Stingrayish build....

[Passinwind]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1442652602' post='2868446']
and the caps... now a note - I can throw together a circuit board but don't know all the ins and outs of electronics... If you look at Passinwind's version of the stingray preamp it's stuffed full of the nice wima metal film caps - the ones that look like little boxes - the current mm preamp and things like the stinger copy you can buy use electrolytic caps - the ones that look like gasometers. I've uses tantalum in the polarised ones as thats what the original early preamp used - on paper they're not as "good" - but I think when we're talking about circuits in music in a bass preamp "good" isn't always the thing to aim for.

I had a hellborg preamp into a power amp into a ACME B2 - possibly one of the most clean and accurate rigs ever! So little compression of anything, big signal and such a crazily well engineered cab. (comparing it with barefaced big baby for example and one comes out as a great bass cab and one as a great hifi speaker! there are downsides to acme stuff though and for bass duties if I were buying again at full price the barefaced BB2 is where the money might go... but ACME stuff is stunningly good)
anyway I digress - clean is good - but I've now got a Mesa Walkabout - and all that warmth and fatness is great and sounds right for bass.

So I'm trying to recreate the sound and feel of the 1977 ray I played... and I love the way this circuit is designed too - pickup straight into the preamp and the volume on the output amp stage of the chip. very good.

here it is fully stuffed. It needs the wires and things added to the pot but I'm going to wait till the body is dry to do that so I can position everything properly inside the control cavity with minimal wiring runs.

One thing that I did realise is though my Bart pup is awesome... it's not going to sound vintage stingray... anyone wanna swap for something more vintage sounding? I can add money. (or anyone wanna buy mine so I can buy old horse murphy's stingray pup?) *[/quote]

Hey Luke, things are looking good!

My version of that preamp is different in some less obvious ways too. It was never intended to use with actual Music Man pickups and expects to see two volume controls in front of the preamp. I reduced the natural low bass emphasis a little since I already have a pickup much nearer the neck than a 'Ray does, tweaked the gain, reworked the treble peaking, used a much different type of opamp, and a few other things. So if it's a vintage thing you want, you are probably on a better track. Did you get those boards from Uncle Fluffy, or ???

Looking forward to seeing the rest of your build progression.

[LukeFRC]

Yep the legend that is uncle fluffy
Hes a good man for making them available.

[Passinwind]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1442691112' post='2868834']
Yep the legend that is uncle fluffy
Hes a good man for making them available.
[/quote]

Yep, he's a generous cat. He was quite helpful and encouraging when I was starting out with my modded version.

[LukeFRC]

Retrovibe stingray type bridges.... not bad but the screwsare made of cheese...

[BassTool]

Did you ever finish this? 😎

[LukeFRC]

On 26/10/2018 at 19:36, BassTool said:

Did you ever finish this? 😎

Yes and no. 

No - the body and neck are currently sat unloved next to my wood pile. It sounded great ... but the neck was rough enough I was never going to play it... and I don’t have the skills to make it nice to play. (If I had built the neck myself it would have been worth it. 

But the key sound was there so I kinda tried to rescue it ...