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EBMM StingRay Special Club
- Thread starter MultiScaleMale
- Start date
What?! You wear clothes when you play?
What?! You wear clothes when you play?
Bro maybe that’s a new Dargie rule: shirts optional
Glad to know I’m not the only one to have this problem and mention this. So you sent yours back to Ernie Ball?
Yes, it also had some high frets causing string buzz. Lowering the pickups was not the problem in this issue.
Does anyone know if this has been an issue on other EB models?
Just to put this out there, I bought both of mine and an American P bass from ZZounds and they have come in the mail in perfect shape!!! The action on all three were actually pretty good too, played great out of the box.
-ScottM
Jeez all of these problems with the new Stingray is unbelievable. Reading posts on this thread you would think that they were the best Bass ever made.........Obviously not!
I dunno, I am on my third. Other than learning about the strong magnetic pull of the neck pickup, and how lowering that helped solve a setup issue I was having on my first one, my experience with these has been perfect.
However, I have noted that there have been fret sprout complaints on here. In a few months I will ship all of my stuff to Hawaii, I am curious to see if there are wood issues after I get my stuff and let it acclimate to Hawaii weather. Hopefully I have good luck with the move
The Specials are still a great bass, it is still my No.1
Would be interesting to pool some data from folks here, that are actually experiencing fret sprout :
1) What is local ambient temperature / humidity (And where are you located)?
2) What is the temperature / humidity of the room the instrument lives in (is air conditioning on)?
3) What is the fretboard material?
On the one hand it might seem logical that a roasted maple neck, with matching fretboard would be less prone to shrinkage (the fretboard also being sealed from the elements) - but on the other hand ebony, and rosewood are drier woods, and if the shrinkage were as significant as some people like to fear, the fretboard would likely show signs of separating from the neck (which I'm not aware of ever having happened).
I own two that I’ve had for about four months or less.
One 4H with an Ebony board, the other a 5HH with a Rosewood board.
They both came in almost perfect setup to me and I keep my heat or AC on to keep the temps at 70 degrees during the day. At night time I drop the temps to 66 degrees.
I live in VA, and have left my windows open on a few muggy days to say the least.
Still no change on the frets, and I want to mention my neck hasn’t needed any other trust rod adjustments.
-ScottM
One 4H with an Ebony board, the other a 5HH with a Rosewood board.
They both came in almost perfect setup to me and I keep my heat or AC on to keep the temps at 70 degrees during the day. At night time I drop the temps to 66 degrees.
I live in VA, and have left my windows open on a few muggy days to say the least.
Still no change on the frets, and I want to mention my neck hasn’t needed any other trust rod adjustments.
-ScottM
I live in GA and it’s gets pretty humid here. The winters are dry though, and that may have been contributing to the fret sprout on mine. The more humid it gets the better it feels. But I also have to tweak the truss rod more often.
No I don't!.......But after reading so many posts on the Internet regarding faults on this Bass I don't think that I will bother. Now people are blaming the environment for the faults, but they need to ask themselves do these faults like sprouting occur on their other Basses. If they don't then it is a fault with the Bass itself and the materials used.......Really to class this Bass as "Special" is a falsehood!
1) & 2) Alberta, always indoors around 22C = 72F, it is dry - we have a humidifier full time attached to the furnace, and I don't know the ambient % on an ongoing basis, but 25 would be my guess. There will be AC in the summer, but I bought it in Nov and the AC hasn't been on since then.
3) Ebony. I was suspicious that maybe EB didn't know what they were doing with Ebony, maybe it wasn't properly dried. But enough people with maple have also posted about sprout, so I'm chalking it up to 'normal shrinkage due to dry' and not pursuing that angle so much.
As I posted before, the fret sprout was super bad, so bad the tech cut himself examining it, and he's no rookie. He was shocked.
These days, I'm more inclined to think EB doesn't have a firm handle on *** they are doing with setups/fretwork on SS. They get some right, but there are lots of reports like mine, see below.
To this day, mine is set up medium and SUPER noisy with string noise, even with flats, even after the tech said it had a micro sized ramp at the end and re-levelled the last 3 frets, and did some fine tuning on a few others. I love the neck, tones, and playability, and just never use it. I'm looking for options to get out of mine.
Stop trolling the owners club spouting nonsense you have no idea what you’re talking about. EVERY SINGLE WOODEN INSTRUMENT CAN HAVE FRET SPROUT. You’re a low information individual who won’t stop trolling a group you have no business in. Please, for the love of God. Stop and go away. Thanks!!
You can't get fret sprout on a fretless
I know that EB aren't going to make any fretless Specials, but I often fantasize about one. How awesome would that be!? I would order a charging green fretless 5H with an ebony fretboard to match my fretted 5H in a metric heartbeat
Back on topic, my Special 5H was quite well setup out of the box, just a tweak here and there to suit personal preference. No fret sprout at all. And I'm in Australia, the driest continent on earth.
Glamour shot before I change the pickguard next week...
Dropped my Stingray off at Mike Lull's shop just now. Only $45 to file down the fret ends and do a set up. I went ahead and threw in a Plek job as well. I figure this will be my only bass so what the hell.
