drTStingray

This!! Even on fretted basses some players do this - this month's BGM shows pics of Guy Pratt's 64 J and P basses in burgundy mist - he has added huge dots on top of the fretboard. My Fretless is unlined but I use the dots on the top as a point of reference - I only realised how much I rely on that when I played a gig where the lighting created varied visibility of the top of the neck. So long as I have the reference points I'm ok!!

It's Aqua sparkle - Its a very heavy metal flake and its full effect doesn't come over in photos - it's quite 'in your face'!! The charcoal sparkle is a little like the starry night colour which was done last year. The burnt Apple is also slightly metallic. I have a Cruz Teal 5HH on order - I would put that at a slightly lighter version of sea foam green. The yellow is quite a stunner as well!! Id recommend going and looking at some if you get the opportunity.

Thanks Misdee - as I said ive only got the one at the moment but I'm totally enjoying it - the slickness of the roasted maple neck is extraordinary - I already had a figured one on a Sabre but this one is just a joy to play. Combined with the light weight etc etc. V nice indeed!!

Mine were ordered in April - I only have the 4HH currently but bear in mind there was a bit of a delay partially because the range was only 'released' internationally (non US) yesterday - the 5HH is due this month. I'd expect three months or so ordered from the UK. Only a couple of the colours have fretboard choice - the rest are as advertised although it has been said on Talkbass that there may be later releases which have different hardware finish (such as black with natural). There's only a couple available with rosewood. Mine has ebony but there is no problem dialling up real thump or conversely that real Stingray shimmer. The colour combo on this bass is stunning - although I have been asked if I'm buying a glam rock outfit to go with it 😁

They all look good in real life - but if you're a sunburst/tort person the HD yellow with black hardware, for instance may not appeal!! So just walk on by tot the burst or natural. They all really do look good especially with the roasted maple necks.

The HH Ray in position 2 (outer single coils) is close enough to a Jazz for me to select it if playing Marcus Miller lines or wanting that type of sound. It also works (to my ears) on the new Special. I believe Andertons have a 4HH Stingray Special (though not a sparkly one - at least not on the display on Friday 😏) - you'd need to try one to see if it does what you want.

The cinnamon colour was, IIRC a later addition to the SUB colours. It's quite a cool colour as there's a certain amount of colour shift with the light. You are right about compensated nuts being introduced on Stingrays in 2005 - I think they appeared at the same time as the dual pick up models, the first of which were available in the 2005 LE colour variant (maybe later in the year). Not sure ive ever seen a compensated nut on a SUB - no doubt someone will post a pic in due corse!!

It's also a very late model one in that cinnamon colour.

New Stingray Specials start at £2250. US Subs (great basses btw - still love mine) were around £400 or just over when new in, say 2006 - the Bass Cellar as was were selling them at that price whilst in the window was a new 30th Anniversary Stingray for £1800 IIRC. The price of used Stingrays and pre EB has gone up in line with the new prices - the original invoice for my 93 Fretless is about £740 or so. But that's 25 yrs ago and an average house would have been about £60k!!! US Sub 5s seem to command a slightly higher price - say £500 +

If you were there or involved culturally at the time places a different perspective on things - and one which often challenges the inevitable 'sound bites' and perspective/angle laden history which develops over time. Imagine if in 45 yrs time people were arguing a current time world history based purely on the front pages of say The Daily Mail for instance - those here now might cringe and say well that's not really how it was!! Yes I got a little confused in this thread particularly when Bean79 started disagreeing with me when I was actually supporting his view and arguing with Grassie's 'accepted history' viewpoint. Nonetheless some interesting stuff has appeared in this thread!!

Extraordinary to see such negative vibes, and I'd wager none of you have seen one of these in the flesh let alone played one. Go and try one before you comment. I have one (more details to follow tomorrow) - the revoiced preamp does sound very musical even on full mid boost. The weight loss is very noticeable - I have a light Stingray and Sabre and this is noticeably lighter than them. The output is huge. The changed body and neck contours feel really good. Oh and flawlessly constructed and the roasted maple is the slickest neck I've ever played. What's not to like (other than the price - but this is easily as good if not better than say a Fender CS) Regarding string to string volume - this bass is very balanced - The pre amp is revoiced - I don't think people will have an issue with that even if the EQ settings are abused. And the slap tone remains wonderful - clever eh? Just to correct some errors in Misdee's post - there was an issue with quality control from CLF who made the pre EB basses initially, which affected amongst other things necks on pre EB basses - indeed rigorous quality control was instituted as dealers rejected the instruments and eventually this created a relationship breakdown because CLF were either unwilling or not capable of producing a product which would meet MMs requirements (this was the 70s!!!) - it's all readily available in print - the issues included inoperable truss rods, dead spots (at the very top end of the neck), rattling truss rods and worse. Those in circulation didn't have those issues.

You're right lots of people use them - but if you listed seminal, infuential players, then far less so (and remember the bass was fairly inaudible in the 60s so brilliant as Jamerson, Cogbill, Jemmott, Babbitt and to an extent Duck Dunn were no one had heard of them until more recent years and much of their output was fairly submerged in the mix - we didn't even have stereo in the 60s and much was heard on AM radio through tiny transistor devices with poor sound). The most famous bass player of all for instance has not used one.

Great piece of rock and roll Americana alongside the Strat (as far as Fenders are concerned) - in pastel colours, scream early 60s throw back, sunburst later 60s/early 70s, natural early 70s, black 70s rock, and white, late 70s punk. I guess the equivalent of an American Classic car - the difference being few people use the latter in everyday use in 2018, as despite how much nostalgia we have for them, they not the best at the job these days. Despite 50s design and origin have a place still in pop music, although are associated these days with inaudible or muddy, inarticulate bass sounds in modern music mixes. I absolutely love the look of them (especially in certain colours), but have found them no better than adequate, playing wise since the 70s and certainly not the best for certain genres. A lot of it depends what you are playing and what your playing style is. I do cringe at their (in my opinion) somewhat overstated place in the history of pop music, largely created by more recent commentators and educators. Many famous players have never played them, and some of those who have moved on to broader, more articulate sounds. Some have returned to them but has their bass sound improved? Perhaps we'll go full circle and those currently extolling P bass virtues will return to double basses (or euphonia and tubas haha 😂)

The P bass can be very muddy live dependent on how it's played and also EQd - in the case of the first point, from my observation and experience over the last 50 odd years, those who do sound good on them, even exceptional, whack the strings pretty hard - that has also been my experience - in the exceptional cases I'm thinking of the players were exceptional also. The second point regarding EQ is also important - and too important to be left to sound engineers who won't necessarily know the intricacies and vagaries of individual bass guitars, let alone their players, and should be given the bassist's bass sound to amplify/enhance rather than a pre EQd/pre modified sound - as described by Guy Pratt, whose entirely delay reliant part of a song was bypassed by the sound engineers, diverting his out of the bass sound to house DI prior to effects/EQ, thus screwing up part of his performance - in fact I'm concluding that this is a major contributor to inaudible bass guitar in some music these days. For those who think BGM etc are a waste of space, they've missed two of the most seminal bassists of now talking about these issues - and an interview by Silvia as well!! I don't buy the 67 years bit either - there was only a very gradual take up for the first ten, the 60s certainly wasn't an era where the P was ubiquitous, certainly in UK pop maybe it was in the US, the early 70s was surely shared with the J and Ric, whilst many of the best players moved to Wal or Musicman at the end of the era. 80s was shared with synth bass, 90s with 5 strings - and then it becomes v popular again. When I first started taking notice of these things (the later 60s), there were one or two high profile top rate players on P bass but more importantly the whole concept of bass guitar was still on an uphill struggle beyond pop/rock music to be accepted even as a serious instrument - against double bass!! Rather like Jools, those who chuck the BGM, BG baby out with the bath water miss some great moments - in fact the whole concept of a magazine is surely to create passing interest with one or two nuggets otherwise there wouldn't be such a plethora of them - from women's magazines to Ideal Home to OK - they appeal to broad taste in their subject area rather than individual's focus - even something as focussed as prog magazine is guaranteed a decent percentage of stuff which will only appeal to a percentage of readers. It's the nature of the beast!!

Now then, now then!! 😂

No problem - I found the Marcus article very enlightening to be honest. Im with you on the issue of those P bass sounds - a bugbear Ive had since the 70s in a live setting (with a few notable exceptions - who I also class as genius players!!). And the reason I don't play such a beasty!!

That'll halve my Bass magazine monthly costs - unless they increase the cost...... For those who don't take these mags my recent copy of BGM had two v interesting bits:- 1) Guy Pratt interview referred to DIs and mentioned an instance of going to house DI with a famous artist at the most famous of festivals - and it bypassing his sound and pedals - basically causing him to play an entire passage totally reliant on delay - which came out as an incoherent mess to the huge live and tv audience - so much for 'trusting' the sound guys - glad I always go post EQ via the amp DI. 2) Marcus Miller (excellent interview by Silvia and Happy Jack 👍) mentioned adding a Pre amp to his bass so he could control the sound going to the board to be used by the Engineer. Great stuff and my thoughts entirely!! 😀

I don't think so - the signigicant addition to your History item is the UK dance scene and its influence on bands and Britfunk of the time (and thus MK and Level 42) and the fact that MK was almost certainly influenced by his music shop interfaces of the time. Its similar really for instance to the inter relationship of rave music and the rave scene of the late 80s/early 90s.

And he is correct that the Brit Funk stuff was based around the dance scene particularly in the south east. I remember Hi Tension well from that era and some of the Reggae groups like Inner Circle. I have always been astonished at the number of women at modern day Level 42 gigs - on a par with the number at say, Temptations, Simply Red etc etc - the link is dance I think - they had a broad appeal - Whereas rock is far more male orientated - prog in the 70s was all about guys in great coats and Afghans with long hair stroking their beards and gently nodding in time with the music whilst Messrs Wakeman and co cavorted around their keyboards!!! I was one of them....... before I discovered jazz, soul and funk!!

Truth is, in the late 70s, the bass guitar was THE instrument to play in a band if you had any aspiration to be a 'good' player - there was quite a history of people wanting to be accepted dating back to the earliest days of 'progressive' (when everyone from Floyd to Fleetwood Mac to Blodwyn Pig were included in that 'genre') to the early 70s Yes and the like wanting acceptance as a 'serious' musician - unless you were a kid playing punk (and there weren't that many of them in spite of what one part of the music press would have you believe) you would be a serious rock or R and B player at that time (R and B including disco and jazz funk, Rock including prog). The most dynamic and exciting form of bass playing (for players and audiences) was slap bass. I heard players like Pops Popwell with the Crusaders long before I knew about Larry Graham's earlier stuff - GCS was an upcoming band in the UK on a par with Kokomo - they were not stars. Any bass player with any aspiration to play R and B or pop would be playing slap - in fact if you turned up at an audition and couldn't, for such a band you would likely not get the job - by the early 80s it was essential. Pino was even doing it on a Fretless at that time!! So I see no reason why MK wouldn't have been influenced by much of what was going on around him - that he was clearly looking for a Stanley Clarke sound and earlyish songs like Heathrow had bass parts bearing great resemblance to SC's lines (Lopsy Lu for example). However the first single (Love Meeting Love), a finger style part, has, I think been attributed to him playing a borrowed EB2 during his shop days - and his interest in a JD was sparked by seeing/hearing Gary Barnacle's brother's white JD - no doubt because of its ability to sound and vaguely look Alembic at a fraction of the cost. Also, at this time, although people may have been influenced by the likes of Jamerson, Babbitt etc - well at least their more famous parts (and remember in the 60s you couldn't hear the bass properly anyway), people were more likely to be influenced by this new wave of players like Bernard Edwards, Stanley Clarke, Pino Palladino and the disco players like Louis Johnson - and really any prominent bass part (Fatback Band, Ain't No Stopping Us Now, Earth Wind and Fire). Unfortunately we suffer from a gradual re-write of history - fuelled by BBC documentaries (which fail to mention such seminal programmes as The Tube by Channel 4 and overly rely on the NME as a source, when it wasn't generally representative), music school resources (Scotts Bass Lessons Included) seemingly focus on the excellent but at the time barely audible and certainly in the 70s, far less relevant early Motown stuff. The 70s/80s was a far more exciting time as a bass player in my view. I am personally doubtful MK would have failed to be influenced by everything music wise and bass wise going on around him - and particularly working in a shop - that he only focusses on snippets and major stuff in interviews is hardly surprising.

I start with my amp set flat. With the bridge pick up soloed I tend to boost bass and treble a little and cut the mid control (as much as 50% cut). With both pick ups selected in humbucking mode (my favourite setting), I tend to bring the bass back to centre and boost the mids a little. With both pick ups there is a natural scoop to the sound hence bringing up the mids - and dropping back the bass. Works for me!

Indeed they are - afraid I'm not but wish I was. They sound very Steely Dan mid/late 70s to me but what they do is great fun as well - there's a live version of Dean Town where the audience sing along with the bass part - who said no one listens to the bass!!!

Great - well done 👍

Blimey - thanks for that. You live and learn - I'd always thought Fender had made it up and wanted to either avoid being sued by the Ford Motor Company, or more likely, had mis-spelt it!! Encouraging the mis-spelling fault lies firmly at the doors of Microsoft (allegedly) and Apple (allegedly) after all 😬

I thought that was a type of - dare I say it - tart? Or perhaps car 🤔