay away. If you love a natural sound with lots of sustain, definitely check it out. This thing is deep and woody - warm and sometimes dark - very jazz oriented but can give you an edge if you dial up the bridge pickup and slide back the bass end. I use it for rock recording. It's whisper quiet . I run mainly direct but have the board to do it. Most people don't have that luxury, so try it with your rig first. This is a fantastic studio bass and very good for live apps. As with any fretless, it will slow you down if your a fret-person.
My only gripe is that I can't get that grind. A second bass will be needed for that.

Peavy made a great bass very affordable. I am happy to report no flaws in workmanship. It was set up and adjusted well at the factory. It was very fast and the action was set low. I liked that but had to raise it a bit to eliminate some of the string tap that comes with my style of play - finger and tap, if you needed to know. This is not a slap bass. For that, go get a Pedulla.

I use it all the time and it has yet to fail. Make sure that you have your strap buttons firmly secured. I've had to catch it a time or two but never when I made sure. I have used it with out back-up in live situations. It is a my very good friend.

I have had no need for these folks.

I know that I gave it a 9 for Sound and Features but It does everything I expected it to do in both respects. I would buy it again - but, of course, I already own it. I compared it to a lot of other basses and chose it over more expensive creatures that have bigger reps. I never liked Peavey bases until I heard this one. It will not dissapoint.

Now if I can find that ballsy bass with some growl to compliment this one - something with frets - any suggestions?

5-string fretless, fret markers, Highly figured redwood top, 35 inch scale, Neck-through-body, Pau Ferro fretboard, 2 VFL? active pickups, Active 3-band EQ with +/- 10 dB boost/cut, Gold hardware, Milled ABM? multi-adjustable bridge, Graphite reinforced neck with dual expanding truss rod, Graphite overlay on headstock. Case included (HUGE bonus in my opinion. Really, you're spending a lot of money the least they can do is throw you a hunk of plastic that probably only cost them $25 to have some kid in Laos assemble for them)

Its got everything I wanted from an active bass feature-wise. The body woods are great but I would have preferred a harder wood for the fretboard. Given that the fretboard is a little soft, I can't understand why Peavey stocks these things with unusually sharp roundwounds. I played it for a month with the Peavey Cirrus strings (which sound awesome, BTW) on it before switching to flatwounds, and there is some (although VERY minimal) damage to the fretboard. My advice would be to buy flatwounds ASAP (though if you live in Colorado like I do, finding a set of flatwounds for a 5-string with a 35" scale is next to impossible).

Wow. This bass sounds incredible. I can get pretty much any sound out of this bass that I want with very little effort. The action is extremely low, so you have to be very gentle with the B-string, but with the long scale there's a minimal amount of buzz associated with other brands of 5-strings.

I get sounds out of this bass I never thought possible. I'm not a good enough player to get serious studio work, but with this bass I can get serious studio sound.

I've never been a big effects person, right now I'm using a Dunlop Cry Baby 105Q wah pedal very sparingly, but that's about it. There's so many different tones and sounds you can get out of this bass that I don't need to effect it much at all. I'm going to get a volume pedal so I can have some real fun, and possibly a reverb/chorus, but that's about it. Some may be tempted to use a compressor, but you'll take away from the subtleties of this thing if you do. Avoid that temptation at all costs.

The action on this bass is unbelievable. Every time I pick it up I'm stunned at how easy and smooth it plays. I haven't had to do any adjustments since purchasing it.

The pickup height needed to be adjusted to my personal taste, but that's to be expected.

I had one loose tuning peg, the screw holding the rear strap button was stripped and wasn't in straight. I had to use a hacksaw, vise-grips and a dremmel tool to put my strap locks on. Everything else seemed OK. I don't want to knock this line of basses just because mine wasn't set up perfect, as these are supposedly all hand assembled, but come on. How hard is it to tighten all the pegs and put in a wood screw without stripping it? QC really should have caught this before it went out the door.

I've only had it for a couple months, but seems to be pretty tough, all things considered.

My only concern is the tuning pegs, I don't think they'll make it past the 10 year mark. At least those are cheap to replace though.

The fretboard should be fine as long as I keep flatwounds on it, which I prefer anyhow.

I gig with this bass without a backup, but not without batteries. In case no one told you, this thing needs TWO nine volts, and it's pretty thirsty. Mine seems to last about 35 hours of play time before needing to be replaced.

Haven't had to call them yet. Peavey has always been good to me in the past though.

I've been playing bass for about 13 years now, at the semi-pro (still have day job, but make enough to pay for beer & gear) level for about 5 years.

I was worried about moving to a fretless, but jumped in with both feet and haven't looked back because of this bass. I've been shopping fretless basses for about five years and played just about everything there was under $3000, but never found anything that felt right and made me feel confident that I could transition to fretless play without starting from scratch. Then I picked up the Cirrus, and all my concerns went out the window.

Since I started playing this bass, my abilities have improved more in the last couple of months than they have in the last two years. Most of the time I feel like this bass is really playing ME, like I'm some inconsequential dummy it uses to make its own music. This is the first bass (fretless or otherwise) that I've ever played where I TRULY feel as though it's an extension of my own body. It's as close to effortless as I think you can get.

To better illustrate my point, I was playing an Ibanez3000 Prestige series, which I loved. I payed $1100 for it 3 years ago. It was the fastest, smoothest, toughest bass I could afford, and I loved it. I haven't played it for two months since getting my Cirrus, and yesterday I picked it up to play it again. It felt like going from driving a Cadillac to driving a '65 VW bus with flat tires. I could not believe the difference. I'm never playing a fretted bass again.

After only two months, I'm able to use the fretless with both my bands, and I'm making very few mistakes (though I'll admit this would not be possible without the fret markers). The Cirrus makes all the difference.

If you're hung up about the Peavey name (so was I), just pick it up. I saw Cirrus basses in the stores for a LONG time and always snickered at them. There's only a few regrets I have in my life, and one of them is that I never actually picked one of these up and played it while I was in the store.

Bottom line is that this is the best fretless for the money. I would have paid $2500 for this bass (twice what it actually cost). Maybe more. If you're like me and you're looking to move to a fretless, and you know better than to buy crap, but don't want or simply can't afford to spend upwards of $1500, this bass is great. I've played $2500 Warwicks that don't sound or play as good.

5 string, wenge/walnut (?), fretless with fret lines. Completely stock: Active electronics, bass/mid/treble. ABM bridge. Very High Quality bass at any price, an absolute steal at $700 US @ pawn shop

I'd always wanted a fretless, and this one had the fret markers so I don't get lost. I already owned a Cirrus 4, so I was well over the "Peavey Sucks" thing. This is a first class bass.

Very smooth neck. Easy to play. Low action. AMAZING LOW END. 35" scale makes the B string nice and tight.

I've kept the original strings on the bass, so it's hard to say how bright it would be with fresh strings. Fretless lends itself to warmth, however, and this bass is dark, warm, and throaty. I'm still looking for the hollow acoustic sound though. I guess I'd say that this bass has really strong fundamental notes, and a hi-fi quality to it that does not lend itself to faking acoustic bass sounds. That may be just that I play it like an electric... not sure.

As good as anyone needs. Peavey really hit the point where any more refinement would have cost a lot more money. Well set up. Anything more would be nit-picking.

Very Solid. I don't gig much anymore, but would be a lot more worried about playing fretless while standing up than I would about the bass itself.

Yes, I'd gig w/o backup. Be sure to have 2 extra 9 volt batteries though. There is no passive mode to fall back on.

No Opinion

15 yrs exp. G&L L2500, Peavey Cirrus 4, Fernandes Retrorocket Ultra, Tele, Danelectro Baritone, D-28, Hot Rod DeVille 4x10, Deluxe Reverb II, Satellite, Bassman 400 combo, Korg D16.

I didn't compare this bass per se, but it is exactly what I had in mind as part of my gear collection rules. An instrument has to be something that will add to my ability to play music, not just look cool or be "better" than what I have now.

For those who were, like me, interested in but intimidated by fretless bass, this thing is user friendly an a relative bargain.

In fact, if the head stock said Fodera, you'd pay a gillion times as much. But I bet you couldn't tell the difference unless you are a complete tone freak. In that case, I'd encourage you to lighten up a bit and consider how much other stuff you could have with that extra cash.