Anybody have any experience, thoughts, comments on the Sire Marcus Miller V 7 4-String Alder body and Ebony fretboard?
Ebony is my favorite fingerboard material as far as feels, and Sire makes an excellent product, not a Jazz bassist myself so that’s as far as I go ![]()
Not the V7 but I have an M5 and a V5. Excellent instruments both of them. I have full confidence recommending Sire to anybody
I have three Sires and I can vouch for their excellent builds and tone.
My M5 has an Ebony fretboard that delivers an excellent feel and crisp attack. While I primarily prefer Rosewood or Pau Ferro fretboards, I love Ebony.
I also have a Sire V8 Marcus Miller Signature with a Roasted Maple neck and fretboard. It is a superb Jazz that plays effortlessly and sounds killer.
The V7 is a really fine bass in its own right. Try one out, if you can. It’s impressive.
I have a V5 and just love playing it. Have not a single negative to say about it. Looking forward to the Z3 from Santa ![]()
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I have a v3. It makes good sounds and the craftsmanship is really really good. The question that I think a buyer should ask themselves is if they’re into the preamp. I find it’s really hot. Plays well through most amps, but it’s hard to get it to sound like anything through my Scarlett Solo DAI into Garageband.The pre-amp has a lot of knobs which if you’re into it, it’s great and does a lot, but if you just want to play without fiddling with things you might be better off with a passive bass.
You can easily play a Sire with a preamp in passive mode. They are not active-only basses.
Yeah I thought they were active/passive with a switch too, could be wrong though.
The V7 the OP is considering does have an Active/Passive toggle switch. Some, like the V6 have knob that does triple duty, such as bass adj. plus, push/pull for active/passive.
That said, the V3 is active, with no bypass to passive.
Not true. The Sire V3 in fact does have a active/passive control. It has a Heritage 3 preamp. I have two basses with that preamp and can vouch that it can be set to active or passive.
Here’s an excerpt from Sweetwater’s Sire V3 description:
Well, the specs for the V3 listed on Sweetwater doesn’t list a passive mode. Since you know these, how can desl bypass the EQ?
Exactly right.
Here’s the diagram of a Heritage-3 preamp controls layout, numbered for convenience.
The written description I cited indeed does mention an active/passive mode on a Heritage-3 preamp on a V3.
That looks like a very standard preamp layout, kind of unfortunate switch placement though.
It works fine there. It’s a mini toggle so it’s shorter than neighboring knobs, and doesn’t take up much room at all.
I can’t remember ever having to switch from active to passive in a hurry or in the middle of a tune.
In contrast to the V3/V5/V7/V8 preamp controls layout, here’s the preamp and pup controls layout for my Sire M5.
I was thinking more that it looks easy to accidentally toggle
Yeah, that’s a micro switch so, it’s quite short, so it should be on the player if they keep hitting that switch beyond a couple weeks of using the V3.
Nice to see the V3 also has EQ bypass.
The active/passive toggle switch is actually quite stiff to articulate, very likely by design. A player really has to intentionally commit to flip that puppy. ![]()




