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EBMM Stingray, review after a few weeks

chickenJames

chickenJames

Guest
May 2, 2013
147
53
Wiltshire UK
#1
hello all,

I've been the proud owner of an EBMM Stingray for a couple of weeks now and I thought I'd share some thoughts. My other bass is a Spector Legend 5, and I traded I a 2004 Fender MIM P to get the Ray.

So, here's the spec
-new made in USA EBMM Stingray 2EQ
- black, black pg
- 1 humbucker
- rw neck, wide nut (41mm I think)

Amp - Ampeg BA112 at home, Markbass 121CMD+NY121 for rehearsals and gigs

The tone and feel are awesome. This thing is very, very rude. For fingerstyle funk, rock, pop it's just unbelievable. The punch, playability are very, very good.
The treble boost on the bass's preamp is almost excessive. I can't see how I'd ever want to have it over about 50%. I always run it with the bass control turned up all the way, then vary the the treble. So far far I've gigged with a big band, and it more than held its own.
Band members love the sound, to the extent that last week they were trying to think of fun things to get me to play on it.

Playability - the action is et quite low. If you play it unplugged you can hear some buzz at some positions. Plugged in you don't notice this, but it's a little more obvious than on my other bass. Previously I've been accustomed to playing -very- hard sometimes, and I think I might either need to moderate this a bit or get the action set a little higher. However the benefit of this is - it plays pretty fast, and you get a lovely clank at the attack of each note.
The neck feels quite wide compared to my old Fender, and the string spacing feels quite wide compared to my 5er. It's nice being able to get your fingers between the strings, but just occasionally amy left hand is texting tired when I'm stretching.

So in summary
- the tone! It's amazing. I'm in funk heaven
- lovely to play
- cuts through in the mix, no need to turn up

How does it compare to Fender and Spector? Spector is smoother, no question. Nothing can do the Classic P old fashioned thump, but I have a lot more characte now.
Would I recommend it highly? Yes, without hesitation. Would I have it as my only bass? Yes definitely. It's great to have the Spector 5 as well, and I think it will get plenty of of use, but the Ray is something else.

There you are. Hope this is useful and interesting to some of you. Ask me anything!

What strings do you put on yours? What would you recommend for fingerstyle?
 
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#2
chickenJames said:
hello all,

I've been the proud owner of an EBMM Stingray for a couple of weeks now and I thought I'd share some thoughts. My other bass is a Spector Legend 5, and I traded I a 2004 Fender MIM P to get the Ray.

So, here's the spec
-new made in USA EBMM Stingray 2EQ
- black, black pg
- 1 humbucker
- rw neck, wide nut (41mm I think)

Amp - Ampeg BA112 at home, Markbass 121CMD+NY121 for rehearsals and gigs

The tone and feel are awesome. This thing is very, very rude. For fingerstyle funk, rock, pop it's just unbelievable. The punch, playability are very, very good.
The treble boost on the bass's preamp is almost excessive. I can't see how I'd ever want to have it over about 50%. I always run it with the bass control turned up all the way, then vary the the treble. So far far I've gigged with a big band, and it more than held its own.
Band members love the sound, to the extent that last week they were trying to think of fun things to get me to play on it.

Playability - the action is et quite low. If you play it unplugged you can hear some buzz at some positions. Plugged in you don't notice this, but it's a little more obvious than on my other bass. Previously I've been accustomed to playing -very- hard sometimes, and I think I might either need to moderate this a bit or get the action set a little higher. However the benefit of this is - it plays pretty fast, and you get a lovely clank at the attack of each note.
The neck feels quite wide compared to my old Fender, and the string spacing feels quite wide compared to my 5er. It's nice being able to get your fingers between the strings, but just occasionally amy left hand is texting tired when I'm stretching.

So in summary
- the tone! It's amazing. I'm in funk heaven
- lovely to play
- cuts through in the mix, no need to turn up

How does it compare to Fender and Spector? Spector is smoother, no question. Nothing can do the Classic P old fashioned thump, but I have a lot more characte now.
Would I recommend it highly? Yes, without hesitation. Would I have it as my only bass? Yes definitely. It's great to have the Spector 5 as well, and I think it will get plenty of of use, but the Ray is something else.

There you are. Hope this is useful and interesting to some of you. Ask me anything!

What strings do you put on yours? What would you recommend for fingerstyle?
Click to expand...
Congrats on joining the Stingray fold! They really have a tone all their own, and you can get a bunch of different tones by just varying your plucking hand location. I may be wrong, but I believe that if you turn both bass and treble knobs down on the 2-band eq, it'll give you a relative mid-boost.

For strings, I currently have DR Hi-Beams installed, and they compliment the Ray wonderfully. Ernie Ball Slinkys also sound great with these basses.

Oh yeah, TB rules-no pics, no bass;)
 
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#3
I've owned em for years. FYI, the string spacing at the nut and bridge is the same as a standard P Bass: 1-5/8 nut and 19mm bridge. But my experience is the roundness of the back of the neck is done by hand, so some have felt like baseball bats and some very slender.
I've used DR highbeams and sunbeams, and R Cocco nicks and stainless. More grit from stainless. I tried Boomers a couple times and noticed they're duller than my preferred string, but a way of taming some of the attitude down a little.
 
Last edited:
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#5
2014-11-30 16.56.07.jpg
first of all, here's the picture (I didn't put this up initially because it was in my NBD thread and I didn't want to tax anyone's patience)

and TBone, I totally get your thing about moving your hand! the amount of variation in twang, sustain and punch is enormous depending on
- how hard I pluck
- pluck location
- LH muting (or not)
It feels like the bass is there waiting eagerly for you to tell it what to do next!
 
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#10
I just took off a set of TI flats and put on a set of Rotosound RS55 pressure wounds on my Ray before going on my computer. I've had the flats on for about 6 months, and they sound terrific, but I want to try something a bit more like rounds. The problem is I personally don't like the brittle high end that Stingrays have with SS or nickels, and I've found that flats do that great. I'll try the pressure wounds out for a while, but may very well end up back with the flats.

As for the pickups, I like the originals ok, but the Nordy replacement is even better. I went through a phase a few years ago where I was swapping out pickups like crazy on a 3-band Ray I had, and found the Nordstrand sounded identical to the stock, but with better placement of the G pole pickups, resulting in a fix for the "weak G string" problem.
 
#11
I love mine as well.I replaced the stock pickup with a Seymour Duncan smb4.I've had mine awhile though and just felt like changing it up.I had the same issue with the action being almost to low when I got mine.Mine seems to have a smaller neck thickness than most.
 
#13
I put d'addarios 45-130s on my SR5. Also I did the simple and reversible preamp mod seymour Duncan recommends when using their pickup. It moves the filter frequency and does open up the pickup. My main issue with the sound was it had this nasally oink tone and did not cut very well thru the mix for our material. I kept all parts so convert it back at some point. For now, it is setup to play our current material.

I did not dislike the stock sound, but I needed more of a generic sound because of the wide variety of music we play. I would liken it to using a stock telecaster to play rock, alternative, country, hard rock, and metal all in the same night.
 
#14
You traded an MIM for an EBMM? Holy smokes, dude, unless you made a typo, that's one heck of a steal for you.

"I've been the proud owner of an EBMM Stingray for a couple of weeks now and I thought I'd share some thoughts. My other bass is a Spector Legend 5, and I traded I a 2004 Fender MIM P to get the Ray."
 
#17
Yours looks about the same as mine, with the exception that mine is a Classic. They're just amazing instruments, really. Mine has an unfinished and super slim neck, very low action and the playability of it is just incredible. You think it and it happens.

The sound is more versatile than I think a lot of people think, the build quality and hardware is all top notch. Just nothing to complain about at all. And yeah, if this was my only bass, that would be all right.
 
#19
Larry Mal said:
Yours looks about the same as mine, with the exception that mine is a Classic. They're just amazing instruments, really. Mine has an unfinished and super slim neck, very low action and the playability of it is just incredible. You think it and it happens.

The sound is more versatile than I think a lot of people think, the build quality and hardware is all top notch. Just nothing to complain about at all. And yeah, if this was my only bass, that would be all right.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the potential derail. Can you please post a picture of your bass? Did you buy it new or used. I ask because I have one of the classics sold at guitar center when they first came out that has the unfinished modern neck with compensated nut and I've not seen anyone with another of the same. Was wondering if yours came from this time period.
 

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