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EBMM StingRay Special Club

#3,341
Epitaph04 said:
Have you tried actually boosting the midrange? Cutting the bass? What strings are you using? What amp? Stingrays can be very punchy and sharp on the bridge pickup. Otherwise, they sound very differently from precision basses. More hifi. More pure clean bass.
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I am talking of flat EQ. I tried, when i turn on the mid on the bass i get a punchier tone, it still feels like something missing that i couldnt exactly tell. I use Daddario NYXL 45/105 roundwounds, Gallien Krueger 200W combo amp. Bridge pickup sounds stronger with much treble but have better punch, the neck pickup however seems dull, but its working. So when i blend them together i dont get the tone that i expected.
 
#3,342
thumbs&fingers said:
What I was saying is having H means less eq tweaks. HH an so so many sounds that playing live you would have to constantly mess with your eq every time you flipped pickup positions in a set. I like both and haven’t decided what works best for me. If I only had one bass it would be HH because it can get close enough to all the classic sounds
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That hasn’t been my experience
 
#3,343
Stranger Danger said:
I did. She’s not wrong
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I had four basses and actually sold one to get $$ for the Special. That was my beloved 1983 Cutlass1 (graphite neck) which pained me to part with, but I don't play it much these days. I also have two P/J basses (one passive/one active). I can't get the same sounds from the Special as those basses.... P-PUs are just vastly different from MM IMO. I also have a 2007 MM Sterling, which is closer to the Special but still sounds different (and oh so easy to play).

My wife is a guitarist and we play together. Since we are old (late 50s), she thinks we should downsize everything. I am willing to get rid of a lot of stuff, but not my basses!
 
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#3,344
skaine said:
Bridge pickup sounds stronger with much treble but have better punch, the neck pickup however seems dull, but its working. So when i blend them together i dont get the tone that i expected.
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This was always the surprise with the Sabre (and latterly with the Stingray HH).

You see two Music Man humbucking pickups, and think "Awesome! Twice the power of a Stingray".

But when you solo that neck pickup, instead of sounding like a Stingray with an even meatier tone, it instead sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids.


Is that what you're finding?

Or is that what you were expecting, and instead it sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids and the tone rolled all the way off?
 
#3,345
Wood and Wire said:
This was always the surprise with the Sabre (and latterly with the Stingray HH).

You see two Music Man humbucking pickups, and think "Awesome! Twice the power of a Stingray".

But when you solo that neck pickup, instead of sounding like a Stingray with an even meatier tone, it instead sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids.


Is that what you're finding?

Or is that what you were expecting, and instead it sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids and the tone rolled all the way off?
Click to expand...
Sounds like a Gibson SG / EB bass neck pickup to me.
I think the 2 inner coils ( 4th gear ) sound more Pbass like.
 
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#3,346
Neck PU
Wood and Wire said:
This was always the surprise with the Sabre (and latterly with the Stingray HH).

You see two Music Man humbucking pickups, and think "Awesome! Twice the power of a Stingray".

But when you solo that neck pickup, instead of sounding like a Stingray with an even meatier tone, it instead sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids.


Is that what you're finding?

Or is that what you were expecting, and instead it sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids and the tone rolled all the way off?
Click to expand...


Neck PU in sabre is special though with the 16 pole piece thing going on. Still very low output though. I couldn’t jam with a guitarist with that instrument, wouldn’t cut at all, sold it. Sounded amazing solo though
 
#3,348
Wood and Wire said:
This was always the surprise with the Sabre (and latterly with the Stingray HH).

You see two Music Man humbucking pickups, and think "Awesome! Twice the power of a Stingray".

But when you solo that neck pickup, instead of sounding like a Stingray with an even meatier tone, it instead sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids.


Is that what you're finding?

Or is that what you were expecting, and instead it sounds like a Fender Precision with less pronounced mids and the tone rolled all the way off?
Click to expand...

The first one, i was expecting it sounding like a Stingray with a meatier tone.

I managed to find another Stingray with the exact setup in a guitar center today. Only one guitar center sells Stingrays in Istanbul and they had only one Stingray in stock.

Anyway, both of them sounded different. Mine sounded much brighter with less low mids and much less meaty. The salesmen also agreed me after listening them both and told me it could be because of the other bass has much older strings and set up.

Then i visited a luthier to get a more precise set up, then it appeared my E string is somewhat dull compared with the others, he told me he couldnt hear anything wrong with the electronics, but also he didnt listened the other bass as well to compare.

Anyway he did the best setup that he can. He also told me that i can try another brand of strings next time to see if it makes any difference, since the strings are brand new, he told me to bring the bass after a week because the strings are more stiff and less elastic at the moment because they are brand new. I used Daddario NYXL roundwound 45/105 by the way.

Other than those, we have regular Daddario, Dunlop, Elixir, Ernie Ball Slinky and Fender strings only in guitar centers. La bella, Rotosound, Thomastik are almost impossible to find.
 
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#3,351
20190407_163602.jpg
Here is a pic of my Special , this is a great all around bass
 
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#3,356
Took the 4HH Special into the studio to mess around with some blues. I liked the way it handled. It was set on 4th gear with some slight boost of bass and mids. The strings are LaBella flats.
 

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