dmc79

So let me get this right, you want the button out for parallel & series mode, and in for single coil?

Bought a short scale SBMM Stingray from Will. Great bass, clearly well looked after & arrived in good time very well packaged. He was very helpful & informative throughout. Deal with confidence!

Some early thoughts on the short SBMM Stingray. . . I am still yet to plug it in, so these are just first impressions / observations from playing it on my lap: Firstly, whilst I expected this with the Ray being in a different price range, it just seems like a real quality bass, and a big step up from the only other 2 short scale basses I've tried (Squier VM Jaguar & Squier VM Mustang), and feels like it will be a lot of FUN to play. Let me say that at this moment in time I am considering going short scale more out of necessity than actually wanting to. . . as much as I love my P bass, my back always aches after playing & carting it about, and my left hand aches going from G# to F. So the lighter weight (I mean playing and load in/out too), lesser stretch, and fun factor of short scale is starting to appeal more and more. The Stingray weighs in on my digital luggage scales at a manageable 3.3Kg / 7lbs 8oz, almost a pound lighter than my Player P bass (which itself is light-ish for a P). I just realised that using the weight conversion, the 2 are slightly out of kilter, but that's what the scale read for both after several goes. Always nice to get a sub 8 pounds bass anyway. I've never had a Stingray before but own a fair bit of music that features one, so have always been curious. I've had it in my head that they are heavy and expensive, also I prefer a passive bass and to my knowledge they are generally active. So I've always passed on them, until now. I wanted to try another shorty for the above reasons, so getting a short Stingray was a 2 birds with 1 stone thing. Visually it's quite a departure for someone who is more used to Fenders. I still need to get used to the sight of the huge banana control plate. I guess this is just part of the quirky nature of a Ray, speaking of which I quite like the 3+1 headstock. I've only ever had 4 inline tuners before, and I like this headstock more than I thought I would. Also the string tree notches are a nice touch, never seen those before. Soon I will actually plug it in and play it, then will have to get my head around the controls - the somewhat bizarre push/push volume boost/cut thing, and the series / single coil / parallel selector knob. I'm normally a tone wide open guy, but I've read where some roll this off a little to take a touch of the zing / brightness off if needed. Interested in thoughts on the different modes. . . It feels well balanced, and the very cool looking quality bridge is very close to the end of the body, the 1st fret does not feel far away at all. The body doesn't feel particularly small resting on my knee, but it does look it in the mirror when standing. The cutaway seems to offer decent reach to the upper frets, though I doubt I'll be going above the 15th anyway. Not sure I've ever had 2 full octaves before - the shortest bass ever but with the most frets! It's a real joy to play on my lap, and nice to have a good body contour, which I missed when trying a Mustang. I must say that white on white isn't my first choice of colours, but the creamy white finish is very nice indeed. For sure looks better in person than in photos. Also I like that white doesn't show up every scratch & bit of dust that black does. I can live with the white pickguard for now, but may look into other options. That said, I'm not sure there are many outside of importing from the USA. Has anyone here got a replacement 7 hole guard for their short Ray, and if so where was it from? I do like some contrast, so quite fancy a black or black pearloid plate, I think those would look better against the white body. This may sound odd, but I've always like the pickups to be 'hidden' against a darker plate rather than standing out on a white one. That said, the big fat humbucker with its large pole pieces does look rather badass! Also I'm normally a maple guy, but when I saw this, GAS got the better of me. It's a lovely dark rosewood board, a world away from the indian laurel board that was on the short Jaguar I had briefly, and the 'dry cardboard' Pau Ferro boards I've seen. I like the big dot inlays too. The neck is an absolute delight - fast, smooth, looks & feels great. It seems a tad chunkier than what I'm used to, but the slim nut & obviously shorter finger stretches make it so easy and fun to play. It came to me with Ernie Ball Super Slinky 40-100 nickel rounds on - they feel & sound good enough to me acoustically anyway. I don't think I will be fiddling about with setup - there's no buzz or rattle, it just feels great. It came with a well padded matching gig bag, which was a lot better than I'd expected. From reading a ton about these basses on TB, it seems pot luck whether a gig bag was sent out with these, so I guess it's good to have one anyway, especially if I want to shed even more load in/out weight. But I'd already ordered a Gator ELEC XL hard case, which is awesome, and a perfect fit for the short Ray. The combined weight of bass & case is 1.5Kg down from the cased P bass. A bonus is that the hard case fits in the boot of the car, a long scale case never did. Now, I just need to plug it in, get my head around the controls, and get over the 'big guy/small bass' / 'this is a toy' / 'this is not a proper instrument' thing in my head. Given how much fun this is to play, that shouldn't be too hard.

Er, I'm not sure to be honest. It's however it came from the factory

NBD! Will come back with some thoughts later, but here is my first ever Stingray. . .

@scrumpymike Thanks for the Gator / Stingray case pic, I appreciate it. Looks decent, but in the end I went for the 'Gator GC-ELEC-XL deluxe molded ABS case for electric guitars, extra-long', I liked the more curved corners and I saw a bunch of photos of it on the (currently) 148 page TB SBMM Stingray short scale topic, which I read in full over the last couple of days. Whilst it will seem a little strange not having a lift up pocket, I don't really put anything in them anyway, as my cables & other gear go in my backpack. I briefly had the long scale bass version of the Gator deluxe ABS case and thought it was pretty good, I liked the neck channel that ran down the middle too.

The IEMs plug into Allen & Heath ME-500 personal mixers. These used to be on standalone pedestals, until someone realised we could clip them onto music / mic stands, thus removing clutter from the platform

Got a SBMM Stingray shorty arriving this week. Any recommendations for good hard cases for these? Thanks

Shure SE215 Pro. They sound really good to me but as far as Shure goes, they are pretty much entry level. In region of £100 a set.

Just after some recommendations on IEMs specifically for listening to music with, not for band use. Let me explain, I use Shure SE215 Pro for the church band I play bass in. I’m very happy with the sound of my bass through these, so out of curiosity I plugged them into my iPod to hear what some of my favourite music sounded like through them. I was blown away by the fit and sound in comparison to my Sennheiser £40 earphones. I used to listen to music in bed most nights before sleeping for years and then all but gave up as I got fed up of the buds falling out (yes I tried all sizes of silicone buds that came with them) and the fact that the sound went tinny and weak every time they worked loose. I just did a thorough comparison playing music through my Sennheisers (CX 300 II), trying all the different sized buds again, along with the SE215, which culminated in me ripping the Sennheisers cable apart and throwing them out. I don’t plan on using traditional ear buds with the press on silicone cones ever again. So what is the dilemma? Surely I can just use the SE215 for playing music as well as for band stuff? Well, as Edmund Blackadder once said: Yes. . . and no! Whilst I love the in ear fit of the foam buds / isolation & sound of them, there is something really annoying about trying to listen to music through them in bed. The cable and especially the over ear hook part are just so bulky. This doesn’t bother me greatly when playing in the band, but it annoys me no end when using them lying down. The slightest turn and I feel the pull / weight of that ear loop. Is the over the ear loop thing common with IEMs? Are there any IEMs that don’t have this, and have more of a normal thin earphone cable but still the isolation / fit of the SE215? Really looking forward to recommendations. I so want to enjoy late night music in bed again with earphones that don’t drop out and cables that don’t get in the way. I can’t say I’m interested in going wireless. Doesn’t need to have a long cable as I’ll mainly be using it in bed. Budget of around £100. Thanks.

Welcome. Pedal board close up please!

Nice. Congrats on the unbelievably low weight. My Player P is 3.9Kg / 8.6lbs, and whilst it balances well, and is lighter than other P's I've had, it's still at the top end of what my back can stand. I couldn't knowingly go above this weight again and am only likely to need to go lighter still at some point. Especially after briefly having a few basses that came in at not much over 7lbs (Squier VM Mustang, Squier VM short scale Jaguar, & Squier VM PJ).