BabyBlueSound

Just now, dmc79 said:

Some places have the short Stingrays for £700, but even that sounds a lot based on your description. I can’t be certain but weren’t they nearer £600 a while back?

Thomann was stocking them for like £570 for a while, now they've raised the prices to £700 as well.

I bought my crappy one for £610 back in the spring (May) that got returned.

@RichT I still think the recent quality drop might be something to do with Covid impacting instrument manufacturing in countries like Indonesia, where these are made. Reviews from a few years ago rarely say it's as terrible as you and me have experienced.

The 2nd hand one I mentioned earlier I bought here for £490, a more reasonable price and it's in near-perfect condition (as you can see from my recent tacky photos), apart from a slightly bent tone knob. I am loving it (the feel, the sound, the SUSTAIN!!!) but I STILL do not feel it's THAT much better than my £150 Ibanez. The D machine head is not great, and the rest sometimes lose the tuning as well. I'll replace them with Schallers, that worked wonders on the Ibanez, barely need to tune it, they're ridiculously stable with the cobalt flats.

It feels like they just overcharge you for a £300 Sterling, because it's a shorty. But if you really, really want a shortie Stingray, are ready to pay the price, and ready to try a few till you get one with only a few issues, you can still love it  I do.

Keeping an eye for a good 2nd hand one is really the best way to go with these.

24 minutes ago, ezbass said:

You’re not wrong, even standard sized knobs would’ve been ok, there’s plenty of real estate on the plate. A tooling cost too far for them, I guess.

I like it, it's silly and emphasises the small body. Then again, I just put a mirror on my bass, so maybe the issue is with my taste  

I can't get enough of the blue. I just really need to get a black bridge for the Ibanez.

54 minutes ago, dmc79 said:

How thick is the neck, front to back (measurement with calipers just before 1st fret would be a bonus) - is it somewhere inbetween a jazz & precision in terms of thickness? 
 

This may seem like an odd question, and once I play it I may find it doesn’t bother me anyway, but visually the massive silver banana control plate just looks silly to me, annoyingly especially on the colours I prefer (Black & Dropped Copper). A quick search and I see that there are blacked out plates on some Rays, most likely long scale ones though. Anyway, the question! Do you think a blacked out plate is out there that would be a drop in replacement for the SS one, or has anyone had their silver one spray painted? Thanks, Ray fans 

 

I don't think it would be between jazz & prec, it's full-on jazz, 38mm wide. My Ibanez is 41mm, that is more prec-like.

Thickness wise, I got my calipers and Sterling SS is 21.7mm thick, Ibanez SS is 21.8mm thick, basically both feel absolutely thin and fast. But I had some trouble fully pressing in the arm of the caliper under the strings so I might be a few 0.1mms off.

I don't know how easy it is to spray paint, unless you go to like a car custom shop who know how to do this properly. I tried spray painting chromelike surfaces before and it just comes off easily, even when using the right primers etc.

Tacky or not, I could not help it.

I have a buddy who used to do it for a couple months. Pianist in his 50s, trained classically and in jazz, and a crazy good singer too. He has 1000s of songs in his repertoire, and can sightread well, so he had no issues joining the band. The band basically had no days off for like 2 months, and only a couple after. He just referred to the whole experience as "the grinder". Not sure how common is that in the industry, but allegedly most of that band was pretty high most of the time towards the end of the cruise, and I am not talking about some funny smokes, but stimulants and psychedelics. Not even for fun, just to cope. As he put it, around the 7th week of playing the same boring crap multiple times every single night, the only escape was when the colours were dancing too.

I love the looks and colours of the Sires too, they're amazing to look at, but the slab body is a huge turnoff for me  

Has anyone tried to take the pickup apart yet?

I'd like to replace the pickup cover, but I heard most Sterlings actually have it glued/waxed on, so it's not an easy job.

50 minutes ago, Osiris said:

FWIW I use 34" scale strings on all 3 of my short scales and have never had any issues stringing them that way over the past few years. That's both on my string through body Mustang as well as through bridge stringed basses. Yes, you in variably have an extra winding or 2 around the post on the machine head of the E sting but I've never had any intonation issues or had a string snap when I've taken them off to clean the fretboard. There's no other reason for doing this than I've got a stockpile of D'Addario 34" strings from when they were on offer a few years back! No doubt someone will be along shortly to tell us why loads of fluffy kittens and polar bears will die because of me doing this but it works for me and has done for several years 

While I prefer to use shortscale strings when available, they simply do not exist for a lot of brands. Elixir comes to mind, and my latest favs, the Ernie Ball cobalt flats. I only had issues when I tried to follow that weird Ernie Ball wrapping guide instead of just putting them on like I always do. They ended up looking really weird but they actually keep the tuning well, so lucky me, they're expensive. For my other bass I just used the regular method, no doublewrapping, and no issues there.

17 minutes ago, Obrienp said:

There have been some adverse comments around the forums.
 

I have the Vox Starstream H1 (passive) and it does the ‘Ray thing pretty well for less than a Sterling SS and everybody notices it at a gig (if you like that). Mine is very nicely made. Only real issue with it is not being able to fit the usual culprits in strap locks: you have to use those rubber washer things. Otherwise it is extremely light, ergonomic and balances OK on a strap.

I was seriously considering the H1 for a while, I find it beautiful, but in the end my longing for a Musicman won.  

45 minutes ago, scrumpymike said:

Maybe I've just missed it but I haven't seen much negative stuff, just lots of positives. The one I had was unbelievably good and punched way above its (then) £600 RRP.

I had ordered a brand new one a few weeks ago and made a post about how absolutely terrible it was before sending it back (it's somewhere in my post history). Whatever can go wrong on a cheapo bass went wrong there, it was not just slightly damaged and bad quality in general, but it had some major issues like a bridge where you can't get low action at all.

Basically my £150 Ibanez was running circles around the £630 Sterling in build quality. And my Ibanez was far from perfect.

Now I have a second hand one that I bought here, and that's completely fine! Although the fretwork is still sub-par compared to the Ibanez. I have some sharp edges, and with semi-low action there is some serious buzz around the highest frets, which does not happen on the Ibanez where the action is even lower.

23 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Wouldn't cost a lot to get it powder coated black.

Well I just ordered one from the US!

Thanks again @Woodinblack   Now only the bridge needs to be replaced and then I'm done!

1 minute ago, gazzatriumph said:

Could you not spray paint it black

Actually I tried spraypainting the O-rings from the base of the machine heads before, as my Schallers' O-rings are slightly smaller than the stock Ibanez ones and were not tight enough. I tried two separate types of paint and it simply does not stick enough, even if using primers and all. The end result looks fine but it comes off even if I scratch with my nail, so have to be careful around them. I think the chrome-like surfaces need something extra, regular spraypaint won't do.

So I just ordered it from ebay US... £33 total, ouch.

Alright, sounds great to me! I'll DM in a few mins.

Hey, I have been wanting to get one of these forever. However the one I bought had serious quality control issues (bent knobs, jagged nut, clicky tuner, problematic bridge that can only be lowered to 0.2+mm, etc), and the shop confirmed the other they had in stock has similar issues.

Is there room to lower the action properly? I prefer very low action, 1.5mm-ish or even lower sometimes. You mentioned this one has great build quality, so I guess this has passed the pre-Covid QC (apparently build quality fell a bit during the pandemic), but making sure  

Just out of curiosity, does the thumbrest hole go into the body as well? Not that it really matters, if I'd buy this, I'd get either a matt black or a silver mirror scratchplate anyway that would cover it  

How old is it?

Lancaster is pretty far away for me, what would be the delivery cost and which courier would you use? 

On 10/08/2022 at 08:18, Woodinblack said:

 

A jack output plate, or a jack-plate. imaginatively enough

This any good? From here https://www.guitarpartsresource.com/jackplates_aftfender.htm

 

Aw man, finally someone tells me this is simply a fender custom strat jackplate, and then it turns out this part is only available in the US - meaning some hefty extra charges 😭. They only sell the boring standard strat jackplates over here apparently. I have checked so many shops, including ones dedicated to parts... no joy. But no avoiding this, the Talman has to become fully black & mint!

On 10/08/2022 at 08:18, Woodinblack said:

 

A jack output plate, or a jack-plate. imaginatively enough

This any good? From here https://www.guitarpartsresource.com/jackplates_aftfender.htm

 

Thanks man, I cried a little seeing this!

17 hours ago, Duarte said:

My short scale squier, that I bought in 2016, left in a share house in Sydney in 2017, and hadn't seen since until yesterday! I lived in Thailand and China for 5 years, meanwhile, the Jag hasn't been out of its case. It's great! Thinking of pimping it a bit. Black hardware, some kind of high output pickups, that kind of thing.

It's beautiful and I can only recommend pimping it black. I love my black volume knobs, black schallers, and I replaced the pickguard with a matt single ply too, who needs that white edge! In time, I'll get a black bridge too, the problematic part on my talman is the metallic plate around the output, these are shaped uniquely... it's "embedded" or "sunken", not even sure what's the right word for this jack output:

1 hour ago, grenadillabama said:

I got my first Squier. It sounds different than the PJ 'Stang I have. An insect landed on it.

I am really not sure about your gear, man. I mean, I tried that insect once but I just could not grow to like it's sound. I strongly suggest trying ladybugs, 2 of them (one each side of the pickups) gets you the best results IMHO.

2 minutes ago, jimmyb625 said:

A question about short-scales, specifically the Harley Benton p-bass version. Are the pickups full-size, or are they scaled down as well?

Asking for a friend, who definitely didn't just order one, despite having not the slightest need for it... 

I don't know about the HB, but the Ps in my Talman are full size, new EMG P fit perfectly. The factory J was just 1mm smaller, OR the EMGs I bought are just a little bit larger, but I had to file off like 1mm from the EMG J's side.

12 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Oh, and by the way, as you can see the J pickup has been uninstalled, and instead replaced for a folded piece of matte black cardboard, the P pickup replaced for an EMG Geezer Butler P pickup, wired directly to the output jack socket, which has been moved and replaced from a side mounted barrel type one to a front mounted regular jack socket, installed in one of the redundant pot holes, the remaining 2 knobs being there exclusively for visual decoration, further decorated with green electrical tape (also known as insulating tape), the P pickup also having been decorated with red electrical tape.

This is legendary 😁 you really maxxed out the pimp factor on this Mikro  As a fellow Geezer Butler (inside an Ibanez) owner, I am sure it sounds fantastic too!

On 09/06/2022 at 09:40, ezbass said:

Any updates?

I had some back&forth with them and they confirmed their replacement bass also had a few minor issues such as the weirdo nut, and the cost of living crisis kicking it up, so ultimately I asked for a refund for now.

Thomann started stocking it again, so hopefully I can look into buying it again in a couple months.  

I have been using the Talman shortie since last October, and I noticed the satin neck slowly became glossy and sticky. I usually play in gloves due to sweaty hands, and the gloves slide around anyway so it's not a big deal, but interesting that moderate use can cause this. Even towards the body, where I don't play as much as up around the head or the middle. The only satin parts left are the very end at the head, and the very end at the body. Ordered some scotch brite on ebay...  

Quick update, still waiting for Project Music. They're waiting for a replacement which they would review before sending off to me. They are still cool about this, just had some staffing issues, both techs were out.

I told them no rush, not in a hurry, I'd still rather get a replacement bass instead of a refund and happy to wait for it.