drTStingray

2 hours ago, The fasting showman said:

If we can include Walsall, Caldmore Chameleon 

You’ve just achieved teaching the Basschat massive who don’t live in Walsall how to pronounce Caldmore!! 🤣🤣

I think the comparison being made is that electric musical instruments are one of the only products where (some) people are willing to use something designed and actually built in the 1950s/60s for everyday use, arguing they’re better than stuff produced (and designed) more recently - and indeed they’re reveered. Other stuff like vacuum cleaners, kitchen appliances, really anything you can think of, very few, if anyone would use a vintage one - the world’s moved on in 60+ years! 

4 hours ago, Linus27 said:

I've not really seen these connections with basses and cars apart from referring to a Fender bass as being like a workhorse or a Ford Mondeo. 

With the exception a Ford Mondeo is a relatively modern car. A simplistic bass like a Fender Precision is a sort of a workhorse of the 50s (although you won’t see hardly any being used in U.K. groups until the late 60s - much more likely an Epiphone Rivoli or an EB2) - so a Ford Popular would be a far more apt comparison - and a vehicle which no one in their right minds would use as an everyday vehicle, maybe something for enthusiasts of classic cars and for classic car shows. 

Fabulous - I think the number quoted as recorded was 133. As you may know from the history of Musicman, many bodies were rejected owing to paint defects and refinished at CLF - sometimes in different colours - there looks like there has been a coat of black on that bass before Inca silver - the silver had gone very green, which many do. 
 

39 minutes ago, CPCustomdubwise said:

I find that spine-tinglingly, almost obscenely, gorgeous.

 

And I echo the point made by our esteemed colleague:

In particular, the cavity excavated just beside the pickguard, above the control plate in the pics.

I agree - it’s great. People who play slap bass often find their bass pickguards and body wood get scuffed in the area where that wear is - one of my SR5s and several SR4s show wear (in the clear coat and on the pickguard) in that area. I think it’s scuffing from finger nails from ‘popping’ the strings. I would imagine pick players might also create wear like that when playing around the neck joint (for a more mellow sound). 

10 hours ago, Bart Funk Bass said:

 

 

Well, you haven't seen the video 

Yep I have - as always very interesting indeed - I seem to remember he stated he was a Louis Johnson fan in the early days of RHCP, and presumably why he went for the sound he did at that time.
 

I’m referring to a period after you mention. I’m pretty sure it was a video of a studio warm up or rehearsal session, around the time of Stadium Arcadium, when he’d started using that shell pink Jazz live and for recording - he went back to the Modulus basses live a while later as the Jazz simply didn’t make an aggressive enough sound, presumably? But he was using a Musicman Sterling in that particular item. 

11 hours ago, horrorshowbass said:

Now he is basically playing a stingray with a P neck and jazz type body 😆 

Agreed would have loved a Ray sig.

Would have sold like hot cakes.

I loved his modulus tone and the bass overall but think it was more his skills than anything else. 

 

Stingray copy or tribute, incorporating various Fender components - similarly (though not available publicly), Pino’s Thunderbird pick up Precision could hardly be described as a Thunderbird!! 🤣😀

2 hours ago, Misdee said:

 I can see where Flea was coming from. There's no doubt EBMM were selling basses on the back of Flea's popularity,but I don't think he was ever going to get a cut. Maybe his revenge was to get Fender to make him a signature Stingray.

signature Stingray copy 😉😀

I read somewhere that the reality was he (or his advisers) wanted the name of the bass changed to reflect his involvement, presumably affecting all Stingrays sold.

Musicman produced 100 basses with through body stringing and Status graphite necks for the 100th NAMM anniversary - very sought after basses. However they haven’t done any other basses with these necks other than the pre EB Cutlass 1 and 2 (Modulus necks).

There’s also been some suggestion that Flea wanted a Stingray with this type of neck, which they wouldn’t produce. 
 

However Flea has been seen on various videos with Stingrays (may have been US Sterlings) long since the 90s. 
 

The change in Policy re signature basses at EBMM seems to have coincided with Bryan and Scott Ball taking over far more day to day control. 
 

46 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

There's been helicopters going back and forth all day today taking rich punters back to London. 

Not very environmentally friendly having all those helicopters taking people in and out of the festival. I always thought it was just for the headline artists but anyone with enough cash can arrive by chopper.

They like to claim its all very green but there's tens of thousands of cars, probably hundreds of generators and a mountain of rubbish. 

Agreed - as with everything, people with money can afford to buy their way around ‘environmentally friendly’. Mind you, are you sure it’s not the remainder of Elton’s entourage 😉🤣 I recall someone discussing a fascinating piece of info years ago - the daily bill for flowers for Elton’s properties - ran to the tens of thousands (when Sterling rates were actually twice those of dollars, in the days before the populace was charmed by lies and idiocy resulting in a B 😀)

Now if you arrived this year by shuttle bus from the rail at Bristol, the vehicles have been fully electric. 

9 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

It was more to do with the mix than the Stingray, a Precision would have sounded just as good with that mix, once again a lot of performances suffered because of rubbish sound engineers, on TV at any rate

We’ll have to agree to differ here - I do agree the mix has a great deal to do with it but I’ve been around long enough to recall just how awful many Precision basses sounded live in bands in the 60s/70s, with the exception of simplistic root and fifth stuff - I can think of a number of situations where what I would call a decent bass sound via a Precision was had - as much down to the bass player as well though - Louis Johnson with Billy Preston (but sounded much better and more articulate in the later 70s with Stingray, Sabre and other basses); Alan Spenner with various artists (but sounded a million times better and you could hear the intricacy and articulation of his superb playing more clearly when appearing with a Wal in the late 70s) - I was lucky enough to see him perform at the Roundhouse at the end of the 70s - that Wal bass sound (an original JG series) was amazing. Robert ‘Pops’ Popwell with the Crusaders and Olivia Newton John. 
 

As I say, many people will differ with the view, but Matt Bissonette’s bass sounded very supportive - an excellent mix and sound - and for those interested he appeared to be using the front (series) switch setting on the SR5. Background rumble it certainly was not!!! 

1 hour ago, 3below said:

Stingray 5ers in massive price hike following Glastonbury.....   no need to comment on the EJ mix, superb from the home TV perspective.

Agreed re mix for tv - I’ve already got my SR5s so I’m not bothered 😀!! Having seen Matt Bissonette and his predecessor Bob Birch use them, and also Lee Pomeroy with Take That I was converted years ago!! 

54 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Just popped in to say howm much I enjoyed Elton John and Matt Bissonette.

Yeah fabulous bass sound and mix for tv. Nice Stingray 5 sound - no inaudible background rumbling going on!! Thank the Lord - the bass is crucially important both rhythmically and harmonically in much of EJ’s music. 

1 hour ago, mep said:

Plus a slap bass solo in Never gonna give you up, so 80's.

One of the few acts where the excellent band got introduced one at a time and did short solos - what was more predictable was the ‘sound engineering’ took several bars of it to catch on to the idea they needed to turn the bass up so it could be heard during his excellent slap bass solo - very apt - something which was lacking in quite a lot of the mixes of the acts I watched was reasonably audible bass - I think the pinnacle may be Jacob Collier - inaudible grand piano for whole sections, inaudible acoustic guitar - and these in sections where they were being played largely solo!!!! 🤣

On 01/06/2023 at 15:39, binky_bass said:

So here it is...

 

Number 23 of 72 - A Ball Family Reserve USA Music Man Bongo 6. 

 

It is ridiculously good. I was VERY sceptical as to whether I'd made a good or bad choice buying this, but DANG, it's a monster. The tone is like nothing I've played before, (and I've owned a Bongo 6 before!) it cuts like a hot knife through the mix, the pallette of tones is exceptionally good and really easy to dial in. The neck is probably the nicest neck I've felt, and it's not half bad to look at! 

 

It's on another level this beast... I totally agree the aesthetics are very much Marmite, but I think I might just be on the 'love' side of that arguement! I'm very pleasantly surprised by this bass. I was expecting it to be a great bass, as well it should be for the RRP, but I wasn't quite expecting it to be a phenomenal bass...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fabulous - I’m guessing that’s a 2018 bass? They were done when the early Stingray Specials were being done, summer of 2018.  Enjoy - looks great. 

I’ve found recently a new way of EQ ing my Bongo. Cut the low mids a little and boost the high mids and treble a little - with the pick up pan pointed slightly towards the bridge pu, sounds very much like a super Jazz bass. 

12 hours ago, TheGreek said:

 

Similar to the Sterling Mini

I think the controls work in a similar way but otherwise it’s a very different bass - large Musicman bridge with adjustable mutes for each string and strings through body; neodymium pick up; adjustable ramp; long scale roasted maple neck; ebony fretboard; stainless steel frets; figured ash body with clear varnish; lightweight tuners; black hardware. 
 

9 hours ago, LeftyJ said:

I like when big manufacturers build something out of the ordinary for an artist, rather than just make a version of a bog standard model that just has a different finish or some subtle difference. For example, the Fender Roscoe Beck or the first Stu Hamm Urge (when it was still medium-scale) are really cool and unique twists that are familiarly Fender-shaped enough, but still the RB is not quite a Jazz and the Urge is not quite a Precision 😎. That said, I really like some more conventional models too that were based on the artist's actual favourite, like the JMJ or the Miller Jazz. 

Which is the exact reason I bought a Musicman Stingray Tim Commerford signature bass - still the only ash bodied, long scale passive Stingray produced. Sounds brilliant - you can choose between series, parallel and single coil pick up selections, have a passive tone control and also a push pull volume cut/boost - really useful in some situations. 
 

On 16/05/2023 at 17:15, dub_junkie said:

I had a blueburst fretted SR5 with maple board, white pickup cover and guard back in the mid nineties. I still think its my favourite MM combo along with teal/black/rosewood. 

 

Really great looking bass😍

A lot of people seem to have had them (or SR4s) in blueburst back in the day. It’s really my favourite older Musicman colour as well (however I wouldn’t say no to a peach one, or pre EB Inca silver - my wallet would not agree though!!)

I’ve been playing this bass both at home a lot and taking it to jams to play a couple of songs - home practice has included doing bass parts like Take Five or Moondance and then improvising a solo based around the melodies of the songs - my intonation accuracy is improving with practice.

However I took it to a jam last night and was asked to play on Moondance (good as I’d been working around that at home) and also some Shadows stuff - the latter posed a few problems as I hadn’t played some of what was asked for at least ten years - culminating in Don’t Cry For Me Argentina which has a nice bass arrangement - which ends up doubling the first couple of bars of the melody in high register at the end…… well I attempted it and I think it was ok!!! I’d say the original bass arrangement was akin to a West End type show song where the bass performs quite an important function. People in the room were complimentary anyway!!! I felt rather self conscious as the lead guitarist was more perfect!! 
 

Nothing like a fretless 5 to focus the mind (I’ve got a fretless 4 but never even played a fretless 5 until I acquired this bass a couple of weeks ago) am loving it though - a couple of gratuitous photos!! 😅

It was pretty clean when I bought it but has now had a polish and deep clean (ie under the pickguard, in the routs, and lemon oil of the fretboard) - scrubs up beautifully and looks new - the neck now has Cobalt flatwounds which not only feel great but sound great as well - you can almost hear the fretboard saying ‘Ah thanks’ in a mwah-ish sort of way, having been relieved of the stainless rounds it had (which are going to find their way - well four of them - on to my Tim Commerford long scale passive)!! 

I’ve had to delete the earlier pics to make space for the new ones (crikey - forum restrictions or what 🤣🤣🥴)

Thanks guys - the colour is called blueburst and was available in the late 80s and early 90s. I agree - it’s a great colour. I’m told Flea’s Stingray 5 (used on Funky Monks) may have been this colour - although not fretless!! 

No frets here and what a gorgeous bass. I got this from @jhk at the weekend and I’m very happy. It weighs just under 10 lbs and sounds huge!! It’s a 1992 bass, so over 30 yrs old. 
 

The neck has a lot of Birds Eye and the fretboard also has figuring. Altogether a very pretty (imho) and great sounding bass. 
 

Fabulous. PMd. 

3 hours ago, Eldon Tyrell said:

 

No Spector and unfortunately no 20th anniversary EBMM Bongo either 😞 

Oh yeah - hadn’t thought of that!! 

7 minutes ago, bartelby said:

 

Dp they need to be there*?
They may as well just have a stand full of colour chips...


*maybe from a NAMM financial point of view they do, but not for a showing off new products...

Does their lack of presence reek of complacency or is it just my feeling? I guess if you’re only showing 60+ yr old designs there’s nothing much new anyway - however Rickenbacker seems to be able to enthuse people!

No Warwick + Sadowsky either? Or Spector? 

New Stingray Special colours (from their NAMM blog) - as well as a number of new guitars - haven’t seen any photos of these new pastel Stingray Special colours with matching head stocks in Wintermule’s thread - I presume there may be some there - interesting no 1976 Ray reissue either? 

6 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

A schematic for the original preamp is freely available on the web - if they haven’t got that bit right then something is wrong!

But which one? There are three of four iterations. For a 1976 bass, it’s probably the first version. Im pretty sure the manufacturer has access to the correct information. They’ve also used period correct tantalum capacitors and the longer pick up pole pieces. So as stated by @Misdee they appear to have gone to some lengths to make these 100 basses absolutely period correct.

In the US, these basses cost significantly less than an original 76 Stingray - in this country it’s a slightly different story as we have to pay shipping and tax, the exchange rate is dreadful (one of our famous B**xit dividends) and possibly a pre EB Stingray is not as expensive as in the US on the used vintage market here.

In any case we’re very unlikely to get our hands on one of these basses as they all seem to be sold! 
 

Im hopeful they’ll do some more reissues in due course - I might be tempted dependent on what appears (77 in silver with white pick up cover and black pick guard would be v nice, or a natural)