Musicman Question
 

Something is loose inside my bass, when I move the bass back and forth. The bass is functioning ok but I don´t know if this can become worse and damage my bass.
What may be happening???
Do you recomend taking the bass to a luthier??

Something is loose inside bass...
 

I have a Singray 5...
Something is loose inside my bass, when I move the bass back and forth. The bass is functioning ok but I don´t know if this can become worse and damage my bass.
What may be happening???
Do you recomend taking the bass to a luthier??

Do you mean inside the control cavity? If so, there should be nothing to panic about. Just take off the pickguard and take a look. As long as its working the electronics are at least intact, and you may just need to reattach or resolder. Do you play with a pick? If you keep extra picks tucked behind the pickguard, one might have fallen in. I've had that happen with my guitars a few times.

where in the bass??? Neck? Control cavity/body?

see if the battery is flopping around.

otherwise yeah, just take off the pickguard, open up the metal control plate, flip it over and shake it to see what falls out.

in the body!

Is it a five string or a Sterling? It might be the dummy coil that is under the pickup. Just glue it back on

You need to find the problem before the problem gets worse. It sounds like you're not comfortable taking things apart, so take it to a qualified repair shop.

It won't fix itself. And TB'ers guessing what it is is pointless.

+1

But if its easy to take the pickguard off with a few screws its not gonna hurt anything. I'd take off the pgaurd and just see if anything is loose. Just be gentle. BUT, I don't own an MM so I can't be so sure. If your that nervous about touching any of the inerds then yes, take it somewhere. It could be nothing or it could be something. I'm just stating what I myself would do.

Could it be the battery?

Probably could be. Could also be something else. Guessing is, again, pointless until the bass is opened up and somebody actually looks.

+1

Yes.

If this is a Stingray, there's nothing under the pick guard. But that shiny metal plate that all the knobs are attached to... now that's got stuff under it.

If it's one of the current type battery compartments that open without tools, it's unlikely to be the battery... As you said, the only way to determine what it really is, is to take a look...


- georgestrings

No need to be scared of your bass! Just open it up and see what's going on. It would have taken less time than it did to post the question here.

Generally, with this type of situation if a person 's first response isn't to just break out a screwdriver and remove the pickguard, but rather inquire about the nature of the problem and whether they should take it to a luthier, it may not be in their best interest to learn their first techie troubleshooting chops on their instrument.

ha! true enough.

this should be really easy though; as long as he doesn't i dunno, slip with the screwdriver and put a big gouge in the paint, lose all the screws, or pull so hard on the control plate that he breaks wires off, there's not much risk with just unscrewing the control plate and looking inside.

It was the pickup that was loose inside, an easy fix for only 4 dollars at the electronic guy of my neiborhood

Awesome, glad it was nothing really. Did you learn anything, as in did you watch him open er up and check er out?

I Had the same issue with my 1993 Sterling, the issue more specifically was that the dummy coil (third coil glued Under the humbucker) had come unglued. It was originally fastened with silicon caulking. eventually one of the leeds came unsaudered from the original pickup and I lost sound in two out of the three pickup selector switch settings. It was a quick fix but tricky as there really insn't much slack on th epickup wires.

My buddy who recently purchased a 1994 sterling had the same issue, I guess that the silicon "glue" or caulking just gives out after 20 years. He however did not lose sound.

My 1998 Sterling has npt had the same issue and nor do I expext it to, since I replaced the springs under the pickup with Foam. the faom cradles the dummy coil better that the spring which forced the glue to do all of the work holding the pickup together....

Since the Stingray 5 H has the same style electronics as the Sterling, you may have had the same issue.