drTStingray

Blimey - sounding very interesting - in spite of having a new SR5 in my sights!! I wouldn't worry about taking the neck off - this sounds almost certain to be a 1988 - as Rodney72a said, try EBMM without including the B in the number - plus the volume pot will probably have a sticker on the bottom.

Fabulous bass and great story with an excellent ending. Enjoy your Fretless Ray. I concur with you regarding how good a Fretless Stingray is - I've had mine about 10 yrs - they sound fabulous.

Do what suits you best but remember, if it's good enough for Pino........ This popped up on EBay and I couldn't resist - little did I know I'd have to record with it - successfully two weeks later and used it for about three years as my main bass in the same band - unlined Fretless looks so much better but IMHO - others may prefer lined. Old Horse Murphy's NBD thread also has an unlined Fretless Ray - a bit closer to the colour of Pino's than mine.

Interesting!! You may find EBMM don't have that in their database - sounds like a very early EBMM one. I would suggest you check it out with EBMM. If you looked it up on musicman.org that is not a complete database and only contains details of basses Gav has received - the serials aren't totally consecutive but you can get an idea of date from it.

The serial number is on the bridge - you can get the DOB and build details from EBMM customer services or from the serial number thread on the Musicman bass forum. If you're talking SR4s, late 80s ones for sale aren't that common. They are generally really nice basses - value would possibly be around £1000 + dependent on whether they're in a desirable colour, with ohsc (quite rare) for any MM basses up to mid/late 90s. As a for instance I once was involved in bidding on a 1987 trans red 2 band, immaculate condition, crazily figured birds eye neck also with an ohsc - teardrop MM type - it went way above my upper limit and sold for £1250 ish...... in 2007. I subsequently found out the hard shell case alone was worth, at the time, over £200. I would say around £1000 + if the bass is in very good condition and all original - bear in mind new ones (undiscounted) are around £2000. I wouldn't sell a Stingray for less than £850 these days. Bear in mind there may be another price like when the new Stingrays appear later this year - which may bump up the used values again. For those who just want a Stingray, then these prices won't suit as if you find someone desperate to sell you can probably pick something up cheaper - but as with all instruments many people are more specific with their requirements - look at the price range for a used 'Precision' bass - anything from £250 to £10k plus dependent on what you want.

Absolutely right - I suspect even now many non musicians don't know that McCartney played bass guitar in the Beatles.

Mine too but on reflection the picture may be closer to the Birds Eye fish finger cap'n. But those who were there will definitely get the hysteria of 1964 ish in a way others won't 😉👍 - as with any other world changing event.

I also love the time machine nature of The Chaps/Outlaws picture - as well as the youthful Du Beke, Blackmore, Hodges etc on the wall behind them appears to be a picture of Chas Hodges 50 yrs on........I didn't realise until I played the You Tube. Broken record on not (and what a find and witticism that is 😂) you and Blue are right - you had to be there!!

What I mean is Epstein set up his own empire of which the Beatles were a major part although the venues they played touring the country were the same as other acts - in fact a friend of mine saw both the Beatles and Cliff and the Shadows at the same venue - a couple of years apart - another had the good fortune to be given a ticket for the audience of Thank Your Lucky Stars when the Beatles were on the bill so I guess you are right in that sense. Interestingly the first couple of singles did not impact upon my life any more than any other music of the time - I was vaguely aware of With Love from Me to You. But it exploded subsequently. But yes you are also right re the films etc etc - I think the 'establishment' saw pop acts as lasting a max of a couple of years thus artists were steered or travelled of their own accord down other avenues (eg Tommy Steele with musicals). Of course the likes of Elvis were also longer lasting - but so were the Beatles - another mould breaker.

This is completely right - and the close succession of She Loves You (yeah yeah yeah) and Can't Buy Me Love and others - the fact that my entire primary school class suddenly became fans - the girls mostly enthusing over Paul - for those in a certain age group in the mid 70s the Bay City Rollers did it - as did David Cassidy etc etc. The rest was three singers with guitars shaking their heads in 63/64 and bopping around and a drummer doing the same - and an amazing energy in the music and performance. None of my 9 yr old class mates had any idea who played what as far as guitar was concerned except George played the solos - and air guitar was there even then 👍 They and Epstein blew the musical establishment apart in the UK also - by the Beatles writing a lot of their own material, not having their material generally played by sessions players and being outside of the established light entertainment business - the rest of the late 50s early 60s UK acts were very much part of it - for instance doing panto etc etc. The Beatles and others broke the mould - a total revolution to match the whole mid 60s vibe in the UK. I still believe QJ reverted to late 60s jazzer type looking snootily down his nose at 'pop music' and 'pop artistes' generally. I'm happy to just ignore it and will continue to love a great deal of the work he produced.

You know what Blue I feel empathy for your position regarding the Beatles and their impact. I was about 9 in 1964 - I was aware of most pop music peripherally until then as in the UK it would only appear on the Light Programme on the radio interspersed with everything from Richard Tauber to Elvis. The Beatles were the first major pop phenomena for me from Cant Buy Me Love onwards - and bear in mind there were multiple singles in the charts at the same time and the Beatles were also subject to broader marketing like a series of 50 cards sold individually with bubble gum. Coincidentally pop music TV shows like Ready Steady Go and Top of the Pops started around then. So like for you they were a major phenomena - as for opening my mind to bass, apart from knowing that Ringo played drums and the others played guitar I hadn't a clue how those duties were split up. So I don't empathise with McCartney opening my mind to bass at that time. What was very clear to me was all the girls swooned over Paul so he must have had some aesthetic superiority over the rest of them!! As for the Shadows and Cliff Richard unfortunately for me they were amongst a group of less musically challenging artists (the sort my dad would like - unlike the Beatles and Stones and the like) by that time they were more likely to appear as light entertainment artists in pantos and the like. Ive only come to really appreciate that era of very early 60s Shadows in more recent years particularly through meeting other musicians who very much lived the late 50s early 60s era and playing in bands with them - I suspect of Grandad's era. I still prefer the Shadows' later bass players but there's no mistaking some of those early bass lines are excellent. The Shadows, as mentioned, had some of the first if not the first Fenders in the UK - post war import restrictions restricting them till the early 60s - Cliff Richard was responsible for their acquisition brought from the US.

Is that Anton Du Beke on Les Paul as well? 🤔

I like those too - the ones on Musicman basses feel particularly satisfying and robust - however similar ones on cheaper basses do not -- rather like the same analogy with machine heads/tuning pegs etc. I suspect it may have something to do with the quality of the pots they're fitted to also. They come in black as well - and the original ones fitted to Stingrays had flat tops, not domed (the reissue Old Smoothie has them). The very early Musicman Stingray basses from 1976 had what are called radio knobs and they do indeed look like something from a radio (black plastic with a silver top). Funnily enough, possibly because of their rarity, radio knob Stingrays are quite sought after. I've never even seen one other than in photos.

Here you go Blue - this is definitely pre Beatles - from an album of the same name and released December 1960. I like Quincy Jones but his comments are very similar to something I saw on a light entertainment show in the late 60s where Oscar Peterson was berating Beatles melodies - it seems to have been a bit of a jazz thing in that era to look snootily down the nose at 'pop' music - very much the vogue amongst the classical fraternity at the time also. The Shadows even included the jazzy instrumental Nivram on their first album - the sleeve notes mention that it demonstrates these guys can really play, contrary to held beliefs in some sections of the music industry/listeners.

You had the Ventures in the US? The Shadows were a huge influence on many bass players and guitarists from the 60s - I've read several interviews where they are cited as the biggest influence - David Gilmour, Glenn Cornick and others. Jet Harris is quoted as the first bass guitarist these guys had seen.

I noticed on that demo (some fantastic sounds there) that with both pick ups selected as humbuckers, the sound was quite scooped. This is similar to my Stingray 4HH - I tend to not boost bass or treble in that setting and boost the mid range a little. Without a mid control on the bass id do that on the amp (as I do occasionally with a 2 band Stingray). I think a naturally scooped sound is likely with both humbuckers selected - but you can get really nice tones like that and wicked slap sounds. I probably use that setting on the SR4HH than any other.

To use an oft used and seldom, if ever defined expression - they lack the heft 😉 See/ listen to sound systems and bands in the 70s in West Indian areas like Handsworth and the bass would be so loud and rumble so much you'd have to hear it to believe it - big flappy speakers were part of that!! To be honest I personally use 2x10s these days - and with a Mark Bass LM3 can fill a room with fat bass sound with only one cabinet with the advantage it's also a tight, focussed sound if required, and I can play some cutting slap/pop if needed or I fancy it! So ultimate flexibility for me. It strikes me that vintage is very much a process of picking from a menu - and the 'classic' speakers are simply not part of it - probably because they're so damned heavy and quite frankly technology has moved on. Funny the same doesn't seem to extend to amps and basses - it never ceases to amaze me the amount of woolly bass sound people put up with these days!! Back in the 70s, as with hi fi music systems, everyone was aiming for more focussed, recording-like sound live. Funnily enough, I still am 😀 🤔

Surely you need 18" speakers for that 60s/70s bass woof. Used to be beloved of reggae players in the early 70s. My Acoustic 370 with 301 cabinet had an 18" speaker mounted in a reflex housing. I find it extraordinary that the vintage guys have overlooked this. 10" speakers were unheard of, 12" for bass were pretty wimpish and 15" was really the minimum desirable in the early 70s.

These appear on Fender basses from the 70s and Musicman (pre EB) - the current MM Old Smoothie Stingray has it. As has been described it relates to a rear loaded (during manufacture) truss rod, usually with a bullet truss rod adjuster at the head stock (the Old Smoothie has the usual MM wheel truss rod at the neck heel and six bolt neck attachment because MM think it's more robust and easily adjustable, I think I saw quoted). The inserted piece of wood was, in the 70s, a piece of dark contrasting wood. I have heard of truss rods appearing through these before now but never on Musicman or Fender basses from that era - more regularly occassional problems relate to some vagaries with the tilt system on those 3 bolt neck joints - though it had to be said I never had problems with mine and many other people find them fine. I would think it likely that any differential effect with the skunk stripe finish is likely related to operation/movement of the truss rod - and maybe unusual environmental conditions.

I know this thread's been running for a while but I want to start off by saying good bass tone is entirely subjective and as someone who has been playing for over 40 yrs and been listening consciously to bass on recordings probably for 50 yrs, I think I have a very good idea of what constitutes a good bass sound and what doesn't - does it matter - well yes it most certainly does - to me at least - the fact that most people I come across like the bass sounds I like and often achieve gives me some comfort that I might be getting it right or rightish - there is no right of course because everyone's life's musical experience and focus is different. Do I find myself at odds with some people's idea of a good bass sound - I think I do more now than ever - perhaps that's because my hearing has deteriorated - maybe but I don't think so (I do know that one or two other people's compromised hearing has resulted in argument about the volume of the bass in the mix as they have lost their 'treble' response - the problem has actually been dealt with effectively eventually) - and yes I do take exception to a lot of current commonly held misnomers which seem to be based on an overly 60s centric 'vintage' opinion of things. Of course, you'd have probably been hard pushed to even hear the bass either of the transistor radio of the time and more definitely in live settings. As a for instance, 18" speakers were quite normal in the 60s and 70s - 10" really appeared in the 80s and appealed to the more treble centric approach - eg Mark King. So why aren't people suggesting 18" speaker housing with vintage Precisions and valve amps? If you want that authentic woolly tone surely that would be correct? Bass tone and sound most certainly matter in most musical genres - that sound can take a variety of approaches though - there is no right and wrong - I favour a focussed sound. So Mark Bass and Musicman suits me absolutely fine.

The average is advertised as 9.5 lbs - so likely there are some lighter ones around - mine is 9.75 lbs. However the 2018 standard non Classic basses are meant to be at least 1 lb lighter - suggesting an average of at least 8.5 lbs if not lighter. I find getting a perfectly adjusted, well padded strap along with a well balanced bass (EBMM basses are almost always very well balanced), followed by issues like a comfortable posture - sometimes an issue in cramped areas if, for instance keyboardists take up half of the available width or drummers turn up with a van load of equipment - I find these are as important if not more so than the overall weight of the bass - as long as it's under about 10.5 lbs.

Interesting to hear the response from S and T, Pete. I'd have been inclined to email EBMM Customer Services direct.

Ha ha - that would be fun!! However I think you'll find a comprehensive package of upgrades to Stringrays have just been announced - both for SR4 and SR5.

I wouldn't worry - I'm sure you'll find wearing one is absolutely fine - they balance really well and ergonomically are a revelation - I'm near retirement age and I've got a 5HHp Bongo and apart from being a great and versatile bass, it attracts a lot of very positive comments from audience members and other musos - often based on the look which people seem to really like - avoid drunk middle aged women as I once had a group of them asking to 'touch my instrument' when I was using the Bongo once...... 😧 The only potential problem for you will be MM appears to have dropped the single H option on both the 5 or 6 string version - you'd have to ask a dealer if there are any of those in the system - I guess you can't order one now. The single H Bongo has a 3 band EQ so I'm wondering whether they are using that EQ on the new Stingray - or possibly a modified Old Smoothie one. I'm going to find out in a few months as I'm about to order an SR5 HH in cruise teal as per the attached flyer pic

That's a nice 1966 Motown track, complete with overdriven bass - too bad the first picture of the Funk Brothers in the montage shows a picture of an LA studio session with Carole Kaye in prominent view........