Get a sandberg, or mod my stingray? thoughts?

[dudemanvic]

Right now I own an Ernie Ball Musicman Stingray 5 bass (H model), and don't get me wrong I love this bass. At times though I really wish it had a much more aggressive tone to it. I've recently fallen in love with Sandberg basses, but at the moment I can't find any places where I live (northern virginia, fairfax in particular) that sells them. And I just hate searching online, I prefer being able to just go into a store and walk out with a bass. I love having different tones available to me, and my Stingray is great about it, but like I said I kind of want something more aggressive. So I'm thinking of either just trying to save up to get a sandberg california pm 5 with the delano pickups and glockenklang 3 band preamp like they used to offer, or modding the hell out of my stingray, in particular, ditching the pickguard, and changing out the pickup to a delano, put in a p-style pickup, add in a glock 3-band preamp and maybe putting on the metal control plate like on a 4-string stingray. Either way I know it'll cost me a pretty penny but I'm just tryin to figure out what I want to do. Thought maybe ya'll could help me out. If it helps any I'm really into tones along the lines of David Ellefson (cryptic writings era) and Oliver Holzwarth of Blind Guardian, in particular the bass tone on A Twist in the Myth (when you can actually hear the bass). Those are the type's of tones I'm really after. I currently play for a band called Shokkher (we're mostly 80's style metal, if yo listen to our myspace, it is not me playing, im the new guy) if that helps any. Anyway, any advice you guys could offer me would be great! Thanks alot guys!

 

[JulienJeff]

I haven't played much on stingrays so I can't really compare both.
But I have a sandberg california PM and I'm more than happy with it...

 

[Lackey]

I really don't think you should mod the Stingray. You might try a HumanBase OC, they come stock with Delano pups and Glock pre. Well made, about 1300 new.

 

[pedroims]

I would not mod a stingray, for some reason most of bass players think that a stingray should not be mod, it will be really hard to sell it and if you do will be at a lower price than a normal one. Save the money and wait till you can buy the sanberg or sell the stingray.

 

[dudemanvic]

I'm actually not a very big fan of the Human Base design to be completely honest. I've always been a fan of the stingray body and p-bass body design. But If it can give me what I'm looking for it's something I could always look into

 

[Conce]

Look into a Musicman Sterling 5HH, seeing how it has a more aggressive tone than the Stingray, but still maintains that Musicman tone. Check out this video: