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Just pulled the trigger on a Sterling SUB Ray4

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Drummerboy2

Aug 31, 2016
602
670
SoCal
#1
I have been looking at this bass for awhile along with the RAY34PB. I finally just went for the SUB Ray4 and bought a Aguilar AG4M pickup to swap out and use the Sterling preamp for now. This will be my project Bass and shouldn't cost much for the upgrades on the pickup and maybe later the preamp (EAST Preamp). I will also change out the Tuners and Bridge to better ones.

I did something like this years ago with my Fender MIM Jazz bass putting in EMG pickups and EMG active preamp, never looked back. It sounds really nice. I also had the action lowered on it to fit my taste. Everything else stayed the same.
 
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#2
Today my Aguilar Pickup came in. Bass came in later today and I will posts some pics of it tomorrow. This Bass played really nice and looks/plays way better than what I paid for it. Still playing around with the tone before I install the Aguilar PU.
image (25).jpeg
image (28).jpeg
 
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#5
cmcbass said:
I had the exact same setup a couple years back. The AG 4m is a big improvement over the stock pickup in my opinion. It sounds cleaner and more defined to my ears.
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I was hearing some clips of the Aguilar AG4M pickup in the SUB bass Lobster did, I liked what I was hearing. My next "To Do" things are change out the Tuners and Bridge, going to go with Hipshot on both. I already know which ones I want.
 
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#10
cmcbass said:
It's TransTint dye. I like how it turned out, but I sold the bass about 2 years ago.
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So yesterday I got a chance to really run my new Sterling SUB StingRay through some paces. After tuning it up and checking for dead spots which turned out ok. Man, this volume on the bass is HOT, I barely turned it and it was loud with my Carvin BX1500 head and Hartke Hydrive HD210 cab. So hopefully it wont be so HOT after I install the Aguilar pickup.

Seeing what this bass actually does I started with all Bass and Treble controls all the way off, started adjusting in small increments like others here have said. The tone was good but not like what I remember of a StingRay I had tried years back but this is with the strings it came with, so I will change them out as well. The feel of the bass was nice and I like how it plays and feels. The bass will need to be setup/fine tuned to bring the height of the strings down a little bit for my playing. The Tuning Machines feel weak to me compared to the Hipsots that are on my Lakland or even the tuners on my Fender MIM Jazz bass. So I will order some new Hipshot Tuners for my StingRay.

Now that I have seen what others have done with the Hipshot Kickass Bridges on their Sterlings, I think I will leave it alone until I can find a better drop in replacement so I don't have to fill any holes that will be left from the Sterling Bridge that came on it.
 
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#12
cmcbass said:
The Aguilar pickup is hardwired in parallel, so it should have lower output. I think the older versions of the bass with the big S.U.B. on the headstock had even hotter preamps too.
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Yeah, this is one of the reasons why I went for the Aguilar pickup because it's wired Parallel. Man, when I turned it up a little at first it was so loud the wife just up because it scared her! haha! That might also contribute to the why the sound with the original pickup sounding a little on the dirty side.

I think I'm going install the Aguilar pickup today and see how much better it sounds.
 
#15
LowEndLobster said:
Congrats! Good luck on the install. It's a very simple install IMO and definitely worthwhile :).
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Thank You Lobster for posting that mod/s on Youtube with the Aguilar pickup, it was a great help information wise and sound wise. I may do Aguilar OP3 or an East 3 way preamp down the road after getting some time on the pickup and tuner mod.

I think I have settled on just doing the Aguilar pickup and putting the Hipshot tuners for now. I can do the hipshot bridge but I will have those holes to deal with. I could just insert some black iodized screws where the holes would be and it wouldn't look too bad until I could find a good solution to fill the holes and add a dye to where I covered them to blend in with the rest of the body. I'm open to any suggestion on that if have any?
 
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#19
Drummerboy2 said:
btw, did you have to put anything behind the new pickup or it was just a drop in replacement. Asking cause I have seen others talking about shielding the cavity before inserting the new pickups. I don't remember say anything about this in the video.
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I'd recommend shielding, though not a must. The vid series was more about the pickups rather than the install, but I've been getting much more into shielding properly lately. Foiling up the pickup cavity and control cavity as well as running a wire to connect the two, and connect the bridge ground and jack ground to shield.
 
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#20
LowEndLobster said:
I'd recommend shielding, though not a must. The vid series was more about the pickups rather than the install, but I've been getting much more into shielding properly lately. Foiling up the pickup cavity and control cavity as well as running a wire to connect the two, and connect the bridge ground and jack ground to shield.
Click to expand...

Thank You again for the information. I really appreciate it.
 
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