EBMM 'Vintages?'

[rmars]

..... or buzzy upper register frets from either unlevel frets or a slight kick up in the board at the heel.

I've noticed this as well on a few of the of the Stingray's I have played at GC over the last few years.

However, I had both a fretted and fretless late 90's early 2000's Stingray 5 strings and they were among the nicest built basses I have ever owned.

 

[narud]

I'm no average bass player! I hope someday to advance far enough to be called 'average' but there's a lot of work to be done yet. FTR, I set my relief extremely flat and the saddles are normal height without any probs on the 11 or 12 "late model" Music Man basses I currently have.



I live in Dallas but have never seen Tony Romo. (But I did have sushi across from Troy Aikman a while back.)

I'm not talking about seeing the basses - I'm talking about living with them, gigging with them, playing them regularly.

Your point of view/opinion is your own. I wouldn't try to tell you you're blowing smoke. I'm just saying that as daily user of these very instruments, I haven't had your experience.

ok coyboy, ill give you a qualifier rather than my "seen" comment im talking about all of the instruments ive played and set up over the last decade from either store inventory at stores ive worked at, basses my friends have owned, or basses my students have owned. ive also owned and gigged my sterling for the last nearly 15 years in addition to other ernie ball basses ive bought and sold over the years. those have added up

and what is "normal" for saddle height? we may have very different ideas of what normal is. i think it was alvaro over in the repair part of the forums who recorded some sound clips of his bongo fretting out in the upper register with low action. the general consensus was he needed a fret level. thats the kind of thing im talking about with recent instruments. i didnt find that kind of thing happening on older basses or my own 96 sterling
ive beaten this thing to death over the years and sports the same setup as my custom stuff


of my current students, one of them owns a h/s sterling. the action cant be set as low as my sterling because the upper register gets very buzzy. two of my other students own recent model stingrays who have buzzy upper registers. the store i work at has a stingray thats a little better in the upper register but still not as clean as my own bass or the other older ernie balls ive played or owned. to be fair, i havent been able to get the same type of setup on fenders either without getting a fret level done.

to me, that was one of the appeals of ernie balls was that you were usually getting a bass that could be set up like a high dollar boutique at production bass prices.

 

[rmars]

two of my other students own recent model stingrays who have buzzy upper registers. the store i work at has a stingray thats a little better in the upper register but still not as clean as my own bass or the other older ernie balls ive played or owned. to be fair, i havent been able to get the same type of setup on fenders either without getting a fret level done.

A Stingray 5 I played the other day had a obvious ramp up in the fret board at the higher frets (a feature which has come standard on most American Fenders for years). I have heard that this is from fretting the board and then gluing it to the neck vs. making the neck and then fretting it though I'm no luthier. The correct fix for these is not so much a fret leveling but a fretboard leveling which involves at least a partial refret.

 

[narud]

A Stingray 5 I played the other day had a obvious ramp up in the fret board at the higher frets (a feature which has come standard on most American Fenders for years). I have heard that this is from fretting the board and then gluing it to the neck vs. making the neck and then fretting it though I'm no luthier. The correct fix for these is not so much a fret leveling but a fretboard leveling which involves at least a partial refret.

yeah most of the balls ive come across didnt have a flip bad enough to warrant that particular repair, but i have had to have that done on old fenders to get the super low action i like.