drTStingray

4 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

Hmmm... I probably wouldn’t take my Dingwall on a country gig though - my natural finish P looks suitably rustic!

I think people are far too picky with these things - I’m sure a Dingwall will do the job just as well if not better. I certainly wouldn’t worry about using a Stingray on one - they’ve often been used in that genre (in fact were first designed to cover that need) - I might use a sunburst rather than a sparkle one however - I suppose it depends how much standing out is acceptable!!! Probably the same for a Dingwall. 😬👍

Funny really - back in the day people (even famous pros) tended to have and use one instrument - the idea of multiple instruments and x is suitable for y genre have been a relatively recent phenomena!! 

14 hours ago, bubinga5 said:

Never played a P Bass. Tell a lie, I played a JV P for 30 seconds and a Yamaha bass with a P pickup once. Strange really, after 17 years not one P bass. Its possibly going to be a revelation when I do. 

Nope - me neither. It was my dream bass in the late 60s/early 70s - then I played one and realised playing wise it was too big for my hands to play sensibly. The sound was - well not brilliant. Then came on to the market a lot of other far more refined and versatile instruments (Alembic, Wal, Musicman) so the idea of playing a P waned completely as apart from punk rock, that sound was not really the one to have. Indeed I played an active one when Fender first introduced them in the early 80s. I disliked it intensely and thought it was an appalling instrument compared with a Stingray - in all respects!! 

In more recent years it’s been impossible to notice their resurgence in popularity. I’ve tried to like them and have played loads of different ones in shops with a view to buying - one thing I would agree with aficionados of the marque, they do vary - but as far as I can see, only marginally from one another. I find them more difficult to play complex lines and parts on. I have never found one in the last 20 yrs of looking that appeals enough to me to buy it. I did play someone else’s 1960 bass in a live performance situation but that was also underwhelming. I really have to work hard to get the definition my playing style is founded on. I don’t want my playing to sound woolly!! 

Ive thought of buying a pre CBS and also getting a CS one, the latter in colours I could choose but the big problem I keep coming back to is why - when would I use it? And despite what people say it’s like a step backwards in terms of refinement, especially in sound - they can sound reasonably refined but can also sound quite ‘agricultural’. 

Im also reminded of the countless local gigs I went to in the 70s where the bass either sounded shite or was barely audible in the mix - yes, you guessed - often P basses. 

Maybe modern amplification has improved that, but I keep coming back to the notion that I would not use one in preference to the basses I have. For the band situations I play in, the P bass would not work as well - many players who I liked, say in the 70s, refined their sound by moving from a P bass to say, a Wal. It’s as difficult for me to accept the notion of going backwards in that sense as accepting some people’s wholly misguided notion that music ended at the end of the 60s.

I guess there’s time yet and I might buy a P bass - who knows. It will probably wear TI flats!!! I’m thinking I would play one with that thumpy R and B style which Pino uses. However I still prefer 70s and 60s soul with note definition. 

I find some of the comments in this thread slightly amusing - I have problems accepting the number of sub and sub sub genres dreamt up these days (take metal as an example) but the look of a bass guitar being genre specific? Really!!!! 😂😂  I’m happy to play my basses in any genre within reason (and as I’m the bass player - why would people even notice - we are often perceived as the boring instrument). 

 

5 minutes ago, oldslapper said:

I don’t actually think Mr Dart is a loser. It was supposed to be a joke, an observation on passive v active, etc blah blah blah.

But I guess if you have to explain a joke, then it’s clearly not funny. 
Gordon Bennett..! 

👍

4 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

Ta. Yep found a Stingray neck and had to get a home for it. Finding Musicman parts is tricky and a bit costly… 

The bass looks great - is it an East 2 band EQ? Yeah MM parts (other than smaller items) are quite hard to find. 
 

On 17/05/2021 at 19:01, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I had this black and gold Limited Edition Stingray at one point. It was a lovely bass and a good gold combination IMHO, but it was like having a boat anchor hanging around your shoulders 😬.

You’re showing your age, mate!! 😂 how many of us never gave a thought about the weight of a bass (until over the age of 50 ish!!) 😏😀

1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

His signature bass did inspire me to make a Bitsa. I don’t know much about him as a player though. I did weaken in the end though and went active with a John East EQ so more of a Ray/G&L combo. 
 

Has anyone tried a Joe Dart. I like the idea of a single control?

This looks very like a better version of the Carlos Robelli bass Joe played occasionally - true bitsa then - Musicman neck, G and L bridge? 

I haven’t tried a Joe Dart bass but they are now available to order direct from the Musicman vault (internationally) - I have been tempted but frankly if the short scale control-less version was made available I would hit the order button immediately!! 

1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

The one that was listed on eBay just sold for £1,900 🤷‍♂️

Not far short of the new price then 😬

9 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

Surely the video was tongue in cheek and not meant to be taken seriously? That said, Vulf are better skilled as musicians than comedians.

Yeah absolutely - I also prefer active basses - indeed can nail his tone on other variants of Musicman bass, but so what - I can nail Jaco’s as well - but Vulf’s whole approach, I find quite fun and anarchic, yet they are also great musicians as well. In fact Joe Dart, far from being a loser demonstrates a level of musicianship not seen these days (since a lot of recorded bass is keyboard, or in a lot of cases passive bass going by various stages, in the direction of inaudible). 

It’s notable that Messrs Dart and Stratton so focus opinion that every thread on either Basschat or Talkbass on these signature basses has a massive response. Must be good for business for them. It’s even mentioned in comments on the Joe Dart Jr video that a number of Talkbass members have been shouting at clouds about it 😂

Must be a facet of bass fora!!! 
 

5 hours ago, fretmeister said:

He uses so much compression he wouldn't notice.

And a mid heavy sound with what sounds/looks like strident plucking of the strings. 

On 17/05/2021 at 12:11, FDC484950 said:

To be honest there wasn’t a massive difference between my Sterling and the Stingray Special I briefly owned. Each of the 5 pickup positions were similar, just that the Sterling has a slightly more aggressive low mid punch. The one thing it doesn’t quite get is the classic Stingray sound. It’s very close, and I’m a track or live you wouldn’t hear a difference, but solo’ed I can hear it. 
Now @drTStingray a Big Al would do very nicely as a second MM, but a 5 SSS seems are rare as rocking horse poo

Yeah Big Als are rare beasties - not many many made - sound great from what I’ve heard though (early production have alder bodies, replaced by mahogany later). 

TBH my SR4HH gets a good Classic Ray tone (the Bernard Edwards version) amongst others - the SR5 ceramic bridge H (parallel) also but as you say, it has a certain bite to it - unmistakably Stingray though - i make both of those comments based on hearing them in band settings and from You Tube videos. 

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

Someone suggested to me getting a SUB ray 5 and fitting a Darkglass tone capsule. It seems like an interesting idea. 

Any thoughts on this?

I understand they have ceramic pick ups (if you mean the SBMM one). Can’t comment on the ‘upgrade’ - think they’re pretty good straight out of the box with the stock EQ - I’ve yet to try anything Darkglass, having been curious about their amps - I’ve relaxed and back to Markbass for gigs (what few there are) and ABM for ‘bedroom/home’ use.

Now I know you shouldn’t believe everything - or should that be anything - you read on the internet (only today I read that a type of bass of which i have three and have no problems playing any genre on - indeed are a bit of an industry standard in their field and have been around for 34 yrs, apparently have a serious design fault causing the complainants to push strings off the edge of the fretboard - now either I’m a technique wizard (which I’m not) their technique is fundamentally flawed, possibly agricultural, or they’re overstating something for reasons only known to themselves) - BUT...... Darkglass are said to be the darling of the metal scene - this may be as untrue as the example given above, but as I associate metal with heavily scooped sounds and bass guitar disappearing amidst an onslaught of crunch guitar, perpetual drum solos and the equivalent of someone apparently attempting to prolapse their throat in a singing style as stereotypical as Vic Reeves’ erstwhile ‘singing in the club style’ - meaning 70s social club crooning - my curiosity has sort of waned a little. 

With apologies to metal fans and musicians everywhere and particularly Darkglass, who may have been internet/forum flamed by ‘Fender or other actors’ (in the way ‘foreign actors’ are sometimes blamed for IT hacking)!! 😂

I nominate this - more lavender than purple. Top rate in my view 😎

6 hours ago, acidbass said:

At least those are consistently not over the pole pieces and therefore consistent in tone across all strings - not haphazard like most 'rays. The G always sounds good in demo videos but try a 'ray in a band context and the G is almost completely redundant without major EQing or extreme pickup balancing. That said, they did address this issue with the Stingray Specials.

By your logic, my bass would require more volume and/or EQ than a standard Ray, but it does not - the settings I use for this bass are the same as for any of my standard Stingrays - so the point is incorrect. The redesign of the Ray Special bridge (for weight loss reasons) and pick ups (neo and 18 volt) enabled the string alignment to pole pieces to be improved (for aesthetic reasons) - all purposes as described by EBMM (note the new look is most apparent on a bridge pick up on an HH version on the E and A string). People’s EQ choices on active basses, pick up settings on passive ones and amps/FOH are what creates scoop (enhancement of bass and treble frequencies, suppression of mid range frequencies, and thus generic bass guitar audibility in certain settings). 

Having watched the video several times now since it was released, the bass actually sounds excellent to me! I just wish you could actually order one!! 

2 hours ago, Normski said:

Sometime ago I bought an amazing 77 Stingray & it arrived with a fairly new set of really cool sounding flatwound strings. Could anyone please help me by identifying what make & model they are. I was told that they are Ernie Ball Cobalts but I'm really not sure. 
Many thanks 🙏 🤞

Cool bass. 

I have a Stingray fretless fitted with the very cool Ernie Ball Cobalt flatwounds, and the wraps are purple, the ball ends are not colour coded (photo attached). 

I generally use 100-45 EB Hybrid Slinky (pink pack) on my Stingrays - they actually ship with these from the factory so I’ve presumed they think those gauges work best with their basses. Rightly or wrongly, I think they give better string to string balance and avoid the E overpowering the other stings (given the potential to super scoop the sound on a Stingray with the (actually working and quite powerful) EQ) notably the bass and treble controls. 

I even did this with my SR5, using a 125 B through 40 as well. It sounds great to me with those. 

Ive tried heavier gauge and lighter gauge on them as well. The light gauge were particularly good for the mid 80s bass and slap sounds.

Hearing @Stub Mandrel talking about string bends, has anyone ever noticed the fabulous sound created when bending a low note on a Stingray - I sometimes bend the E or A 3 semi tones. Watch it if you’re recording - it’s very fat and loud!!! 😀

10 minutes ago, acidbass said:

Disappointed that EBMM have dropped the ball again with the pickup alignment on this. The G string looks way off. They had sorted this too on the Stingray Specials etc. Hope Joe Dart doesn't mind a bit of weak G in the Vulf stuff!

I think it’s probably a trick of the camera angle but as there’s a video, judge for yourself - sounded fine to me (actually excellent)!!

I was worried this would have a weak every string - but it’s absolutely fine!!! In fact wonderful 👍😬

I like it (or whatever electronic gizmo it is) on this song by Rita Ora - comes in after about a minute - in that section her voice fluctuates between normal and basso profundo electronically - nice synth bass in that bit as well - doesn’t seem to want to embed unfortunately 

https://youtu.be/ksdAs4LBRq8 

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

The Sterling Stingrays have Alnico pickups. 

Yeah that’s right. But you can get a feel for the way MM basses with HH pick ups and the 5 way switch sound in the different settings compared with an H. 

The only MM basses with ceramic are SR5s (1992 ish - 2008/9) and Sterlings. 
Possibly the Big Al and Reflex also. 

2 hours ago, TheGreek said:

Really???

Somebody's been relying on their predictive text 

No @TheGreek 😂😂 I have a new iPhone that’s so damned clever it implements short cuts without me even knowing and is a dab hand at changing English which is grammatically correct into gibberish - usually converting everyday words to the nearest name in its coding!!! I’ll admit I just didn’t notice!!! 

Anyhow, here’s the albino pick up version.....😀

6 hours ago, FDC484950 said:

@drTStingray I checked this when I bought it - if you look at the wiring diagrams on the MM site, the SR5 HH is parallel at the bridge and the Sterling 5 HH is in series. Position 3 is identical on both basses - all 4 coils in parallel.

Interestingly the single H Stingray has parallel, parallel with “filter” and series.

Yes, on and SR5, you could have ceramic, alnico or neodymium humbuckers, but AFAIK the 2-pickup versions are always wired in parallel. Now you’re making me want to add a single humbucker Sterling to get the single coil and parallel sounds

The series setting on the single H is good but certainly with my SR5 (the H one is ceramic) I’m usually in parallel mode - the series gives you a bit more mid range presence. However because it’s ceramic it’s not quite the alnico single H parallel Stingray sound. I wouldn’t have bought another just to get that as the series single H is a good sound anyway. Get a used Stingray 5 H 2008/9-2018 if you want to get that. 

As I’ve said before I use all my dual pick up Musicman basses generally in HH mode 90% of the time (in the case of the Sabre Classic it’s bridge H plus neck single coil - which I dubbed the Lakland - meaning 55/94 - setting)! 

If you or @SteveXFR are looking at these - try them out if you can. Even an SBMM dual pick up bass will give you an idea of the available tones - the 3 band EQ helps a lot with both pick ups operating - the fact the Sterling has ceramic pick ups adds presence in my view and the series settings further enhance that.

 My Sabre, although a dual pick up MM bass, is 2 band so I tend to boost the upper mids a touch on the amp with that bass in two pick up mode. 

Worth mentioning the SR5 from around 1992-2008 had ceramic also - changed to alnico when the Sterling 5 was introduced. I really love the sound of my SR5.

On Stingrays and Sterlings, the bridge pick up is in exactly the same place as on the H models - however if the Sterling 5 HH bridge only setting is in series, you would lose the closest sound to an H Stingray (which is the parallel setting - this is the one I use most on my ceramic SR5H) - you would get that on an H version owing to the 3 way switch. Are we sure the bridge H soloed on the HH is actually in series? 

Both the Stingray and Sterling HH versions are even more versatile and I tend to use both humbuckers together whenever I use an HH version, and as @FDC484950 said, with the mids boosted a bit. The only initial downside is the pop area of the slap/pop position being reduced by the bridge H - there is still plenty of room to do this however. 

Both great basses whichever you choose 👍
 

I don't usually like gold hardware but these seem good to me.  Purple or pink sparkle? 😬👍

I’ve always wanted one (from seeing Alan Spenner and Percy Jones using them in the late 70s). In fact previously, I wanted a Precision to sound like Alan Spenner. The Wal sounds great though. 

I still want one and failed to order one several times over the past 10 yrs or so, being distracted by various offerings by Musicman (which I was hooked on from hearing Bernard Edwards, Louis Johnson and various local bassists who bought them in the latter part of the 70s).

I fear the Wal is becoming unobtainium in newly built form (both in terms of price and build time) - which I would need to get the combinations I want - unless very lucky with a used one - presumably the prices of used ones will also increase? 

4 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

How long do you have to leave a jar of pickled eggs before the yolks get that colour?

Not sure - but it sure reminds me of late 50s P basses with adonised pickguards - with the exception that this design of pg is actually elegantl!! 😬

I think it’s an inspired choice and judging by the response on Basschat and Talkbass, the bass has shaken many contributors into the internet equivalent of pen and paper - some sounding like Man United fans commenting on a recent Man City triumph 😂😂  The sold out 50 guitars (note Joe and Jack don’t refer to them as pieces......) seemingly have sold to people amongst the vast majority of bass players who DON’T participate in bass fora!! Unless the forumites are keeping quiet about their purchases 😬

54 minutes ago, Eldon Tyrell said:

You can order it directly from EBMM. They now have international shipping for basses from their vault, including the Joe Dart basses (natural and black). Shipping costs are not too bad either. 

Shop Ernie Ball Music Man - The Vault (music-man.com)

I’ve been tempted since it’s been available as well - I might wait and see if the short scale version has a second run - love that white/gold adonised look. 

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

And I noticed that the full size JD model is still using the older and heavier tuners, whereas the ray specials etc have the new lightweight ones. Wonder why.

It pains me to say it but I suspect the target demographic may not be the tilted slightly towards geriatric one of bass guitar fora..... I know the weight of an instrument was the least of my worries when I was sub 30 yrs old!!! 

I just watched the video again - that sound is great (has some reverb on the whole mix at times though). If it hadn’t sold out (in 3 hrs 😳) I would be tempted. They’re right as well - I remember people moaning about the knob on the standard version - so what better than removing it - priceless 😂