Mudpup

It doesn't do a Stingray - it will do a bright modern type of gritty zing but it's not really a Ray.....The P tone is just a bit tighter maybe but you would probably struggle to hear the difference in a blind test. They are really good basses in their own right. I would have another in a heartbeat.

Peavey BAM combos did

Because a bassist usually knows when to shut up whereas a guitarist....

Brilliant bit of kit - should have been sold by now at that price!!!!

And while the juices are flowing here's my favourite NWOBHM album ever! Really undergound, dodgy production but just listen to 4 tracks off it - Let it Loose, Cry Wolf, Berlin and Ain't No Fit Place - such epic riffing going on! Saw them many times and i think they may still be about doing festivals in Sweden and suchlike.....

Girl were one of my favourite bands back then, i used to see them all around London and also at the Reading Festival one year. more glam than heavy rock but great songwriting on the debut album Sheer Greed. Phil Collen played in a mate of mines band before that (The Dumb Blondes) and i also got to know Phil Lewis the singer from Girl from 'ligging' with them. He was romantically linked with Britt Ekland and ended up going to America to sing with LA Guns.

Yup much better IMHO

Cheapo basses seem to be the way forward....I've gone from Spector Euros and USA MM's and G+L's to a the current 3 basses that have all been less than a £500 spend and my guilty pleasure Zon which wasn't much more. And not for commercial reasons either, purely because they are so good. Value for money nowadays is unreal.....

I like clangy steels usually so it's got some Markbass ones on it now - i grabbed a bunch when they were on offer and i'm working through them. Alternatively i have about 10 sets of Dr Hi Beams from a previous job lot in the drawer and i'm also happy with cheapo Warwick Red steels too. I don't like nickels in general...Anything gnarly and nasty is preferrable really

I've had various Musicman basses over the years and always liked them but never seemed to keep them for various reasons. The first was a very early USA S.U.B with the series wiring - absolutely loved the sound but sold it on here because i couldn't quite get on with the slab body. I foolishly thought that if i got a regular Stingray later then it would sound the same. I was wrong, it seems the series wiring was providing the sound that i loved and i didn't know at the time that a regular one was different. Fortunately i know who has it and i keep an eye out for it coming up for sale again - i'll be on it like a tramp on chips and get a forearm contour done on it :-) Next was a USA Sterling in honeyburst/maple. A lovely mint bass and sounded fab but i couldn't quite get on with the neck profile. I was sort of ok with the narrow nut width but the deeper C profile was an issue at long gigs as i found my hand cramping up a bit. Sounded great though, i like aggressive sounding basses and this was the mother of them. But it had to go as i wasn't gigging with it...... Someone on here was keen to swap a USA Stingray for my Sterling and i went down this route as he was just up the road. I ended up with a really nice black/rosewood 2 band late 90's USA Ray with the best neck i have ever played in my life. Really worn in and felt like an old pair of boots every time i picked it up. A good swap imho but i traded it a few years back to try a 5 string G+L partly because it didn't quite work in my band but also it was a really nice G+L. I still miss that neck though..... At the same time as the black Stingray swap a 3 band USA Stingray popped up in Germany in my wish list colour - Autumn Sunrise Sparkle/maple. Super rare and i was a bit flush at the time so i went for it. Spent more time gazing at it than playing it though as it was too nice to risk at some of the grotty dives we were gigging at and it didn't quite have the booty that my black 2 band had. I put a John East MMSR in it which helped but i also found that the lower fretboard edge felt too new and dug into my hand a bit. As it was maple i couldn't just get it rolled which would have sorted it i think. Consequently it didn't really get played so much and i buy basses to gig them not look at them - 'Sparkles' headed off to a really nice guy in Wales 😞 And so i've been MM'less for a few years now - i have/had some lovely basses in the meantime but more recently during lockdown boredom I've been thinking that i really miss that gritty edgy sound and i was sort of thinking about grabbing something if it popped up. And it has - i snagged a Sterling SB14 yesterday locally. Got it without a test drive obviously so i took a chance on it and having changed the strings and tweaked the neck a bit to my preference I'm really pleased with it. Time will tell if its a keeper - i need a gig to know that - but early signs are good. As far as i remember it sounds as good as my old USA Sterling but the neck is more to my liking, still quite narrow but a flatter profile. And due to the switching it can do series like my old S.U.B as well as classic Stingray, happy days :-) So now i have a nice gooey warm feeling about having a (sort of) Musicman back in the house...... Here's my old USA Sterling... And here's Sparkles complete with her John East MMSR preamp and a grubby fretboard:-)

Count your blessings - i got my 87 year old dad an Android tab last year and get the same calls to go and sort it out as he's done something to it. A common issue appears to be that he's discovered internet porn. He keeps leaving it lying around with various interesting tabs and pop ups open and i'm trying to get him to understand that his carers may not be too impressed with him if he's not more discrete with it. He's got Alzheimers too so every visit is a schoolday for him as we go through exactly the same routine of closing all the porn down and then showing him how to use WhatsApp 😂

I bought a bass from Theo today - all sorted out really fast, easy comms and all good. Cheers Theo

Got any better pictures? . . . . . .😂 Jest kiddin...... Lovely basses 🙂

I think most negative comments about the tuners were aimed at the version 1 models. The version 2 (current ones) have different tuners - i guess Sire took some notice and upgraded them. I have a V7 version 2 and the hardware is totally seviceable imho. I found the edge of the E saddle was a bit sharp so filed it off a touch and i changed the control knobs to metal ones which has made them a bit weightier when you turn them but apart from that everything seems pretty good to me.