green

ok, will do ! how should i check them ? just carefully joggle the wires and see if it makes cracking sounds ?

well, there are only 2 music stores with technicians here in my area. one doesn't even sell basses, just pianos. the other one i guess is a bunch of guys making big money but they don't have a clue. i got some really bad advice there before, so i never would give my bass away to them.... that's why i need to find the problem myself. i soldered electronics before. i'm not a pro, but i have some experience nevertheless. i'm just trying to find out what it could be. it really sounds like there is only one coil running. when i hit the bass, all coils come back again. does that mean it's the pickup ? or could it be outside of the pickup ?

i'm in germany. battery is ok, switch is ok, jack is ok. checked them all. the problem is: when the sound gets weaker, i also get a little bit of hum in serial and paralled mode. which means, that there is only one coil running. in parallel mode, when it occurs, you can hear very clearly that the sound changes from the snappy parallel sound, to a more crowly single coil sound plus hum. i guess, there must be something with the pickup, but how can it break ???

hi i bought an used '94 musicman sterling 4 and it has a problem: when i have the switch in bridge position (parallel coils), sometimes it occurs all of a sudden while playing, that the signal get's weaker. the sound changes, and i hear hum. this happens by itself. the same in the middle position (single coil) or bridge position (parallel). it doesn't have to do with using the switch. but most of the time when i switch to serial mode, i have a very weak signal right after switching, and the sound is muffled and lacks the high end. switching to another mode, and switching back to serial doesn't change this. but when i hit the bass on the side (is it called RIB ?), the loudness comes up, and it sounds like everything is right again. now, i don't know where the loose connection is. maybe it's inside the pickup, but that seems odd to me... maybe it's somewhere else, and when i hit the bass the problem disappears. i opened the electronics compartment and looked inside. everything seemed fine. but since i can't take out the circuit board without using an soldering iron, i couldn't look beneath it. please help me find out why the sterling does what it does ! (i hope you could understand what i wrote. i guess it's hard to describe and sounds confusing. please ask if something is unclear)

it would weight something between 4.2 and 4.5 kg. i had an ESP LTD surveyor (ash body, maple neck, ebony fingerboard) which was 4.4 kg. my ash stingray weights 4.3, and my lakland 55-02 with ash body weights 4.4 kg. sure, it depends on the tree. but i guess fender tries to keep the density and so the weight consistent.

funkgod, i don't think it is right to say, that they use lower grade wood nowadays, since the looks of the wood doesn't tell about it's grade does it ? alder for example has very little grain, but makes good tonewood. such es mahogany, which has little grain to it, too. and nice black ebony is very good tonewood, and one can say it has no grain at all :-) you better say, the wood is not as fancy looking as back in the days, but for me, it's ok. i mean, it's a bass, not furniture. i wouldn't like to have one of those burl swirl flame super grain fodera and stuff. that's wood coming from ill trees, or with fungal infestation. haha although i must admit, it does look nice sometimes on the neck of a vintage musicman. hey, how come squarepusher's sabre bass doesn't have a weak g-string ? :-)

funkgod, thanks for that info with the pole pieces ! i guess that could be a good thing to try out. but don't hate on the new stingrays. i have one from '05 and it's really nice. never compared it to an older stingray, but i like it a lot. i like the plastic battery compartment better, since you don't need a screw driver to change the battery. now about the neck: times change. and since there are so many luthiers who need that birds eye maple, i guess it is quite rare and/or expensive. the neck on my stingray is very stable. it never changes. like it's a graphite neck ! nice woods always were natural sprayed, and bad woods always were solid painted. fender did it back in the days, musicman did it, everyone does it. and i guess, everyone would do it when building basses. looks has nothing to do with sound. so, as long as it sounds good, the bad looks can be sprayed over. i really don't give a sh*t what the wood under the gloss black paint looks like. the sound of my stingray is incredible ! ok, enough off-topic :-) enjoy your basses everyone. and for the weak g-string fix, try funkgod's advice

i guess i found out what's wrong with the g-string: the distance of the pole pieces should follow the curvature of the neck, and then bring the strings closer, the thinner they get, right? now look at the pickup of the stingray . the pole pieces on the g-string are even lower than the pole pieces of the e-string. the opposite should be the case. now, if you bring the one side of the pickup closer to the g-string, it will be ok, but then the d-string would be too loud. i guess, the problem is in the pole pieces of the g-string. is there any way to adjust their height ?

cool how about recording an A/B with a few soundclips ? you could still do that now that the original pickup is still in the bass...

artisan, let us know if the nordstrand helps. i have the same "problem"...

i'd say daphne blue and plain white pickguard. looks very nice with a maple fingerboard: or surf green and white pickguard: but if you want the classic look, than how about piano black. always looks good i think.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='750320' date='Feb 18 2010, 11:47 PM']The Laklands I've played tend to favour the jazz sound over the stingray sound. The pickup design is such that you can't really have both worlds unfortunately.[/quote] well, that could be the explanation why the lakland sounds so much different. has anybody ever played a bass that comes close to the stingray sound ? i mean, having that aggressive high frequencies (even with old strings) ?

well, an example for a stingray-copy is the lakland 55-02. it has the exact same woods like my stingray. it has a massive bridge, the bridge pickup can be wired in parallel mode, too (just like the pickup on the stingray), the pickup even is a very little closer to the bridge like on the stingray, and still it doesn't have that aggressive snarl of the stingray (that's not a bad thing, but makes the lakland sound totally different). i find the EBMM sterling (the original one, not the cheap copy) to have that musicman sound, too. it really seems to be witchcraft ;-) so, it really seems like it is the electronics and the pickup... right ?

hi folks. i played a lot of basses, that were inspired, or nearly copies of the stingray. and after some years, i finally got the real stingray, and it sounds unique. i never played a bass before, that sounded like it. i'm not one of those who can hear the difference between maple and rosewood fingerboard. but i surely hear the difference between a stingray and an ATK. there are several basses with humbuckers in the typical stingray position, but none of those have that stingray sizzle and upper mid bite. what do you think makes a stingray sound like a stingray ? (some are made of poplar, some are made of ash, some have alder bodies. but all do have that sound) is it the electronics ?

[quote name='Albi' post='730548' date='Jan 31 2010, 02:18 PM'][/quote] albi, how does the legacy sound compared to the sonus ? you don't have sound clips, do you ?

you could also check out the [url="http://www.bassline-bass.de/bassline_baesse-buster.html"]bassline buster[/url]. or you may want to check out a bass, that is a mixture of the stingray and the precision, if you like both. like the sandberg california PM. in case you want the humbucker and the single coil, then the sandberg california JM is for you. or the clover apeiron. i had one of those, and it was really nice.

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='656942' date='Nov 17 2009, 02:12 PM']Im not really one for overly bright tones but i do like a bit of bite and growl.[/quote] well, in my opinion, the stingray is one of the brightest basses, that still sound good being bright. maybe there might be some basses with just one pickup directly near the bridge, that sound way brighter, but that would sound thin. the stingray has a very modern tone to it (if modern is the oposite of the rather dull vintage sound). it has lots of high end, but still doesn't lose the bottom. i started playing stingrays 2 month ago, and it's the only bass for me now ! but if you don't like too bright, then you either would have to roll the treble off all the time, or just go with another bass. i'd recommend you to check out the warwick streamer stage II. it is growly as hell, has lots of bottom end (which the other growly warwick - the thumb - doesn't have). but it is quite expensive as well. you might want to buy it second hand. you could also check some ibanez basses, with mahogany body. for example the SR500. if you still want to get some stingray-like stuff, you could check the musicman knock-off by "fame". they cost about the same as an ATK, but look very similar to musicman basses, and are said to have a little less highs than musicman. [url="http://www.musicstore.de/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/MusicStore-MusicStoreShop-Site/de_DE/-/EUR/ViewProductDetail-Start?SKU=BAS0000802-000&ProductUUID=0&CatalogCategoryID=&JumpTo=OfferList"]fame MM500[/url]

hi benthos. [url="http://www.ernieball.com/forums/music-man-basses/42214-stingray-sound-examples.html"]THERE[/url] you go. a few sound samples of different musicman basses, one of them has a graphite neck. i would like to play one of those graphite neck stinrays, too. i'd like to know, how they play, not how they sound. i found out, that people not playing my bass don't really hear a difference in sound, but if you play it, you hear a big difference, because of the way the bass responds to your playing style.

hi folks. does anybody have an original greg curbow bass ? i mean those made of rockwood... it's really hard to find infos, pictures or videos about them, since cort builds the curbow knock off...