drTStingray

[quote name='thegummy' timestamp='1478912782' post='3172734'] I think there might be some truth in this idea. Sometimes people want that very specific bass sound as an accompaniment to their own playing rather than wanting to collaborate with a bass player who will choose what sounds to make [/quote] The skill of the bass player is to play a sound and (heaven forbid) with notes and a feel which provides what the band or individual wants. However if someone has a preconceived idea that only a certain type of bass will make a generic bass sound, then they are clearly totally wrong - im afraid I certainly wouldn't be putting my hand in my pocket to service their preconceptions. I haven't found the need to play a Fender bass in nearly 40 years (studio or live) and have never had a problem making a sound that people liked. So I'm afraid I'm unlikely to start doing it now.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1478899576' post='3172646'] In your opinion. Like I said, it's personal taste. What makes little sense musically to you, makes a lot to others, thankfully. Otherwise it'd be a pretty boring old world 😊. [/quote] I agree with you - however there seems to be an all or nothing focus in this thread - either the solo artist type things with loops or the P bass with flats emulating a double bass somewhere in the background of an orchestral mix. As I said even Andrew Lloyd Webber recognised the bass guitar doubling the melody as an occasional effect - I'm not sure rejecting that principal is just a matter of taste and not a narrow mindedness. I'd accept that not liking Michael Manring or Motown or Cliff Richard or anything else could be down to taste.

I guess it's personal preference - I much prefer NOT to play either a Jazz or Precision but that is just me and the way I play and sound - they both sound too thin to me and can often disappear in the mix - the Jazz more so if used with scooped tone. However I've heard many people sound great on Precisions and also Jazzes - I also heard lots of people sound mediocre on them - I'm firmly of the belief that it's the player, not the bass that determines this. If I was playing in a professional situation and got asked asked to play a certain type of instrument I probably would (if they provided it) and quietly chuckle inwardly because it'll just sound like me whatever!! And the basses I use suit my playing and fit perfectly, so playing something else might compromise my playing anyway - but I'm being paid so more fool them I guess, but how silly!! If someone asked me to buy and play a certain instrument in the semi pro environment I play music in I would politely decline and pursue music collaboration with someone who was after me as a musician rather than a preconceived notion of what instrument you use. I can't think of any situation where I would, for instance, suggest to a sax player they change to a different make of instrument (I can think of one or two who might wrap their sax around your head if you did), or that your acoustic singer songwriter use a specific model of Martin acoustic rather than the Gibson they have. I firmly believe that all musicians (even the bass player) should be treated with respect and not be told what they should and shouldn't play - people who do this, to my mind, are disrespectful and actually miss the point completely. Now if they were James Brown, for instance, it would be a different matter - but I suspect even he would be more interested in the musicianship.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1478818585' post='3171970'] I thought the thread was solo and melodic bass ? [/quote] Yes me too! It's interesting that even Andrew Lloyd Webber uses bass guitar to double the melody at times - check out Jesus Christ Superstar. I also played on Don't Cry for me Argentina (Shadows tribute version) and the melody is doubled on the bass at the end for effect - and it certainly does add to it. I can understand the 'would be a great band if they had a bass player' point of view- indeed guitarist friends have said that to me after both Stanley Clark and Level 42 concerts back in the 70s/80s - I have also bought albums with that sort of thing and sometimes felt similarly. However I saw Level 42 at the Hammersmith Apollo a couple of weeks back and as well as packing the place out, that guy can really groove on the bass, with a sound that smacked you in the chest at the back of the stalls - oh yes a couple of flash bass solos, and why not when you have that skill - the crowd went berserk during them as well - but songs like World Machine and The Chinese Way; the outro on Livin It Up - serious groove. I do wonder whether some people's apparent objection to people playing anything other than root and fifth or root 8th notes on bass is more to do with a narrowness of musical appreciation than a serious objection - Jameson played tons of notes but still managed to groove!!

I'm pretty meticulous with my basses and try to avoid getting them dinged. I provide bass in a jam session and took my brand new Stingray 40th Anniversary as an extra bass to try out in a high volume situation. I was most careful with it - wore a jumper to avoid any button scratches - put it on the back side of my two guitar Hercules stand away from the drummer and other players - guess what - when I put it away it had two dings on the back - why - a twat guitarist friend of mine had yanked the mains leads from his two pedal boards from behind the amps and guess what the plugs hit?? Oh well my own fault as I should have put it in its case but what a wonderful feeling to have some thoughtless idiot ding your £2k bass on its first outing. I have an even bigger downer on guitards than ever before 😕 A positive note - the bass sounded spectacularly good and drew a lot of attention. I've virtually polished the main ding out and the other has completely gone but the main one is through the clear coat. The guy who did it was probably pissed and didn't even notice.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1478533071' post='3169658'] C'mon...what on EARTH is going on. https://www.gak.co.uk/en/music-man-stingray-classic-4-classic-natural/40030?gclid=CISQzp_8ltACFUS4Gwodkk8PrQ I've been looking at a Musicman guitar, and it's risen by £300 in a few weeks. It's now out of my range, It isn't a dig at the manufacturer...it seems to be everywhere. I know a big reason is the £, but this surely will just kill sales. [/quote] My Old Smoothie was over £2K just a week ago - but ordered months ago - I was really pleased to get it without an increase from the same shop. I could have ordered it elsewhere for a little bit cheaper but I suspect I wouldn't have it now if I had (there are only 4 in the country right now). In these days when people with the rhetoric of Alf Garnett are popular politicians or prospective presidents (whereas say in the 70s such people were considered a rather dangerous joke with only limited popular support) a 15% price hike in everything with little or no wage increase is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Just don't be surprised by anything!! The exchange rate situation is all about people having confidence to invest - You clearly have confidence to invest in a new Musicman - and why not, they're cracking instruments which you can't go wrong with. Note that for the US price you would need to add 20% for VAT plus import duty on top, plus the cost of bulk shipping, running a distribution operation and if it's not an Internet site, a bit more to pay for the shop operation.it adds up. When I collected my Musicman they had a rather lovely sunburst Musicman PJ (Cutlass) on the wall along with several Stingrays, and a really nice Custom Shop relic Precision in trans blond - in fact it looks a place to spend an afternoon noodling!!! You may be able to pick up a Classic in natural used - but as has been said, used prices are up also, and notably Classic Stingrays in desirable colours.

I play in a couple of bands doing this sort of thing. A good thing about the genre is the use of prominent bass in the mix - it's also great fun to play and to listen to - a couple of examples - http://youtu.be/7kwr9f-e5z4 http://youtu.be/aABGgiukKTk

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1478092261' post='3166663'] Right, I getting on the blower to find out where mine is! [/quote] Too right!! Any answers? Thanks for the comments guys I'll try and get some decent pictures at the week end. The burst colour seems to change with light - revealing a deep chocolate colour on the edges in bright light. The controls are as per pre EB also - flat topped and with different feel of operation from my Classic Ray.

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1478028017' post='3166201'] In the video below, he is using a white Jazz with hi mass bridge. Red colour string silks so either TIs or low gauge La Bellas. Using an Aguilar rig too. https://youtu.be/fI2jABvHe9o [/quote] Don't Rotosound Swing Bass 66 rounds have red silks? (I.e. The worn type he's quoted as using). From what I've seen he's a master of string muting so this would be a good part of his sound (rather than string type/flats - he's quoted as using Thomastiks on a Stingray also).

[quote name='sirmuppet' timestamp='1478043198' post='3166387'] Hi all. Just got myself a 2009 Ernie Ball Musicman 4 string Stingray. It has the 2 band EQ. I'd only ever played the 3 band EQ previously and was surprised to find the the 2 band EQ is a treble and bass boost and doesn't have the cut function. Any way my question is this, The basses preamp doesn't function like I believe it should (Boosting the treble and bass). The treble control does nothing until it's on about full, the bass one seems to go full on just after you start to turn it. I spoke to the seller who said it was original and that the bass one is actually an active passive mode even though it's a knob without any indent and the other knob is just a boost. Have EBMM ever come with this stock? I can't find anything to say this is so but it's what I'm being told by the seller. Thanks for any help. [/quote] The 2 band Musicman EQ doesn't have centre detents and is cut and boost - however the neutral position is not at the centre of the rotation of the controls. Dependent on the amp you're using, the bass boost may sound more powerful than the treble - however you should hear a more progressive change rather than an all of nothing. It may be worth checking/changing the battery if you've recently bought the bass. The only version of the 2 band pre amp with active/passive function appeared on the gilded white PDN Stingray and also on some Guitar Centre basses (standard 2 band Stingrays) produced around the same time. One of the controls on those basses has a push/pull function to change from active to passive, becoming a passive tone control.

Well I've collected it and I have to say, I have some great Musicman basses but this one is the best so far. The finish is stunning and I'm finding the playability of the neck is top rate - it is so quick.... extremely balanced and smooth sound across the whole fretboard. I haven't been able to A/B it with my Classic Ray because the string difference (slinky rounds v Thomastik flats) does not allow comparison. However the EQ does exactly what you'd expect a 2 band Musicman to do. I will use it for some gigs later in the month and report back - I might even post some pics if I can work out how!!! Oh and did I say, there are some great pre EB details on this bass in addition to the standard Classic Stingray features - original decal, lacking fret markers on the 21st fret, epoxied pre amp, string tree on D and G string. The neck finish is a thin varnish and extremely slick - the whole bass is so reminiscent of my pre EB but with 21st century construction and quality. I got a DOB from EBMM and it appears to have taken just 17 days from factory to GAK. The wait from order to manufacture was somewhat longer....

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1477129309' post='3159991'] I have a Blue Pearl SR5, it's a flat blue hanging on the wall right now, put it in the sun at a summer festival and it's a glitter ball! [/quote] Nice - I've got a blue dawn SR4HH which is very sparkly in bright light as well. It has fine metal flake in the paint. And therein apparently lay a problem for EBMM - the metal flake gums up the spray system so running a number of sparkle colours as options when most people bought black, natural or sunburst created a problem - I guess that's why they're now done as short run limited editions to avoid tying up the production process on low volume, higher production impact and thus lower margin standard options. The new starry night sparkles should start to appear soon - I read somewhere that some distributors have bought a limited number for stock (maybe Thomann, not sure about S and T for the UK) - there's at least two members here who've customer ordered them. Worth looking out for if you want a heavily flaked colour.

If you mean the red and green PDN sparkles at the end of 2013, they were on an order window of one month. The only one I've ever seen in this country was played by the bassist on The Voice - an SR5H in cardinal red. The other colour was emerald green. They most certainly made them and there are some Big Als, Bongos, Sabre Classic and Stingray Classics - and those are just ones which members of the Musicman bass forum mentioned at the time. There were lots of sparkle colours made around 2000, 2001 - some are extremely rare such as fuchsia sparkle (a sort of pink). If you want to see what there was then look at the colours thread on the Musicman forum. They occasionally crop up on Talkbass but to be honest, unless they were customer ordered from the UK they were unlikely to figure as a dealer stock order so I guess they'll be rare here, even more so in dual pick up 5 string variants. Bass Central had quite a few of the emerald green and cardinal red ones in various models at one time and Station Music in Germany is worth a check as they sometimes have rare Musicman basses. There was also a blue sparkle SBMM Ray 34 model a couple of years ago (I recall Andertons had one) which looked very cool. As well as the heavy flaked sparkles there was a range of more subtle ones, often burst colours such as blue dawn and Autumn Red burst - again quite rare but they do crop up.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1476879796' post='3158009'] [/quote] Are you absolutely sure there's no solid state assistance there 🙂

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1476868940' post='3157864'] What I discern, even from the more technically minded on here, is that there is no answer as to why bassists now need 1000 watts when back in the day, when gigs and indeed rehearsals were loud enough to make me temporarily deaf, 100 was fine.. So as one wag just said, watts are obviously not what they used to be. [/quote] As has been pointed out, bassists suffered in the 70s as not having enough power to produce a decent bass sound. I have the opposite problem now - I keep a decent bass sound at high power - sometimes enough to drown guitarists who are very loud on stage but drowned by the bass further back. The speaker coil power compression is interesting - I was not aware of that and have noticed when using one rather than two 2 X 10s. I had put it down to everyone else turning up but maybe not.

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1476853751' post='3157749'] Past two of the woods blog on the Wal History site... this time the body woods... Enjoy! http://walbasshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/wal-woods-part-2-bodies.html [/quote] That's really good - thanks for posting - and it simply inflames my GAS for a shedua faced Mk 1 or 2!!

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1476857516' post='3157761'] Why would a P need a blend? I thought the stacked knobs on the P Retro did the following: 1: Top - volume (pull for active mode) Bottom - passive tone 2: Top - mid boost one way,bass&treble boost the other way Bottom - variable frequency [/quote] I would have counted a stack knob as the equivalent of two controls (i.e. two knobs ....... oo er missus).

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1476816624' post='3157573'] That post could be the very definition of false equivalence. [/quote] FWIW not really - the development of active basses (from early 70s) was a direct result of striving for better sound reproduction and mirrored other contemporary developments in the same field (SS amps, hi fi systems, better recording techniques. Bear in mind it was quite a quick gestation to get to the Wal type of bass with filter preamp (also Alembic) and for the mass market, the Stingray.

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1476816624' post='3157573'] That post could be the very definition of false equivalence. [/quote] Do you mean before or after I corrected the Apple spell gremlins? Damned technology eh lol!! 😉

[quote name='Wolverinebass' timestamp='1476809086' post='3157472'] That's an evil bass. Sounded fantastic as well, hence why I was curious as I was sure that model was passive and it didn't sound like one as it had much more snap. It still weighed enough to anchor the QE2 though. Ha! [/quote] Whilst this doesn't help the OP with their query I am puzzled by this issue. I've been used to having more than one tone control on music equipment like amps, record/tape/CD players since the late 60s/early 70s. Treble and bass controls don't cause me a problem though the more you add (eg pick up volume/blend; mid; selection of mid frequency etc etc) the more there is potentially to think about and confuse, I'd agree. The idea of a bass guitar with only one tone control came about in the 50s and 60s at a time when most people listened to music on radios or record players which usually had...... one or no tone controls. Music was also recorded using minimal multi tracking and multiple bouncing of tracks. However, multi track recording, stereo sound reproduction, sophisticated hi fi systems, tape, CD and micro processors all followed this often in the quest for ever improved reproduction and quite simply the world has been revolutionised. So do you guys who prefer one tone control, with all the limitations that brings, hanker after 1950s style recording, listening to music on early transistor radios and Dansette record players also, because bass and treble controls for instance, for listening to music, are more confusing? I just find this whole issue quite curious. I do accept that some passive tone controls are well engineered and actually quite useful - some appear archaic to me however.

Back on the 70s, my recollection of bass amplification was it didn't produce a sound anything like recorded sound, and the sound from valve amps started to break up into distortion long before they were running at full power, such that the bass sound disappeared into the mix. Some bass players, particularly those requiring a cleaner sound at higher volumes (typically an R and B type sound) transferred over to high powered SS amps like Acoustic (John Paul Jones was an example). Leo Lyons was also quoted as saying using an Acoustic stack was not too popular with the rest of the band because of its power (and presumably its ability to stay clean at high volume). I used to have problems in the 70s competing with loud drummers and guitarists and keeping the bass sound I wanted. My Acoustic 370 on the other hand could drown the band with clean bass sound. So I don't know the answer to the question raised by the OP but anecdotally modern class D power and lightweight cabinets appear to me to have the ability to offer clean bass sound at high volume without all of the drawbacks of 70s equipment (weight being a big factor).

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1476370153' post='3153726'] I've never read it (sorry!)...was put off by the disparaging comments over journalistic accuracy and editorial content a while back. (I still get (US) Bass Player, but that's turning into a catalogue with each passing month; September '16, 37 pages of adverts in a 68 page magazine!) [/quote] And an article on lots of little class D amplifiers which didn't include Mark Bass.... a bit like having a round up article on basses not including Fender!! Back to BGM - I have it and it's US cousin and think they're a wonderful monthly read or scan read - I have them on order from my friendly local corner shop newsagent, whose business I like to support, so I pick them up with my Saturday morning paper. It's quite funny, when available they come out from under the counter in a plain brown paper bag........ I occasionally pick up on a theory (BGM) or transcription article (bass player) - I've learned some quite complex stuff from these over the years - and there's even an article written by one of the members here which is about this very forum!

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1476435172' post='3154202'] The other side to this, I guess, is if you go into Gak and buy a bass. They offer you the box and you, as you're buying a gig-bag too perhaps, say, "No thanks". Do they then charge a fee for box disposal? After all, it will cost them to have Clearway come and take their cardboard from round the back. I can't imagine that happening. So, now't wrong with recouping some dosh from those that want them if you ask me. [/quote] They should be building any overhead costs into their pricing already. I suspect this is simply extra bunce for them - if you get the original shipping box for your bass, certainly with Musicman, it has the data panel with factory build date, serial number etc so is of interest to some people. I don't generally sell basses so I've recycled the boxes I've had but kept the data panel (call me mr OCD lol 😀 )

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1476428864' post='3154131'] I don't agree with the argument that the box belongs to the person that buys the item. Does that mean we all own a share of the cartons that strings, cables etc. are delivered in? [/quote] I think it's a different matter if you ordered the bass through them as I have before now. They would normally ship the instrument in the shipping box to you - but if you collect from the shop you should have the shipping box offered because it is technically yours. In the same way if you bought an effect from stock you'd expect to be given the effect box. So there's the answer - order a new bass from them 😏 And get your shipping boxes like that!

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1476313203' post='3153344'] Unless I'm mistaken, you did order a Smoothie didn't you? If so, have you had any word yet? They seem to be trickling out now. [/quote] Yes I did - I've been told mid October but haven't heard any more (that is the third date I've been given)! Have you got yours yet?