Marcus Miller M2 TBL 2nd Gen

Are you on a fence between a passive and an active bass? This one is for you, since it's basically both.

A majestic looking and sounding beast with a toggle switch for passive and active mode. It can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning since it has 5 knobs with 7 different settings to adjust, but you get the hang of it soon enough. I found out that having most of it on 12'o clock works best for me, anyway.

About the sound, feel and playability of the bass: It's a professional bass for one fifth of a price. Plays great out of the box, it's light, sounds great and it'll cover a wide variety of sounds.

The first one I ordered turned up badly damaged,no fault on Thomann’s behalf who gave excellent service it was down to some rough handling on its journey to me.Thomann replaced it very quickly and were faultless throughout the whole process.this Bass is great value,the spec and finish is superb,I’m little disappointed with the pre amp,it works ok but for the range of sounds it supplies it seems very over complicated and un intuitive I feel a simple volume and tone for each pick up and an Active Passive switch would be preferable,it’s very similar in sound to some of the Ibanez basses it competes with but for me personally looks even better.I can see me upgrading the pickups at a later date to something more premium as the body and neck definitely justify upgrading the electrics at some point.feels very modern and compact compared to my P and J basses too which is nice.

In brief. Very good bass for the money. Arguably too many controls for a novice.
Use. I bought this because the electrics on one of my spare basses died. As the bass I use for live performance is an M7 I decided to get the entry level M2 as a spare. I picked the maple fretboard because I like a bright tone.
Pros. Looks amazing for a start. Beautiful translucent blue that is far more attractive than the photos. Like all M series the fretboard has rounded edges which makes playing a pleasure, even if in this case the fret edges are not as smooth as they are on the M7. 18v active electronics with a huge range of tonal options, or passive. In passive mode only the main tone control has any effect, this is the bottom half of the volume knob. And the effect it has is pretty limited – stick to active. It has a really nice growl to it if that’s what you want to dial in – and for me that is it. String through body. Lots of premium features here. Intonation was perfect out of the box.
Cons. No split coil, but this really doesn’t need it, the humbuckers sound full and fruity. The body is made of three bits of wood, which doesn’t really matter but is worth mentioning. The bridge is not a high mass one, but with string through design this is not noticeable. Fret edges could be better dressed – I’ll do this myself when I change the strings. The tone control in passive mode is largely vestigial. I changed the batteries for alkaline.
Conclusion: I am super happy with this bass and have started using it in all our rehearsals because it sounds how I like and it plays so well. A worthy backup for the M7

Overall, it's a great instrument! I usually play funk and rock, this bass totally gets the job done. Double humbucking system was a great idea, there's no background noise whatsoever. I don't mind having a Boeing control panel on my guitar, but it takes time to learn what each knob does.

I really like the shape, sound and feel the bass gives to you while you are playing. I never used it for a gig, but I frequently use it for recording and rehearsals.

I have two problems with the bass:

1. Frets are sharp on the edge. My hands didn't bleed or anything, but when you jump around the fretboard it hurts. It's a quick fix, you just need to polish them. But it's a shame frets' edges are unpolished from the box.

2. Bass makes weird noises when you put the active circuit on. Maybe it's just my model, but I have had issues with some loud and squeaky noise coming from the bass. I have no clue how to fix it, but I am still a happy user of this bass and I won't be changing it.