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Cheap Musicman Stingray Style/Copy?

#21
ughhh. Just to clarify, yes all those basses are all cheaper and a better buy than a Fleabass. BUT, the Fleabass is NOT a bad bass. I own one myself, and I'm seriously considering finally putting and end to this but uploading some sound clips and pics and whatnot to just to prove that it is indeed a good bass.
BTW Mcnach: Those are awesome OLPs! You're really making me GAS hard for an MM lookalike (or an MM itself :hiding:)
 
#22
MiamiFins42 said:
ughhh. Just to clarify, yes all those basses are all cheaper and a better buy than a Fleabass. BUT, the Fleabass is NOT a bad bass. I own one myself, and I'm seriously considering finally putting and end to this but uploading some sound clips and pics and whatnot to just to prove that it is indeed a good bass.
BTW Mcnach: Those are awesome OLPs! You're really making me GAS hard for an MM lookalike (or an MM itself :hiding:)
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Go on! If you get a MM-like I'll get a Fleabass ;)

I'll be very interested in your soundclips and a little review of yours. I really would like to try one or five of them but can't see them locally.
I like the blue or the green one, and probably remove the pickguard. Maybe. Or the black one...
I really have no need for another bass of that style, but... who says you have to NEED one to buy one, eh? All you have to have is some spare cash ;)
 
#25
mcnach said:
Go on! If you get a MM-like I'll get a Fleabass ;)

I'll be very interested in your soundclips and a little review of yours. I really would like to try one or five of them but can't see them locally.
I like the blue or the green one, and probably remove the pickguard. Maybe. Or the black one...
I really have no need for another bass of that style, but... who says you have to NEED one to buy one, eh? All you have to have is some spare cash ;)
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Haha I gotcha! Yeah, I'll post the review once I get home from college next week. Currently, I have the blue "Water Bass" one. And it's not the bass's fault, but I'm gonna give it a paint job and change up the appearance and whatnot. For now, it's all aesthetic. But like I said, it's a great bass! I have been defending it here like a madman, going left and right and dropping in on every thread I find with negative comments...it really needs to be understood that the bass company JUST started out. It was started by Flea to help out kids. It's not like they have loads of money or talent luthiers working for them right off the bat. That being said, it's still a very good, hard working bass. The tone is pretty aggressive and StingRay like. It cuts through well when playing with loud guitards :bassist::bassist:
 
#26
michaelc said:
As someone who has owned both an ATK and a usa stingray, I will tell you the ATK is 95% as good as the Ray for a quater of the price. I'm considering selling my ray, picking up an ATK and using the left over money to pay off my credit card debt.
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Paying off credit card debt is a great idea. Debt is dumb!

I recently began to GAS for a Stingray copy. Someone started a SX stingray club, and I became intrigued. I found a Jay Turser stingray on Craigs for $100, so I went and got it as a rental for my bass students. Anyhow I was not that impressed with it, but these OLP's seem alot nicer. The Turser was an overall cheap feeling bass. The pup did not even have any springs on it, so I had to customizes some extra springs I had to fit it. I am still eyeballing the OLP's and looking out for a SX as well! Also saw a bass player out at a bar on Saturday night with an ATK, man did it sound sweet.
 
#27
Gaetano Paul said:
I found a Jay Turser stingray on Craigs for $100, so I went and got it as a rental for my bass students. Anyhow I was not that impressed with it, but these OLP's seem alot nicer. The Turser was an overall cheap feeling bass.
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When I decided to pull the trigger and get a 5-string, I picked up a used Jay Turser Stingray 5 for $179 at GC. I played it for a couple of weeks, but I just never really got a good vibe or sound from it. It felt and sounded...'chunky' - just not me. So I took advantage of the 30-day return policy, and the day I returned it, they had just took in an OLP MM3 5-er in trade...and they listed it at $129! So - returned the Turser, picked up the OLP and a case, and I love mine.

It's got a BIG round sound....which is a nice counterpoint to my Jazz.

basses-1.jpg
 
#28
those are some purty basses... I've always been a sucker for a natural or fade finish. To add to the discussion: I'm getting an ATK300 or 305 (depending on whether I want to shell out the $50 and adapt to a 5'er) for gigging over the summer. With the right EQ you can make one go from P to J to MM in under a minute. Plus I LOVE the growl.

gl
 
#29
I used to own an OLP and I loved it! Unfortunately I had to sell it when I was strapped for cash. I miss that bass. Mine was blue with rosewood fretboard and matching headstock. It looked great and it felt, played and sounded easily as good as any $600 - $1000 range Fender of the time when I bought it, and it only cost $225 brand new! I bought it as a backup to my real stingray, and because I didn't want people that came to my apartment while I was in college to jam around on my real stingray so I got the OLP, and I wound up loving it and using it quite a bit! If I found another one for a good enough price I might be tempted to buy another one.
 
#30
Heyy, thanks alot for your replies and i really wish i could get an OLP, but there are never any for sale on ebay when i check and there are never any for sale near me (Cornwall), So im not sure what to do. :/, i also can't find any of those SX stingrays or Jay Turner ones, and the Ray34 is waaay to expensive for me

Thanks, Lewis.
 
#31
They discontinued the SX stingrays rumor is MM got mad and demanded prduction halted or they'd file a lawsuit legend also goes all the ones ready for shipment magicaly disappered. I think the lawsuit thing happened but, the disapperence thing I highly doubt.
 
#32
I have a OLP SR copy 2PU/5 way switch, and I love it, I do own 2 EBMM SR, but go to the OLP for practice, no where near the quality of a EBMM but still loads of fun, that blue one on GUMTREE looks super.
 
#33
ThatGuyLewis said:
Heyy, thanks alot for your replies and i really wish i could get an OLP, but there are never any for sale on ebay when i check and there are never any for sale near me (Cornwall), So im not sure what to do. :/, i also can't find any of those SX stingrays or Jay Turner ones, and the Ray34 is waaay to expensive for me

Thanks, Lewis.
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There's a bunch of the OLP's on ebay right now! And they're going for decent prices too!
 
#37
Mcnach, Nice work on your OLPs! I picked up one very cheap as well and changed the controls from V-T-T to just V-T. I could never find "neutral' with the old knobs. BUT, I have to put in some active electronics, 3 or maybe just a 2 band. I don't want too many knobs, so I can just play bass. Single pickup also takes away the pandora's box of "too many choices". Also, I want a switch to take me back to passive if I want. Any suggestions on preamps?
 
#38
martyonbass said:
Mcnach, Nice work on your OLPs! I picked up one very cheap as well and changed the controls from V-T-T to just V-T. I could never find "neutral' with the old knobs. BUT, I have to put in some active electronics, 3 or maybe just a 2 band. I don't want too many knobs, so I can just play bass. Single pickup also takes away the pandora's box of "too many choices". Also, I want a switch to take me back to passive if I want. Any suggestions on preamps?
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Thanks.

Yeah, I used to like having many options but in the end, one pickup close to the bridge does it for me. I have a Warwick Corvette $$:

CorvetteSS_body1.gif


That one has two pickups, 2-band EQ, you can switch each pickup between parallel, series, or single coil mode... Really versatile. But in the end I found it a bit too much and just used a couple of settings. Mostly involving the bridge pickup.

On my jazz bass, only the bridge pickup gets used regularly too...
So the single pickup Stingray (or clones) make sense to me.

Before changing preamp, I'd change the pickup. It's a lot simpler... and although it won't give you the range of sounds a preamp would, it will give you a much better "bassic" sound. I am partial to Seymour Duncan SMB-4A. My black OLP still has no preamp, and just the pickup replaced, and it sounds massive. Great improvement.

When it comes to preamps... I love the 3-band I installed in my first OLP. It's a Seymour Duncan (no, I don't get paid by them ;-) STC-3M3. Three knobs. The volume can be pulled to engage a "slap" preset (it can be adjusted on the board). The other two knobs are mids, and stacked bass/treble. I regularly get great comments on this bass' sound, through various rigs.
I like it a lot.
I have an Aguilar OBP-3 that I was going to install in the black OLP, but so many cables put me off a bit (I'm lazy, the SD preamp was so easy to install ;) ) and also, I think I would like to try the 2-band route.
Someone in another thread has made PCB boards cloning the original Stingray preamp. He just started posting them so you may be able to get one still. The board plus the components won't amount to much money, and all you have to do is follow the diagram and solder everything together... The people who have trie dit say it sounds great, including some who own the real thing... So I'm going to install one.
The John East preamp was also tempting me before. Volume plus two stacked knobs... you can select the mid frequency too. Should be pretty good. But the 2-band clone is supposed to sound more like a Stingray (obviously, it's copied from one!), so it depends whether you are after the classic stingray sound or a more modern variation.
 
#40
Definately, I would opt for the classic sound. When I think of Stingray, I think of Louis Johnson, the guy with Sade, and the guy with Jeff Lorber fusion. End of story. I don't think they needed 3 bands of eq, so I shouldn't either. The secret is to find the two band frequency points. The original Lo band point was really low but not too low. I recently played Musicman's new Classic Stingray with the white pickups. It was wickedly all there. The rest is in our fingers.

I put EMG passives in my Fender P/J years ago and have been pretty happy with them: good sound and noisless. But if Duncans are an easy hookup, then I'd try that. For a preamp, I'd like to just do the prewired plug-in things and not solder. I've done enough surgery on my Fenders in my youth to last me. If it's intricate, I'll get a pro to hook it up.
 

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