Stingray P Bass build

[PFunkRay]

I used to own a Spector NS2000/4 bass which was nice but I’ve always had a want for a Musicman Stingray. I was never too keen on the price of these and the fact that modifications are highly frowned upon. I decided to sell the Spector and try to make my own Stingray and put a bit of a spin on it.

 

I bought a bass body which was made to the same spec as a Stingray body. Don’t ask me where I got this as I suspect they’ve had some legal problems as they no longer offer this anymore. It was made out of 2 pieces of swamp ash. It was routed for the standard Musicman pickup location, control cavity and neck pocket. The bridge holes were drilled for a fender 5 bolt bridge. I also asked for them to route a P pickup directly next to the Musicman pickup route. This keeps the Musicman pickup in the “sweet spot” and moves the P pickup towards the neck by a few millimetres (hopefully not enough to change the P sound). The Stingray sound was more important to me than the P so the compromise was better taken by the P pickup. My plan was to have an active Stingray sound and a Passive P bass sound and never mix the two due to complications with impedance.

 

So my original spec sheet for this was to create a natural old school looking bass with some modern materials thrown in. Carbon Fibre and Natural Wood:

·        Stingray Body

·        Status Graphite Musicman Neck

·        KSM Foundation Bridge

·        Nordstrand MM4.2 Stingray Pickup

·        Tonerider P pickup (cheap pickup to get me by)

·        Home Made Carbon Fibre Control Plate

·        DIY Stingray Preamp (Thanks Uncle Fluffy)

·        No Scratchplate (I may make one out of carbon fibre if I don’t like the look without)

·        Gotoh GB350 Res-O-Lite Tuners

·        Graphite Nut

 

This was what was delivered to me. It looks stunning but I noticed that the bridge holes were very close to the edge of the bass which would throw the scale out. The blacked out bits on the neck pocket are just my name from the order.

 

 

After some too-ing and fro-ing with the place I bought this body from, they realised their mistake. They modelled this with a Fender neck rather than the slightly longer Stingray neck which threw off the bridge mounting holes.

They proceeded to made me a new body and told me I could keep this one. They sent me a one piece swamp ash body which was nice. So now I’m left with 2 Stingray bodies with P pickup routes. So… what to do with the other body? The original body was routed with a side jack but the replacement body they sent out to me wasn’t routed for this. This picture is the new body after I drilled holes for scratchplate and control plate. I still need to put some threaded inserts into the pickup mounting location:

 

 

 

I decided I’d build an unlined fretless Stingray with an Ebony fretboard. I’d use the replacement body they sent out to me as this didn’t have the side mounted jack and, as I'm going with a 2 band preamp, I can use the 4th hole in the control plate for the jack. I’d try to stay true to most of the Stingray design on this one. I commissioned a Stingray fretless neck from the same place I bought my body from. This is what arrived:

 

 

 

I cannot state how good this fretboard feels, it’s like glass. I've put a light coat of TruOil on the back of the neck but nowhere near finished.

 

So, onto speccing this one out.

·        Stingray Body

·        Stingray Fretless Neck, Maple with Ebony Fretboard

·        Hipshot Vintage Bridge (Has a similar curve to the back like a Stingray)

·        Nordstrand MM4.2 Pickup

·        DIY Stingray preamp (Thanks Uncle Fluffy)

·        Original Stingray Control Plate

·        Original Stingray Scratchplate

·        Hipshot Ultralite Clover Tuners

·        No P pickup on this one

 

 

I have no intention to try to pass any of these off as a Stingray (just want it to sound like one) so there will be no Musicman branding anywhere on the bass.

 

These are the bits I've bought so far for the fretless:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where I am so far. I'm yet to TruOil the body but I'm planning on some very thin coats as I don't want to yellow the wood too much. I think this raw look is real nice:

 

 

 

I'll update this thread once I've completed this but I'm pretty close. the next post will be where I am with the original bass I was going to build.

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by PFunkRay

[PFunkRay]

So with this second body, I plan to have a P Bass / Stingray cross.

The Stingray pickup will feed into the Stingray clone preamp and the output will go to a switch. This will have the standard Volume, Bass and Treble pots.

The P Bass pickup will go to a concentric pot with volume and tone both on there. The output of this will be wired to a switch.

This switch will allow me to flip between an active Stingray and a passive P Bass but will not allow them to blend. There are issues with impedance doing this which could be overcome with a buffer but I have no desire to go that far yet. I may in the future but not now. 

 

The first thing I did with the original body which was sent to me with the bridge holes in the wrong place was to use some cocktail sticks and wood glue to fill the holes. Once sanded back, this wasn’t too bad at all but I'd still prefer to have it covered. I re drilled the mounting holes in the correct position.

 

 

 

I’ve got lucky here though, the KSM foundation bridge that I bought is quite chunky at the back and this covers the bridge ground hole and the newly filled screw holes.

 

 

I've fitted a side jack:

 

 

The control plate was made from a sheet of 2mm carbon fibre. I taped the original control plate to this and used a belt sander to shape the carbon fibre sheet to the shape of the original control plate. I then used a Dremel to open up the screw holes and pot holes. You can’t really use large drill bits on carbon fibre as it frays and splinters so these had to be done with a small grinding bit. These holes aren’t perfect but they’ll be covered by the pots. The screw holes were counter sinked and its ready to go on.

 

 

I’ve still got to order my Status Graphite neck so can’t really do much more with this than the body bits. All fitted together with pickups in place looks like this. Please note the pickup threaded inserts are yet to be fitted to the pickups aren't screwed down properly yet:

 

 

For the preamp, I used a PCB from OSH park. In one of the other forums, Uncle Fluffy did this but a user called MNATS (thank you) did a redesign of this PCB and I chose to use this one as the wiring is neater.

For the components of this, I tried to use the highest quality audio components I could find which fit. I used Nichicon Fine Gold for the electrolytic caps and polypropylene caps where I could. I used one ceramic cap for the 120pf but ensured this was C0G NP0. There are 2 Polyester caps in there which will be replaced with some Wima FKP2 caps soon. This was my preamp after it was all soldered up:

 

 

And that's where I am with both of these so far. I'll update this thread as I progress.

 

 

 

[Owen]

That is some lovely looking wood! This (these) will be nice.

[Hellzero]

Very nice projects. I'm following.

[LukeFRC]

On 22/12/2021 at 13:07, PFunkRay said:

I used Nichicon Fine Gold for the electrolytic caps

As you’ve obviously carefully chosen the parts what made you choose Electrolytic over tantalum like the early rays used?

[PFunkRay]

15 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

As you’ve obviously carefully chosen the parts what made you choose Electrolytic over tantalum like the early rays used?

 

I believe they actually moved from Tantalum to Electrolytics around 1982 as one of their refreshes of the pre-amp design.

I used the Electrolytics mainly as that is what the PCB asked for. I just made sure if I was using electrolytics, I'd use audio specific ones.

I ended up using the Nichicon FG series. I did have some KZ series which are Nichicons top of the range audio caps but the lead spacing was off. 

 

On a slightly different note, I tried to order my Status neck yesterday but it seems that Status isn't taking orders currently.

I'll pop up an advert in the wanted section here but I don't think I'll have any luck.

 

Looks like I'll need to wait for Status to start up production again.

[Jolltax]

Really cool build! I was very interested to find this project / thread as I have also been toying with the idea of building the DIY stingray preamp and am also really keen on the idea of stingray-sounding basses hence this thread :

 

 

Inspired by your post, I think I will to order some components and make a few of the pre-amps, probably start by making putting one into an external box. Did you get your PCB's from OSH Park?

 

Would love to see the completion of this project, which seems super cool, especially would like to know how close you can get to a bass which can sound like a stingray and a PB.  

 

J

[songofthewind]

This looks great. May I ask where you got the bodies and neck from?

[songofthewind]

Ah, sorry, just read in your OP about the supplier.

[PFunkRay]

2 hours ago, Jolltax said:

Really cool build! I was very interested to find this project / thread as I have also been toying with the idea of building the DIY stingray preamp and am also really keen on the idea of stingray-sounding basses hence this thread :

 

 

Inspired by your post, I think I will to order some components and make a few of the pre-amps, probably start by making putting one into an external box. Did you get your PCB's from OSH Park?

 

Would love to see the completion of this project, which seems super cool, especially would like to know how close you can get to a bass which can sound like a stingray and a PB.  

 

J

 

Hi.

 

I did get them from OSH Park. If you're looking at building your own preamp, drop me a PM. I've got a few spare PCBs which you can have. I have 2 different types.

 

Thanks

[PFunkRay]

Long time since I've posted on here as I've had my hands full with a new job, new baby and a new puppy, but I was able to finally find a status neck.

I made some sleeving out of carbon fibre tube to reduce the tuner hole diameter allowing me to fit some Gotoh GB707 tuners and get it strung to make sure everything aligns right.

Made a carbon fibre neckplate and battery cover for the back so everything ties in.

 

 

This is how it looks now, little bit more work left to do. Need to do a bit of resin work to sort the holes in the back of the headstock and want a thinner battery cover but I love how it looks.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20 by PFunkRay
Another picture added

[Pea Turgh]

Oh Lordy!  That is a fantastic looking instrument!  Are you leaving the body a natural colour?

[SpondonBassed]

13 hours ago, PFunkRay said:

a thinner battery cover

 

It's a smashing looking bass.

 

I'd consider flush mounting the battery hatch cover.  Unless you have sealed the edges of the CF there is a danger of the fibres fraying and they're quite abrasive.  Have someone do it properly for you if you don't feel competent enough.

[PFunkRay]

Cheers guys. Yeah the body will be left natural. It was the look I was after.

I agree with the flush fitting, it is what I wanted to do from the start with neck plate, battery cover and control plate. I need to get some templates made up to allow me to route a thin pocket out but I could trash the lot it if I get it wrong. We'll see how brave I feel when I next get a bit of time to work on it.

[Owen]

On 22/12/2021 at 16:04, Owen said:

That is some lovely looking wood! This (these) will be nice.

I was correct.

[Si600]

Where did you get the CF sheet from?

[mrbacco]

On 22/12/2021 at 13:07, PFunkRay said:

So with this second body, I plan to have a P Bass / Stingray cross.

The Stingray pickup will feed into the Stingray clone preamp and the output will go to a switch. This will have the standard Volume, Bass and Treble pots.

The P Bass pickup will go to a concentric pot with volume and tone both on there. The output of this will be wired to a switch.

This switch will allow me to flip between an active Stingray and a passive P Bass but will not allow them to blend. There are issues with impedance doing this which could be overcome with a buffer but I have no desire to go that far yet. I may in the future but not now. 

 

The first thing I did with the original body which was sent to me with the bridge holes in the wrong place was to use some cocktail sticks and wood glue to fill the holes. Once sanded back, this wasn’t too bad at all but I'd still prefer to have it covered. I re drilled the mounting holes in the correct position.

 

 

 

I’ve got lucky here though, the KSM foundation bridge that I bought is quite chunky at the back and this covers the bridge ground hole and the newly filled screw holes.

 

 

I've fitted a side jack:

 

 

The control plate was made from a sheet of 2mm carbon fibre. I taped the original control plate to this and used a belt sander to shape the carbon fibre sheet to the shape of the original control plate. I then used a Dremel to open up the screw holes and pot holes. You can’t really use large drill bits on carbon fibre as it frays and splinters so these had to be done with a small grinding bit. These holes aren’t perfect but they’ll be covered by the pots. The screw holes were counter sinked and its ready to go on.

 

 

I’ve still got to order my Status Graphite neck so can’t really do much more with this than the body bits. All fitted together with pickups in place looks like this. Please note the pickup threaded inserts are yet to be fitted to the pickups aren't screwed down properly yet:

 

 

For the preamp, I used a PCB from OSH park. In one of the other forums, Uncle Fluffy did this but a user called MNATS (thank you) did a redesign of this PCB and I chose to use this one as the wiring is neater.

For the components of this, I tried to use the highest quality audio components I could find which fit. I used Nichicon Fine Gold for the electrolytic caps and polypropylene caps where I could. I used one ceramic cap for the 120pf but ensured this was C0G NP0. There are 2 Polyester caps in there which will be replaced with some Wima FKP2 caps soon. This was my preamp after it was all soldered up:

 

 

And that's where I am with both of these so far. I'll update this thread as I progress.

 

 

 

 

Wow .. what an epic journey and beautiful craftmanship here ... pardon if I ask: why the pbass pickups are so close to the MM pickup? 

[Hellzero]

1 hour ago, mrbacco said:

... pardon if I ask: why the pbass pickups are so close to the MM pickup? 

 

On 22/12/2021 at 12:23, PFunkRay said:

I also asked for them to route a P pickup directly next to the Musicman pickup route. This keeps the Musicman pickup in the “sweet spot” and moves the P pickup towards the neck by a few millimetres (hopefully not enough to change the P sound). The Stingray sound was more important to me than the P so the compromise was better taken by the P pickup.

 

😉

[Gaano124]

On 20/01/2024 at 23:24, PFunkRay said:

Long time since I've posted on here as I've had my hands full with a new job, new baby and a new puppy, but I was able to finally find a status neck.

I made some sleeving out of carbon fibre tube to reduce the tuner hole diameter allowing me to fit some Gotoh GB707 tuners and get it strung to make sure everything aligns right.

Made a carbon fibre neckplate and battery cover for the back so everything ties in.

 

 

This is how it looks now, little bit more work left to do. Need to do a bit of resin work to sort the holes in the back of the headstock and want a thinner battery cover but I love how it looks.

 

 

 

 

Man, this is dope. I'm also building a stingray myself and have been looking for a status neck since a few weeks but nothing... I did avoid some weird scammers on facebook but other than that I couldn't find any selling...

I've also made some 2EQ preamps starting from mnats PCB and installed them on any harley benton and sub rays but this time I want to recreate the real thing (in my style with carbon neck eheh)

[PFunkRay]

That's looking good Gaano, what are your plans for it if you do find a neck?

I notice you have a Fender neck offered up against your template. Bear in mind the scale length is the same for a Jazz and MM but the MM neck is 21 fret and longer than the 20 fret Fender neck. If you read my first couple of posts, they modelled the body they made me with a Fender neck and drilled the bridge holes based on the scale length using that neck which put them near the back of the body. Had I used a Fender neck and those bridge screw holes, the pickup would be in the wrong place.

How did the Harley Benton sound with the mnats preamp? I actually bought one of those MB4s to take apart and compare to my body. The pickup location on them is exactly the same as a Stringray but the pickup was ceramic and one coil measured 6.15K compared to 3.56K on my Nordstrand AlNiCo so I'm curious how close to the stingray sound it got. The body shape on them is exactly the same as a stringray so a great platform to build a sound-a-like, especially if you get one with a basswood body. Stupidly good for a smidge over a hundred pounds.

[Gaano124]

My plans are to use it as my signature/gig bass, I want to do a neck plate like the stingray special one, red body and carbon fiber pickguard, control plate. As bridge I will mount on some monorail in black, as well as the tuners (they would be black too). I know that the fender neck is also 34" but it misses one fret. If you notice the neck is placed a little bit forward from the neck heel bottom, in order to match the stingray classic diapason scale (nut-bridge screw). By the way, I placed that neck only for reference, I'm selling the maple jazz neck rn and because of that I had it lying around in my room. 

The Harley benton with mods sounds 1:1 to my ears, best deal for the price as a base for mods, but the basswood is awful... I tried to dig a battery hole with my luthier and the wood was so soft that it was so difficult to not make any dent... But in the end we succeeded and it was a killer bass! The pickup is an handmade Stingray replica made in Italy with alnico rods, 70€... For that price it was an absolute win.

I still think that a sterling sub ray4/5 are the best modding platforms tho, If I'll find one I'll take it and keep in my closet waiting for future projects. 

Still looking for a status neck, because I know what look I'm seeking for

 

[Gaano124]

On 24/01/2024 at 09:03, PFunkRay said:

That's looking good Gaano, what are your plans for it if you do find a neck?

I notice you have a Fender neck offered up against your template. Bear in mind the scale length is the same for a Jazz and MM but the MM neck is 21 fret and longer than the 20 fret Fender neck. If you read my first couple of posts, they modelled the body they made me with a Fender neck and drilled the bridge holes based on the scale length using that neck which put them near the back of the body. Had I used a Fender neck and those bridge screw holes, the pickup would be in the wrong place.

How did the Harley Benton sound with the mnats preamp? I actually bought one of those MB4s to take apart and compare to my body. The pickup location on them is exactly the same as a Stringray but the pickup was ceramic and one coil measured 6.15K compared to 3.56K on my Nordstrand AlNiCo so I'm curious how close to the stingray sound it got. The body shape on them is exactly the same as a stringray so a great platform to build a sound-a-like, especially if you get one with a basswood body. Stupidly good for a smidge over a hundred pounds.

Good news. Today I found a guy that would sell me a Status Stingray neck but it is a fretless unlined. I'll buy it, try it fretless and if I don't like it I'll do a fretwork with my luthier. 

Also seems to be a vintage one with the status logo black outline (not gold like yours) and truss rod adjust at the bottom of the neck heel

[fretmeister]

On 20/01/2024 at 22:24, PFunkRay said:

Long time since I've posted on here as I've had my hands full with a new job, new baby and a new puppy, but I was able to finally find a status neck.

I made some sleeving out of carbon fibre tube to reduce the tuner hole diameter allowing me to fit some Gotoh GB707 tuners and get it strung to make sure everything aligns right.

Made a carbon fibre neckplate and battery cover for the back so everything ties in.

 

 

 

This is how it looks now, little bit more work left to do. Need to do a bit of resin work to sort the holes in the back of the headstock and want a thinner battery cover but I love how it looks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is absolutely beautiful.

 

That pickup combination - with that placement -  would be my perfect bass.

[Munurmunuh]

On 22/01/2024 at 11:46, mrbacco said:

pardon if I ask: why the pbass pickups are so close to the MM pickup?

Presumably getting them as close to their traditional spots as possible: