I meant to add: I do not understand why people play with their basses way up on their chests the way Denman does in that video. It looks horribly uncomfortable. Then again I also don't understand guys who hang their basses or guitars way down low.
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Music Man StingRay Club | PART FIVE
- Thread starter fivestringgecko
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That video, the bass is so high it makes Mark King look like Duff McKagan, in bass-height terms.
Here are my July '88 and August '78 examples.
I saw Pee Wee with PKM back in October 1981 at a club in Raleigh when I was visiting a friend at NC State. He had Inca Silver and Natural StingRay basses. The natural one had some custom black swirls in the front. His tone was massive and he even broke an E string during his bass solo!
I think it comes down the individual's anatomy. For some people, playing the bass higher on the chest allows their left hand wrist to be straight and more relaxed than having the bass held lower and bending their wrist at a 90 degree angle to fret notes. It's pretty much a compromise between bending your fretting hand or your plucking hand. I think most people feel more comfortable bending their fretting hand though since you don't have to move around as much as the fretting hand so it makes some sense why someone would want to have their instrument higher up.
I sat in with a band where the bass player wore his bass super high. My belly made the bass stick out at a 45 degree angle. Need to loose weight!
You need to check out his new group, Pete Petty. Kenny Soule plays drums. You can find it on youtube. Those guys still rock!
Sounds like a good thread starter: Sitting In On Bass Pros and Cons.
I've been handed an Ibby (ugh) with a super long strap and found myself
putting my right foot on the drummer's platform to avoid muscle strain.
Your instance is the flip side where the bassist takes the "jazz position" to
extremes. A spare personalized-length-non-straplock-padded strap under
the passenger seat is always an option. Don't worry about losing weight.
Bass player privilege.
Need some help. Got my 2013 Stingray SLO Special HH (used from Sam Ash in Cincinnati), despite store having setup done, intonation was off on E string, correcting it created a bit of fret buzz - need to raise saddle bridge height. 1/16" allen wrench is too big, as is 2mm metric. Web search for that exact model didn't come up with exact match, lot of similar Era StingRays supposedly take 1/16". ***?? Did the SLO Special have oddball size? Non-stock saddle maybe? 1.5 metric and 0.050 English too small. Picture of bridge attached.
Ideas?
Could it be slightly stripped? I'm not sure what the actual standard MM size tool would be, but have you tried adding a little paper to the allen wrench that is slightly too small? I've heard of people doing that for slightly stripped screws so maybe that might be the case for your bridge.
I tried both the 1.5mm and 0. 050 English in all 8 of the saddle screws, same thing, none look stripped to my failing eyeballs even when zoomed in on 4k camera on phone. Guess it's remotely possible tech/luthier that did setup stripped them all, seems crazy that they would keep going after stripping one of the 8 screws. Anyone know the correct Allen wrench size? I tried your suggestion with piece of paper, still feels slippy - don't want to apply any torque for fear of stripping.
Yeah, don't do anything too drastic in case of making it worse. It seems unlikely that someone would have stripped all of them. Unfortunately the only allen wrenches that I have that work for my instruments is a variety of small single allen wrenches that I keep in a container on my desk and they're all just singles so I don't know the exact measurement of any of them. I used to have a set of metrics that worked for most of my instruments but I had lost it over the years.
Unlikely, it's part of a 30 wrench set with 15 Imperial & 15 metric in a case that's easy to visually see the progression from smallest to largest.
I'm not sure it's the one you'll need but some specialist sets have a 1.8mm allen key in it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-Hexagonal-Provides-Corrosion-Resistance/dp/B008EHHRJS
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Thanks- that is not available in US from Amazon- wonder what that is designed for, I've never heard of a 1.8mm sized hex/allen key before, none available on Amazon/eBay/Home Depot/Lowes.
Unless there's some known bizarre 1.8mm hex size that came on 2013 SLO Special bridges, it's down to one these possibilities, all seem really improbable:
- my allen key set somehow came with a mislabeled 1/16" key (this is the least-crazy possibility- I'll look for another one)
- previous owner installed aftermarket saddles with proprietary screw size (saddles look identical to the replacement sets listed on EBMM website)
- previous owner replaced all 8 screws in the EBMM saddles with proprietary hex size
- all 8 bridge screws were stripped by previous owner/tech (can't see it)
I did find a few other forum posts elsewhere on web of StingRay owners complaining about the saddle screws being easy to strip/break, so I guess it's possible a previous owner replaced them all, but still doesn't solve the mystery of what size key is needed. EDIT: here's the other post about them stripping:
Stingray Classic bridge saddle issue
I find that a 2 mm is a little loose and a 5/64 is very tight. If the screws are a little wallowed out, the 5/64 may do the trick.
