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All New Redesigned 2018 Music Man Stingray!

#21
Seems like they took a Sterling body and neck, got rid of the three way switch and made it front routed, put on the Caprice/Cutlass bridge and tuners, and threw in their new 18V pickup. So aside from the shape of the control plate basically there's no part of this that's a Stingray.


edit: I realize its not exactly the Sterling body as that has a slight offset at the bridge side, it just seems more like they tried to Stingray-up a Sterling body with the 22 frets and thinned up cutaways/contours than tweaking a Stingray to make it more svelte.
 
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#23
rogerbmiller said:
Years ago Serling Ball offered to make a 19MM SR5 if a certain number of folks committed to buy them and put down a deposit. In the end he never got the numbers he wanted (which were reasonable) and he put the notion to rest by stating that 17.5 seems to be the sweet spot for 5ers and especially the SR5.
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A little more detail on that: EB offered to make a 19mm SR5 if 125 were ordered during a two week window/period, the basses would be sold through the EB website at full MSRP/retail price, the only option was maple/black, and they had to be ordered and paid for during that two weeks. Also, the only people who knew about this were the people on the EB site and people on TB who happened to be active on the site that week -- these were not offered to dealers. I doubt anyone was surprised 125 were not ordered/paid for considering the conditions. I wonder If EB sold 125 Game Changers or Bongo 6s, or even Big Als during the first week of offer? And those were available to dealers for stock...
 
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#25
mouthmw said:
Yeah, not sure how I feel about those upgrades. Oh well, at least I scored a nice 3 bander last year. That said, I'm still curious and would love to try one of the new ones.

Why didn't you like the 2016 3 band Ray? It's pretty much the same as the 90s 3 banders, it's the same pickup and preamp. Was it the feel or the tone thing?
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The tone sounded pretty sedate to me...not sure exactly what was going on, but it just didn’t have that in-yo-face bite.
 
#26
The finishes look amazing, especially with black hardware. I'm curious to compare the new one to the current version.
Ballsy move to make all of those changes, but I have a feeling they'll be a hit. They don't come across as a company that changes things for the sake of changing. Should be interesting...
 
#27
eastcoasteddie said:
I’m not a fan of these “upgrades”. IMO, they have “Sterling-ized” the Stingray by making it lighter and sleeker...
I fell in love with the ‘90’s 3-band Ray’s. I recently played a 3-band 2016 model, and my reaction was “meh...” (and I did a quick setup on it, too).
Looks like if I want what I like, it won’t be anything new from EB...maybe a Classic, but they seem very few and far in between...
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The 2016 doesn't have the changes. Why would you refuse to like something you haven't tried?
 
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#28
king_biscuit said:
A little more detail on that: EB offered to make a 19mm SR5 if 125 were ordered during a two week window/period, the basses would be sold through the EB website at full MSRP/retail price, the only option was maple/black, and they had to be ordered and paid for during that two weeks. Also, the only people who knew about this were the people on the EB site and people on TB who happened to be active on the site that week -- these were not offered to dealers. I doubt anyone was surprised 125 were not ordered/paid for considering the conditions. I wonder If EB sold 125 Game Changers or Bongo 6s, or even Big Als during the first week of offer? And those were available to dealers for stock...
Click to expand...

I also remember after the 125 orders didn't come in, Sterling pretty much slammed the spec hounds who had been campaigning for them.

His position was "We make the #1 selling 5 string for a reason" ie most people prefer the 17.5 spacing.

It was kind of amusing. But your point is well taken. I mean what cross section of potential buyers were n the EBMM forums back then?
 
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#32
king_biscuit said:
Who knows, but it's a pretty small forum of active members -- even back then. Also Sterling Ball has made it point to tell forumites over the years that they are not necessarily representative of the typical EBMM buyer.
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And I can agree with that. The forumites are the hard core users/devotees/afficionados. The average cat just buys a bass and plays it.
 
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#33
heliotropic said:
Seems like they took a Sterling body and neck, got rid of the three way switch and made it front routed, put on the Caprice/Cutlass bridge and tuners, and threw in their new 18V pickup. So aside from the shape of the control plate basically there's no part of this that's a Stingray.


edit: I realize its not exactly the Sterling body as that has a slight offset at the bridge side, it just seems more like they tried to Stingray-up a Sterling body with the 22 frets and thinned up cutaways/contours than tweaking a Stingray to make it more svelte.
Click to expand...
The body and neck feel StingRay. Just a little easier on the right arm. No Sterling there, believe me.
 
#36
Sounds awesome to me.... and it brings up a question. Im sure we've all heard of sadowsky, suhr, lull, grosh, sandberg, etc..... all sorts of companies that made great copies of Ps and Js.... but why dont we ever see boutique stingray copies?
 
#37
MordBass said:
Sounds awesome to me.... and it brings up a question. Im sure we've all heard of sadowsky, suhr, lull, grosh, sandberg, etc..... all sorts of companies that made great copies of Ps and Js.... but why dont we ever see boutique stingray copies?
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That is an interesting question. I think part of it is that Fender has been pretty hit or miss with quality control and rolling out features over the years (it took them forever to catch up on active electronics, and I've still yet to play an active fender that I like. MM, on the other hand, seems to have about as high of quality control as I've seen on a production bass, and the main gripes I hear about them seem to be weight, or else that the MM is just not a tone people like, that would more or less kill the whole genre.

I do think that Lakland and Sandberg have some stingray like basses, at least in the pickups department.
 
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#38
MordBass said:
Sounds awesome to me.... and it brings up a question. Im sure we've all heard of sadowsky, suhr, lull, grosh, sandberg, etc..... all sorts of companies that made great copies of Ps and Js.... but why dont we ever see boutique stingray copies?
Click to expand...

Because Leo Fender did not patent the P and J design. The StingRay design is patented.
 
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