drTStingray

This is the same colour........ this one is mine and is a thing of great beauty 👍😀

I've heard it referred to as used nappy colour.....(ps that's not my photo and don't know who's copyright it is). Very rare and quite reveered colour option!! Btw snotburst is surely a patented Fender colour?!!

I'm guessing the effect is marginal in terms of overall strength in the requirements of a bass guitar. I haven't noticed a difference - they still dent and ding like regular maple. One thing no-one has mentioned is a very minor, but interesting side effect - the smell of maple syrup if you get your nose very close to the neck. I noticed it when I first got my MM Sabre - it was after a long gig in very humid conditions - I leaned over the bass whilst getting a gig bag to put it in. Now before people rush to Andertons (or any other popular stockist) and start sniffing Stingray necks, it was not me who said this!! 😂 MM standard v roasted maple - they look very similar (NB this is not a Stingray Special neck - it's a flamed neck on a limited edition bass)

Haha!! I hadn't appreciated that. I bet like most players who play sunburst and the usual bass suspects, we don't see them as brown - which they all are to an extent - as evidenced by my Mrs's non-expert view. Unless you've got for instance a blue or red one, you're stuffed - it's brown!! However none are as brown as walnut or mocha (which is what us bass players think of as brown - NB brown was a very popular car colour in the UK in the 70s as well - along with purple, lime green and orange - must be an era thing as that's when walnut was popular as a bass colour).

My Mrs tells me most basses are brown - of all types - and she's always right 👍😂 She calls my natural ash Stingray 'that wooden bass' 🤔

Probably walnut. They do another brown one called sunburst.... That Musicman is an odd colour - and what's happened to the fret markers? It looks like a darker honeyburst. There is a far simpler solution. Email the serial number to Ernie Ball Musicman Customer Services and they'll tell you - I'm guessing it's a non standard one if only from the lack of fret markers. My assertion has always been that bass players are higher up the evolutionary scale than drummers - and guitarists - if some of the Basschat contributions to this thread is anything to go by, and is representative of all bass players at large, I may have to reappraise that view....... You guys should have a go at defining Musicman trans green - now there's a colour!!

You guys aren't helping in the least...... apparently the neck and board have a high gloss finish. I already have a Musicman Fretless (indeed used it last weekend having seen this - used it with an octaver at one point - very Pino sounding 👍) - but these BFR ones look spectacular. I wonder how they will feel to play and sound? Only one way to find out I guess.

Thanks for the clarification.

Weaker and more brittle? Are you sure and if so is this marginal and would it actually have any impact in a musical instrument application? Or even in building structures etc etc. I would very much doubt it otherwise the likes of Roger Sadowski, Fender, Musicman et al would not be using it for some instruments. From someone who owns and uses regularly three basses with roasted maple necks, they all look great, feel better than any other bass to play than I've experienced in 40 odd years playing, and they all hold their tune more than adequately - in fact I'd say they require the least adjustment by season of any bass I have - so it's all good for me - however I'm one of those people who doesn't buy the vintage hoodoo. I'm a bit like it with cars as well - give me air con, ABS, modern construction tolerances, safety and comfort over 50s/60s chic (including rampant corrosion, vacuum powered wipers which stop when you go uphill etc) for everyday use. I think there's a lot of conjecture here and the level of relevant fact and theory being quoted by posters is unclear.

No need - it's very similar to normal maple except much darker and none of mine have required any treatment whatsoever. Unlike normal maple which can show the dirt. As always, it's best for people to experience something before commenting on it - there are plenty of instruments out there in shops with roasted maple necks - just go and try one then you'll experience/see for yourself.

This process has been around for a while. I have a 2014 Limited edition Musicman Sabre with a flame maple roasted neck including the fingerboard. They do look very good in my opinion. Since 2018 all Musicman Stingray Specials have had roasted necks. As well as the claims made about benefits of the process one thing most people have noticed with the Musicman basses is how much slicker the necks are to play - somehow the combination with light oil and wax finish takes what were some of the best feeling necks in the business to a new level - you need to try one to appreciate it. It is not limited to the high end Stingrays either, some of the SBMM basses have it as well (not the entry level ones). Fender have done at least one special edition with roasted necks but I think it's more a CS option. Effectively regular Musicman construction, quality and spec mirrors Fender's CS team built. The BFR models are a step above that (and priced accordingly! See the Fretless Ray Special in the Bass Guitars thread. In terms of a replacement for rosewood, this is not the case. Certain specs of Musicman basses come with rosewood boards - there is more widespread use of ebony than before though. My ebony board basses are great!! I found it curious to say the least that Fender released a full rosewood neck limited model when Cites was in place (everyone else did it and ceased years ago!!). Perhaps they were using up rosewood stocks as they replaced rosewood with pau ferro much sooner than anyone else!!

Agreed.

Yes you're right and that's very impressive - but looked another way that's another 400,000 potential drummers to wreck Bubinga's, my and everyone else's groove with unmusical bedroom based musicianship. Whereas the same thing applied to slap bass and loud guitars can be irritating, such drummers always are invariably very loud as well. Back in the 70s/80s the natural progression was for clubs to install noise meters and drummers to be replaced by machines. Natural evolution I guess ...... 😬

I think it is. Flamed roasted maple. Playing one of these live would possibly be as attention seeking as drum stick twirling - you see I'm trying to rationalise reasons to talk myself out of it 😬

Well I managed to survive yesterday without making an exploratory call to my favourite guitar shop 🤔 Hmmm it's Saturday today as well 😧

Don't feel bad about this - I also hate drum ***kery which this (and countless other drum videos) seem to glorify and encourage the young and impressionable to inflict on rythmn sections - I have experienced this as well - and stick twirling!! I seem to remember asking someone whether they'd been a majorette as a child after I had a particularly irritating experience. The product looks good - it's intended to help hot and sweaty drummers from losing sticks mid flight - if that saves the back of the band leader/singer's head from a whack from an errant stick occasionally that's also a strong health and safety feature 👍😏😂

This looks absolutely gorgeous - but very expensive - only 106 made - I can't say I'm not V tempted. Highly figured roasted maple blank plank - no pg, sunburst over highly figured ash..... 😯😬👍 Ash bodied Stingray also to become a rarity new owing to the shortage of swamp ash this year. https://reverb.com/item/28330143-music-man-usa-stingray-bfr-fretless-vintage-sierra-burst-limited-edition

I'm also in the one bass to fit all camp. If it's good enough for Mark King, who goes from full on slap to finger style, then.... One person I've seen change basses is Marcus Miller, but to go from fretted to Fretless. I have done this from time to time also - but equally have used the Fretless all gig (if you've seen Pino in his Paul Young days, you'll know a Fretless Stingray can be made to sound like a normal bass even using slap).

The Crusaders/Jazz Crusaders released albums from the beginning of the 60s, and released around 15 in that decade - Wilton Felder is thought to have started playing bass guitar at the end of the 60s, and was a studio player (notably Motown in LA) during the 70s. However his main role in the Crusaders was tenor sax/frontman and was an awesome player. I have to eat humble pie on one thing though, Pops Popwell played a Precision (also with Olivia Newton-John). Note also that Felder used Aria basses.

Pops Popwell played on several Crusaders albums up to Steet Life, on which Wilton Felder, James Jamerson and Alphonso Johnson played. Max Bennett played on Scratch. Im not sure whether La Bella flatwounds were available in the UK but in the late 70s/early 80s that was not the sound to have. It was all roundwounds and a bright bass sound.

That's a nice cover. I'd love to know where you guys think you could either buy a bass with flatwound strings as new, or flatwound bass strings in shops in the late 70s. Certainly in the UK they'd been out of fashion since the 60s and people would generally not be seen dead with them...... Thats not to say some people didn't insist on using them - it's well documented that the likes of Jamerson, who refused to change to a more lively bass sound, lost work as a result.

Interestingly, both Alphonso Johnson and James Jamerson also play on that album. I would not worry too much about what bass and strings are used in the original - we will never know what studio interfaces were used or overall enhancers in the production, all of which would move the bass sound away from a 60s type of thing - and it's certainly a far more 'hi fi' sounding production than that. I have used roundwounds since about 1979 and would describe my ideal sound as this era of funk and jazz rock. In fact I've only put flatwounds on a couple of basses ever, one to see what the fuss was about, and one because it's Fretless and I didn't want to wreck the fretboard. Like chris_b, I use a modern class D set up (MarkBass LM3), and can get a decent sound for that era with it, and a Stingray bass in combination with playing technique. I used to use an Ashdown ABM which was also fine for this (there is a thread currently running on Ashdown in General Discussion). The key, in my opinion for playing in a band with this type of thing is a clean bass sound at the required volume. I would say a key to playing the Street Life bass part is the groove and the note lengths - some are staccato, some not. Getting the overall feel and note lengths and intensity right, using the basses you already have, will go far further to achieving the right 'sound'. By the way I also have short fingers - you can learn to get around disadvantages of this, such as stretching across notes, by left hand placement on back of the neck - the other disadvantage I've found is fretting hand slapping in 80s onwards style pop and slap - long fingers give you more leverage and a stronger slap - however you can even get around that! Looking at equipment again, it's interesting that for Level 42s first single, Love Meeting Love, Mark King said he borrowed a bass, a Gibson EB2 IIRC. It sounds like a standard generic bass sound. The point of mentioning this being that you don't need necessarily to be using the same equipment as used in a studio to achieve the sound - there are so many other variables in studio recordings. Going back to my original comments, The Crusaders used a more modern type of bass sound live - whilst the sound on Street Life would be like the recording other songs would have slap etc. All played on a Jazz. I saw them three times in the late 70s, live , using two different bass players and they were like this on all three occasions.

I'm a bit surprised to hear people talking about the bass sound with the Crusaders as being vintage, with flatwounds, particularly as late as 1979. I saw them several times and the bass sound was anything but this. The player they had with them on tour in the late 70s was Robert 'Pops' Popwell whose sound (on a Fender Jazz) was anything but 60s flatwound vintage. He was also a stunning slap player (and played it a lot with the Crusaders). So I would say this sound is Fender Jazz with roundwounds with the bridge pick up favoured (but not soloed), or also a 2 band Stingray with either flats (treble up) or rounds (treble not full). The line should be played with sufficient muting to control but not completely eliminate clank. Sorry but I think you're going down the wrong route if you're thinking flat wound, vintage thud. Favour the bridge pick up on your Sire or other basses (mixing in a bit of neck) and strike the strings with authority - round wounds are fine - I would suggest you'll need some left hand muting also. It should sound fine, especially in the mix.

I have a DVD somewhere of Jamiroquy and Nick Fyffe not only gets a phenomenal sound, anything but woolly, and guess what, he's using MAG cabinets. I don't know where this idea of woolyness comes from - they certainly aren't but you can get them to sound reasonably 'vintage' if you want to. Good as Barefaced cabinets are, the Ashdown ones to me are fine. Now there are amps I've used that sound obviously scooped no matter what you do with the controls - very irritatingly. They are not Ashdown or Markbass!! I think the only downside to the older Ashdown stuff is its heft (weight) - not impossible but not comfortable for me these days!! Their servicing operation at Maldon is great also.

1960s - Schhh - Ten Years After 1970s - Blam - Brothers Johnson 1980s - No Parlez - Paul Young 1990s - Rage Against The Machine 2000s - Canned Heat - Jamiroquy 2010s - The Beautiful Game - Vulfpeck No videos uploaded to prevent the app from crashing - I could have picked at least three or four per decade up until the latest decade - not sure what that's saying about the role of bass in music more recently....