drTStingray

I quite like it (though am not a great fan of his singing) - can be great to play, with a good singer and tight band (hopefully with a light touch drummer - B and Q shed assembling moon lighters can ruin it!)

I love Max Bennett's playing and along with Larry Taylor was a big influence on my own playing in the late 60s/early 70s. Ive come across his bass on several albums but standout ones for me were:- Gumbo Variations - Frank Zappa - Hot Rats - what a funky bass part all those years back with a great bass/drum solo which I still quote from now! Scratch - The Crusaders - some great bass playing on this. Sad to hear he's passed away but 90 is a good age, especially for a musician.

These are my roasted maple neck Musicman basses - 2014 Neptune Blue mahogany Sabre with roasted flamed maple neck, and 2018 4HH Special, Aqua Sparkle with roasted maple and ebony board. They both have stainless steel frets. Note the back of the neck colour is consistent, and although the headstocks are darker (lacquered) there's not a huge difference. My 4HH Special was a customer order placed on 14/4/18 with Andertons - so you can get the colour you want if you persevere - the same was true of the Sabre, and various other 'odd colour' Musicman basses I've bought new. Note the new tuners have a much thicker tip area - feel really comfortable to use. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but think my 4HHS looks great. Ive used it now in two gigs with a fairly loud blues/R and B band (v loud drummer!!) - outdoor gigs. The bass sound has fitted the mix very nicely (generally using the dual humbucker or single bridge humbucker settings). I've used the outer single coil setting a couple of times but it simply encourages me to play Marcus Miller quotes. A couple of things I've really noticed - using the classic single bridge humbucker setting, even cranking the mid range (yes, to hear myself v said drummer on occasion), the sound simply becomes more focussed but retains that Stingray Bernard Edwards type sound. I rarely crank the mid on my regular 4HH in H mode as it sounds too much to me - that bass needs a bumped mid in dual H mode though as it naturally scoops. Altogether I'm really pleased with this bass - super playable, light, sounds great, big range of very usable sounds and also turns heads - Saturday night, under a lighting system our lady singer danced over playing an item of percussion and said 'is that a new bass you have there' as it shone in the multi coloured lighting - and then proceeded to make female Kenneth Williams/Frankie Howard sounds of approval - she looked well impressed!!! 😂

The necks on the Stingray Specials are standard (not highly figured) roasted maple - head stocks are lacquered and the back of the neck has an oil and wax finish. Mine has quite quite a lot of figuring in it but generally not birds eye or flame. I like mine a lot - the darker maple looks cool in my view. The ebony board is very dark.

What's the betting JPJ never played Lemon Song exactly the same twice!!?

Not to diss KT Tunstall and her ideas (as I think she's a great artist), but then so is Ed - but if you really want to look retrospectively, John Martyn was doing this sort of thing in the 70s. You could argue that the likes of Dave Gilmour and others are just doing what Hank Marvin did - whilst you'd be right that they were influenced by Hank they are of course excellent artists in their own right. No doubt Ed's lyrics and imagery have a synergy with today's young people that us more elderly can't comprehend - in the same way my dad could never entertain the thought that Hendrix - or even the Stones, were bona fide artists. I quite like some of Ed's songs and indeed have had to learn two or three for deps I do - I find them fun to play. Great that some youngsters like Led Zeppelin and why not. That many others think it's irrelevant to them is understandable - after all in 1969, few of us mid teens would have been that interested in something from 1919 🤔

Yep similar pattern - different feel - also appears in I Feel Good - James Brown - in all cases as riffs 👍

I reckon mine is around 8.5 lbs if not lighter. I haven't noticed anything odd about string alignment - in fact they even line up properly on the HH across the pole pieces on both pick ups - the previous HH were slightly off centre on the poles on the neck pick ups. Do you think it could just be that bass? Im waiting on a Cruz teal 5HH - I was given an update and quoted a new delivery date earlier this week - 25/1/19 😧 a 9 month wait from initial order - good job I'm not in a hurry!!

Sorry but it still looks like a reverse headstock bass V1 to me - not that SC playing a bass V1 would be outrageous - not quite his piccolo tone but if he wanted to get back to a 60s thick twangy feel.......

Maybe the Ronny Jordan version helps? It's the bass figure which is very reminiscent in the riff in Pretty Woman and also in Day Tripper - both of which use upper flat 7ths and 9ths as the upper part of their riff - as per the bass figure in So What. I always thought the Beatles, who toured or appeared with Orbison, had likely been influenced by it in writing Day Tripper. Similar notes and pattern - different timing - a little like Whole Lotta Love and Hoochie Coochie Man. http://youtu.be/lANilh2bLo4

It is true that the synthesiser/ sequencer parts (I can't remember the tracks but there were three or four - probably Stock, Aitken and Waterman ones) came through far more clearly than the bass guitar parts - not sure how the keyboards would have been sent to the desk? Direct or miked from speakers? Anyway it's curious the difference - I suspect those saying the feed to the desk for the bass guitar was from a DI before the amp may be right - in which case they've lost part of the bass sound (which is what the amp produces) - also very dangerous if you're using pedals. I personally prefer to provide the feed from the amp DI (not possible from some valve amps). All that said the bass sound on some of the songs was fine - I agree it was a bit thin on Can't Get You Out Of My Head. On that one it sounded like rock bass mix syndrome to me!! Not enough mid punch. Agreed on Sandbergs - the procession of Fenders can get boring, especially if the sound is thin and low in the mix, as sometimes seems the case.

I like quite a lot of it. http://youtu.be/zqNTltOGh5c So What - whose bass riff has been adapted by many including Roy Orbison (Pretty Woman) and The Beatles (Day Tripper). Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is a wonderful album in my view and highly influential of much jazz and popular music following it. And about 25 yrs later with Marcus Miller on bass - I've borrowed those bass parts in Tutu quite often!! And another great album along with Amandla. http://youtu.be/sAMJy-PHzKE

And there's lots of both (even by my choice!!) - Moondance??!! 😂

Yet another potential artist bass from Fender? I wonder whether this will disappear into the ether as briskly as the custom shop Flea Signature Stingray copy? To be fair, that was pre announced the same time as Musicman's Stingray Special, which appears to have been a great success. The bass with Stanley looks a little like a reverse headstock bass V1?

I watched this and quite liked the overall concert - having found the bass fairly inaudible on the tele I plugged it through a stereo system and that improved things a lot. However to me, the only time the bass sounded really good and prominent (as per listening to a recorded version) was when it was synth bass. Not sure what it is with bass guitar in modern mixes but they always sound late 60s to me and when anything defined and higher in the mix is called for it doesn't get there. I presume the overall mix is geared to bottom end rumble and not enough mid as far as bass is concerned. I enjoyed the bass playing though - very good.

Excellent. My quote related to the Shadows circa 1961 - after they'd taken delivery of their AC 30s. The guitars and bass were played through these live - not sure whether the vocals went through the PAs of the venues they played in at the time. The drums appeared to be acoustic only. Certainly not enough bass power!!!

Reggae was something quite different - as you say from Jamaican origins and clearly associated with that culture - rock steady being a Caribbean origin. I grew up with it to an extent in the 70s and the whole feel and technique was completely different from for instance, R and B. Emphasised by demonstrably incorrect attempts to play it by even the most famous artists of the era. However I was involved with Jamaican musicians in the 70s who were totally soul music fans/ players - there was a programme on BBC Radio called Soul Club which had live bands - early 70s - I never heard them play reggae at all!!

I'm not surprised as a lot drummers tended to sound like redeployed jazz or dance band drummers - nevertheless acoustic drums with sticks can be relatively loud even with a lighter touch drummer.

Id heard Ludwig drums were very loud - my own experience also!!

Crikey what a bummer. Sorry to hear about that but you appear to have sorted out a solution. It sounds like the change in humidity/temperature has highlighted a fault in the bass. Whilst you'll be sorted with the bass I would definitely be taking Fender to task on this. Nothing to lose and you may get a replacement neck from them - you'll also be in a position to send the part back to them. However I guess there's one saving grace - at least it isn't an original stack knob shell pink Jazz bass - that really would bring tears to the eyes 😬 PS I use a Stingray HH for the ska band I play in 😉

Looks great - the whole package including the ebony (?) and roasted neck and especially with that SR5 scratch plate - you have some other interesting looking basses in that rack!! I was at an outdoor gig the other day and a guitarist/singer was plagued by a vicious wasp - I hope that bass colour doesn't attract such insects this time of the year 😯

That's interesting. Ive generally used position 4 (away from the bridge) for that type of sound (inner coils only) - probably need to boost the mids though. I've found the neck hb soloed can get towards an Alembic sound with some judicious tweaking of the EQ (on my regular SR4HH) - have yet to try with the new bass - I'm generally using bridge hb or both hb currently. I have Thomastic flats on my classic Stingray and that sounds excellent - I can only imagine what the higher output revoiced SR Special must sound like with flats - quite an eye opener I'd think. Im finding mine has very strong resonance played acoustically and particularly harmonics.

I am very keen for someone to explain to me the link between Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, the Motown bassists and genres such as reggae and metal. That they are/were good players and played on and influenced pop music is undeniable, and Motown clearly influenced subsequent R and B, I really struggle to see their significance, other than playing bass guitar to some of these other genres.

And who could forget (we did....) Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine - early jazz rock - Canterbury sound bands are often associated with the 70s - Egg with the rather excellent Mont Campbell on bass, introduced me to the intricacies of 9/8 time signature!! Probably after 1969 though!!

V interesting - he's quoted as moving from dance bands to a smaller group doing pop and other things owing to the tail off of demand for dance bands.