OLP Music Man... What's this?

OLP is licensed by Ernie Ball, but is a cheaper reproduction of the MusicMan bass. It has lower quality electronics, wood, and hardware. I've heard they sound decent for the price, but don't expect the feel/sound of a genuine MM to come out of it

Search OLP, or Officially Licensed Product with the Search Button. Lots of threads, including a club.

They arent a real MM, but they are just as good (I hear) as a Ibanez ATK or similar knockoff.

IdealWay said:

OLP is licensed by Ernie Ball, but is a cheaper reproduction of the MusicMan bass. It has lower quality electronics, wood, and hardware. I've heard they sound decent for the price, but don't expect the feel/sound of a genuine MM to come out of it

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The OLP basses were licensed by Ernie Ball.

I owned one and it was a decent bass for the price. But it was passive and the pickup wasn't exactly a humbucker, it was two single coil pickups under the same pickup cover with seperate volume knobs. So didn't sound like a Stingray at all. I modded it with an active preamp and pickup and I got it to sound closer to a Stingray. As close as I could anyway.

The best one that they made was the Tony Levin signature model, it was Active with a three band EQ.

Jordasch said:

They arent a real MM, but they are just as good (I hear) as a Ibanez ATK or similar knockoff.

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Uhh, no. Not even close. An ATK is closer to a Musicman than an OLP to an ATK. I've owned several Musicman basses, own an ATK, and attempted to own an OLP, but couldn't find one worth owning. OLP no longer makes Musicman knockoffs, but I hear Musicman will be doing their own import line soon, and are calling it the Sterling Series.

Here's a guy that has 2 OLPs and have found them to be, IMO, great basses, particularly the early ones. It's not like I don't have anything to compare them to. I have many basses and range from thousands of dollars to OLPs that I picked up for less than $200. I liked the first so much that I couldn't resist a second one that I found pretty cheap. I recommend.

Heh, early ones. They only made them for about 5 years!

Search TB. Enough said.

I owned one and after i changed out the Hardware, the pick-ups and added a 3 band pre-amp, I had a hard time telling it apart from the real (but you will note I changed the Hardware, the pick-ups and tadded active electronics)

In the End I sold it anyway....while i love the tone from EBMM's the neck IMHO is like playing a 4 x 4

Danomite you are the only person I have ever seen who has ever watched Mystery Men... Classic movie!

I also picked up a OLP/MM clone recently, this one made by Dillion, which is ash over maple, and the same VVT config but like the others have said in here, it is a knockoff, and not the REAL DEAL.

does it sound the same as the real deal?
nope.
does it play well enough for me to use it?
yes.

the string spacing/action on this is better than my Samick 5string, and I sold that to get this.

I always liked the way they looked, and couldn't pass on a "natural finish" bass for under 200 and the only thing that is wrong, is one of the clovers is missing off the tuner.

Jordasch said:

They arent a real MM, but they are just as good (I hear) as a Ibanez ATK or similar knockoff.

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The OLP is a MM knockoff but doesn't have an onboard preamp. It's a decent bass of good build quality. But it's not even close to the MM StingRay much less an ATK.

bassbrock said:

The OLP basses were licensed by Ernie Ball.

I owned one and it was a decent bass for the price. But it was passive and the pickup wasn't exactly a humbucker, it was two single coil pickups under the same pickup cover with seperate volume knobs. So didn't sound like a Stingray at all. I modded it with an active preamp and pickup and I got it to sound closer to a Stingray. As close as I could anyway.

The best one that they made was the Tony Levin signature model, it was Active with a three band EQ.

Click to expand...

The pickup is a standard humbucker when both coil volumes are balanced. I never felt the slight difference between one single coil and the other were worth the hassle, so rewired them immediately as a standard humbucker with the coils in parallel (like on a Stingray) rather than in series.

Nice basses. I own 3, in various degrees of upgrade (pickup and preamp, only pickup... etc... one I turned to fretless), and my first one was my main bass for quite some time. But now I have a MM Stingray and although playing alone at low volumes there wasn't much between them... when playing in a band context live, the Stingray is far superior.

mcnach said:

The pickup is a standard humbucker when both coil volumes are balanced. I never felt the slight difference between one single coil and the other were worth the hassle, so rewired them immediately as a standard humbucker with the coils in parallel (like on a Stingray) rather than in series...

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Actually the OLP pickup works the same way as the two single coil pickups in a j bass... parallel hum-canceling single coils when both volumes are set to the same level. I do find a slight difference in tone by switching between coils but only at high volumes when my amp is in it's comfort zone and the nuances of each coil (like the wonderful bark of the bridge-side coil) can really be heard.

I replaced one of the volume pots on my OLP with a push/pull switch pot and rewired the bass so that the two volume knobs work as usual but by pulling on the switch pot it changes the coils to series mode... basically [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] (just disregard the TBX and S1 type tone pot in the schematic).

My main player is an ATK700 but this OLP MM2 is easily my #2 and just sounds right with the band.

I'm very much a noob regarding any kind of p'up modding, so please bear with me if these questions have been answered elsewhere (this thread is a bit overwhelming in info saturation).

I've got an OLP 5-string body that I'm looking to slap a fretless neck on and get wired up as close to my Tony Levin OLP as possible. Please recommend the closest p'up and preamp (if needed - body is not routed for a battery box) to reproduce the Tony Levin OLP sound. I'd also like to find out how to best install a 3-way toggle switch on both the TL and the soon-to-be fretless to get as much tonal variety as possible

Any and all help is greatly appreciated, and again, apologies if I'm re-covering old ground.

Have a great weekend!

-- DWL

doctorwholittle said:

I'm very much a noob regarding any kind of p'up modding, so please bear with me if these questions have been answered elsewhere (this thread is a bit overwhelming in info saturation).

I've got an OLP 5-string body that I'm looking to slap a fretless neck on and get wired up as close to my Tony Levin OLP as possible. Please recommend the closest p'up and preamp (if needed - body is not routed for a battery box) to reproduce the Tony Levin OLP sound. I'd also like to find out how to best install a 3-way toggle switch on both the TL and the soon-to-be fretless to get as much tonal variety as possible

Any and all help is greatly appreciated, and again, apologies if I'm re-covering old ground.

Have a great weekend!

-- DWL

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Zombie thread!

I own an OLP and it's been an on-going project. Mine is the standard passive (but with quilted top...quite nice for $100 I paid for it (new-demo unit) at GC).

Original electronics is HORRID! Knobs interact in a VERY undesirable way and trying to get a "Ray tone of it is possible, but takes a LOT of skill to tweak it in.

So I ripped mine out and installed different circuit (see Diogenes above). It's not bad. But tonal range is limited.

That's because the "Ray is Leo's invention of the first active bass and it NEEDS not just an active pre, but a special wide-EQ preamp to work right. The ULTIMATE is of course the John East 'ray replacement electronics. None better. (get out wallet). Mine is set for one of the "uncle Fluffy" circuit boards floating around TB a while back. They are Leo's original circuit and also excellent. I've tried mine (duct taped to outside of bass) and it kills but I haven't installed it yet because I'm pondering how to do both an active-passive switch on it.

And lastly a single pickup 'Ray tends to have a rather limited tonal range even with the proper preamp, so the answer is adding a neck pickup. So I bought a box full of cheapo MM 5 string Pickups to experiment with and HH setup. It's coming along nicely but they were not 4 wires so I had to dig in the tar to get to the missing wire connections. So next stage is get out router. Plan is for 3 way coil selector AND 3 way pickup selector switches.

Anyway, project is still underway so I can't give you any results yet, but I hope you get the picture as to just where an OLP needs to go.

By the way, when I bought my OLP at GC I was able to A-B it with a couple of "real" stingrays costing over a grand. IF the ray was set "flat" and the OLP was also set as close to flat as possible the two instruments were virtually identical in everything except price! This tells me that all the complaining you hear about OLP being junk is just by people who never bothered to change the electronics or experiment.

I really DO need to get back on that project! I LOVE a stingray sound when it fits!

and Yes, I've ordered enough parts that one day I'll find another OLP and create a fretless-fretted pair. Too cool for words! People tell me that many of the "aftermarket" 'ray pickups give better tone than my $20 chinese jobbies and one day I"ll probably move up to those too.

Good luck!

I rewired my best friend's OLP. It was a very toneless, midrangey, uninspiring bass. I wired the coils in parallel, built a two band Music Man preamp using Baja schematics, and the bass came to life. The bass control added what the original passive circuit was lacking. The treble was very wide ranging getting really agressive past the halfway point.

It became a great sounding, very giggable, professional sounding bass when wired like a two band MM.

I owned a few olp stingrays ... I didn't like them enough to keep them.

My SX and Maestro Stingray copies are better than the OLP's that I owned.

The bassplayer from Spock's Beard plays one, fairly heavily modified...
Spock's Beard