Help me identify my new bass guitar

That's a heavily modified MusicMan. The big large pole humbucker has been replaced with the dual jazz humbucker, and the name taken off.

From one pickup in that spot and the pickguard holes in the oval shape, I'll say an older StingRay, but I'm really just guessing. The headstock is definitely MusicMan (or an intentional ripoff thereof). Could be a clone, but not at that original price, that'd likely be the real deal.

I'd say you may well have a really nice score on your hands.

 

Here's their current roundup, http://www.music-man.com/instruments/basses.html - you'll see several similar on there. Could've been a Sterling. Hard to be sure. I don't think I would be complaining about receiving it very much at all, though!

 

Yes, certainly looks very like an MM Sterling with the narrow lower body, although why anyone would replace the humbucker with a dual jazz pickup, I'm not sure. It looks quite like the twin jazz humbucker from the Big Block Precision.

Perhaps someone here could tell you whether it's a real EBMM or a copy. The EBMM basses usually have a serial number on the bridge, don't they? I know my Classic Series Sabre does, anyway.

One curiosity is that only recent Classic Series instruments have through body stringing. Most EBMM basses are top loading on the bridge only. And is it me, or is the body cut in too deeply curved..?

All in all, I think it probably started off life as a Music Man copy like a Vintage bass or something like that. The tuners are generic and the backplates too small to be real EB parts. The neck plate is bare too - EB ones are always engraved.

 

And Sterling? Do they have the serial # in the same place? I think they're basically the cheaper brand of MM, like Squire is for Fender, right? Either way, nice wood. About the electronics - Yeah, odd choice of pickup, maybe the orginal died, or maybe the then-owner thought they were improving it, or maybe they were just bored with the sound, who knows?

 

Hmmm... Passive too. No battery cavity on the back. Weren't the original OLP's passive before the active twin humbucker one came out? Memory is shady over the last few years.

 

By the look of the tuners, and the bridge, I'd say it's an OLP

 

Or a maestro.. Looks like an OLP to me

 

How does it feel and sound? That's all that is really important, especially considering the price.

 

Definitely not a Musicman Stingray—maybe some kind of knockoff like this:

http://musiquedepot.ca/redfox-km4bb-nt.html

It could be an OLP, although, I don't see why they'd bother to remove the decal on the headstock... and OLP "Stingray" basses didn't have the string through body feature either.

 

It could be an eBay parts bass for that matter all parts neck etc.

 

All possible, but if it's true that it originally went for 800 pounds sterling retail, it's no cheap ripoff. Where ought the serial numbers be found?

 

By the looks of the bridge, that's an OLP or similar. Not a MM by any stretch (although they licensed the design) but perfectly good import basses nonetheless. Slap any decent MM-style pickup in there and rock it!

 

The pickup is too far back to be a Jay Turser JTB-440. Neck is way to small at the nut to be a OLD MM.. Nice looking copy except that pickup just looks kind of odd.

 

Not a MM Sterling. Wrong shape, no selector switch, wrong number of knobs, and they don't have a plate under the knobs (perhaps it was added, but it doesn't look right). Classic Sterling has this # of knobs, but no plate. And if someone did this butcher's job to a Classic Sterling, they should be hunted down.

On a side note, I'll take the opportunity to editorialize about how annoying it is for EBMM to cannibalize the model names of two of their classic basses for their "budget" lines. So now high-end Sterlings get confused with "Sterling by Music Man", and StingRays with "Ray34" and other variations. It annoys me that they couldn't come up with better/different names for the other lines. It would be like Fender calling their budget line "Precision by Fender", even though they were in the shapes of Precisions, Jazzes, Mustangs, etc. It's a needless mess.

 

That's okay. Fender has already come up with a way to create a needless mess, just look at all the different model and series designations they use.

 

To edit your edit, its isn't their budget line. It's a different company that licenses the designs from EBMM. Unlike Fender where Squier is their line, SBMM isn't EBMM's product. GC wanted a MM style budget line more name recognizable than the former OLP, it was their idea, hence the name correlation. Yes I think it was stupid too.

 

Don't forget that the OP said he was given it. Maybe the butchering a Classic Sterling is part of the reason for giving away and not trying to sell.

 

Probably a parts bass, definitely an OLP bridge and neck probably.




Pickup routing matches OLP as well.