I was also considering an active bass (American Ultra Jazz Bass), but it would be about $300 cheaper to get the Am Pro II Jazz plus the Tech 21 preamp/DI box . . . 
So many decisions, so little time . . . 
Cheers
Joe
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my advice Joe would be to try to imagine how you would use this gear. for example, for me, there would be no reason to choose an active bass. but maybe itās not the same for you. the approach is different.
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Iām just interested in the āpreampā aspect . . . stronger signal, being able to experiment with different tones, etc. Laurent. 
. . . Josh and I were talking about this, and he felt that the weakest part of the Squier basses were the electronics. There is a company that makes a generic preamp to convert passive āJazz bassesā (including Squiers ) to active ones, but I didnāt want to go that route.
I also wanted to upgrade to the latest Fender MIA Jazz Bass with the improved neck, rolled edges, sculpted heel plate, and Hi-Mass bridge.
Just a ābucket listā sort of thing, and killing two birds with one stone . . .
Cheers
Joe
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in my opinion the āproblemā with the electronics of a Squier is not the lack of a preamp, itās more about the quality of the pickups 
(about this particular point : Iām not a big fan of Fender pickups neither ; but Squier pickups are worst 
)
an onboard preamp is great if you want/need to control your tone anytime while playing. thatās it.
and about the difference between a Squier and a MIA Fender ā¦ yeah, there will be a difference, I guarantee.
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by the way @Jazzbass19 maybe you could consider a pickup set for your Squier. letās say a ToneRider set if you donāt want to spend much, for example.
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Yes, thank you Laurent, I did consider upgrading the pickups . . . and this led to the preamp I mentioned above, but I decided to just get it all in one package! Over 2 years ago, I bought the Squier because I wasnāt sure how far I wanted to go with playing bass, and I didnāt want to spend a lot of money on a MIA bass.
Iāve made a lot of progress thanks to Josh and the B2B course, and to all the friends Iāve made here on these Forums . . . so now Iām sure!
You could put a V8 in a Volkswagen, but it would be easier to buy a Camaro 
Cheers
Joe
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The Am Pro II gets a lot of good reviews. The II version pickup seems a bit better on the mids compared with the I. The pick-ups on those Am Pro models are really good and have quite a strong signal. Personally I would go with the Am Pro II because itās basically the Ultra without a pre-amp.
If you wanna play with different tones then go for the Am Pro II + preamp pedal imho.
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Thatās the plan, @Paul . . . 
The Ultra Jazz Bass (active bass) is also interesting because it has a compound neck radius from 10" to 15", meaning it gets āflatterā the further up you go on the fretboard . .
Cheers
Joe
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Oh yeah forgot about the neck. The neck radius is also different on the I serie. I think I tried the ultra in the local shop but I was already sold on the passive P-bass.
Good luck with your plan!
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Interested in the UAFX pedals, but struggling to find any bass demos. Would love to hear it on bass just to make sure it doesnāt do anything weird.
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personnally I donāt like this, but again itās all about personnal preferences
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Yeah, I hear youā¦ I havenāt been able to find much with respect to bass demos either, but as I am mainly/only interested in the modulation pedal (Astra) and since most (all?) modulation pedals pretty much work on bass as they do on guitar, I am prepared to take a calculated risk. At the end of the day, even if they do something āweirdā to your sound, maybe it is something you find interesting/pleasing!?! I guess it is often very personal if you like a certain pedalās outputā¦
There is a tiny little demo of the flanger in the Astra with bass in this video (at about the 6:50 mark) - hardly comprehensive by any stretch of that word, but at least a little teaser:
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Iām sure you are right. A blend/mix knob or a switch to omit low frequency would give me more comfort as you could ensure the low-end isnāt lost. But Iām sure it will be fine. Sounds awesome on the guitar demos.
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no
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This is actually pretty cool from Thomann:
https://www.thomann.de/nl/stompenberg_devices.html
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Hey, just FYI. I am interested in the UA Astra pedal for bass as well so emailed UA about this and got the following response:
The Astra pedal can also be used with an electric bass guitar, no question!
From our UAFX Pedals FAQ
Will UAFX work with bass guitars?
Yes, why should guitar players have all the fun?! All UAFX pedals have been designed and tested to work perfectly for bass too.
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The freq response is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. So I think you can pretty much use it for any instrument? Did a little bit of research but this pedal got me puzzled. I think they are digital pedals since you can load presets? I was a bit overwhelmed with all the possibilities 
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The video on the website has some very intersting sounds from this pedal, very Zeppelin.
That aside, I have yet to say to myself āI need to sound like a 1970ās Japanese Bucket Brigadeā. It would help if I knew what the hell that was.
I want to be part of their marketing team, they seem to be all high.
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Thanks, @JT - why didnāt I think about just writing them?! 
I have actually received this pedal in the meantime, and I really like it! It is pretty much what I wanted as it has chorus, flanger, vibrato, trem and phaser 
For some of the effects, there are a lot of tweaking options, and I am still testingā¦
Yes, @Paul, they are digital - they are emulating classic effects, such as the first Bucket Brigade Chorus and the MXR phaser 90! Unfortunately, there is only one āpresetā you can save and recallā¦ for the others you need to remember the settings. You can download templates to note your favorite settings - almost like with analog synths
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Hereās a video that might be interesting to some of us 
ā¦ and itās not about a specific model of preamp as the preview might suggest
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