S.U.B. Club

[gimmeagig]

It's... different, I kinda like it! Except the headstock reshape and string tree, sorry, I really don't like that but the body looks great to me!

I agree,I was a little too careful with reshaping it. I just got my file out again and reshaped the headstock a little more. I want it to look a like a mix of a Sadowsky and a Tele. It looks better to me now. I'll post a pic when I'm happy with it.

 

[bigtone23]

If getting a P Bass sound is important to anyone here, do what I did. A EMG P Bass soap bar. It is a little narrower than a standard p-bass pickup would be and if you nudge that right in front of the music man pick up then you got the best of both worlds. On top of that the music man and the P bass blend really well together. I stumbled over this combination because I had a PJ base and I just didn't like the way those two pickups blended. So I replaced the rear Jazz Bass pickup with The Music Man pick up. I liked it so much that I ended up buying a sterling sub five string you saw my previous post I'm sure.
I have a bunch of really good jazz basses and I won't stop playing them but that Sterling that I put together is going on every gig I do now. I do Tower of power Earth wind & fire and also salsa and Latin jazz with the sterling and it's fat sounding it cuts and it has definition.
I do love the Marcus Miller slap tone and I definitely cannot get that with the Sterling but because of the p-bass pickup I can get a really nice Freddy Washington slap tone. Cameo, Louis Johnson, the Scofield pick hits stuff...sure those are easy. And If I blend in a little bit of The Music Man pick up to the P I can even get something that's close enough to the Marcus Miller tone.
But nothing really sounds like a mid-70s jazz bass and I have one of those
I just need to get used to bringing more than one bass

It's a very practical bass. A 5 string that can get P and SR tones? Yep. That bass and a J and you really do have it covered at the gig. The P and SR pickups do blend rather well. Same goes for a P and dual J pickup. I like how you have the EMG P soap bar right up on the SR pickup, that is the way to get the most accurate P tonality. Nice work!

A great gig pair for me is a 4 string passive P/J (with rounds and a series/parallel switch on the P pickup to get better J emulation) and a US SUB 5 string. These do a great job covering the tones of those iconic 3 basses.

I'm a Jazz bass first guy. Among many, I have a Squier Classic Vibe 70s Jazz 5 I got a couple years ago and threw in a EMG J set and BTS. It's a great J and the BTS is nice.

I also have a '00 US Deluxe Precision 5er with the usual P split coil and a version of a dual J bridge pickup. The magic is in the mid control. If I roll it back a touch, the tonality cleans up sort of like a J (it gets closer to how my '98 US Deluxe Jazz 5 sounds). Perhaps if you added a EMG mid control you might get more J-esque with your Sterling..? Just a thought, I do see you are getting used to toting 2 or more basses to gigs. To be honest, it's always smart to have 2 instruments at the gig.

 

[gimmeagig]

I agree,I was a little too careful with reshaping it. I just got my file out again and reshaped the headstock a little more. I want it to look a like a mix of a Sadowsky and a Tele. It looks better to me now. I'll post a pic when I'm happy with it.

Better?

I agree,I was a little too careful with reshaping it. I just got my file out again and reshaped the headstock a little more. I want it to look a like a mix of a Sadowsky and a Tele. It looks better to me now. I'll post a pic when I'm happy with it.

Better?

 

[mcnach]

Better?

Better?
View attachment 7010468

Still not a fan but that looks better now. It wouldn't bother me
I'd probably make the curve on the treble side be a bit less curvy and more parallel to the other side, so a bit more 'telecastery'. But that's just my preference

 

[gimmeagig]

Still not a fan but that looks better now. It wouldn't bother me
I'd probably make the curve on the treble side be a bit less curvy and more parallel to the other side, so a bit more 'telecastery'. But that's just my preference

Yes I was kind of shooting for a telecaster look a little bit.
I can't flatten the curve anymore because of where the tuning gear is mounted in the back.
I'm right on the edge of that.
But I'm really happy with the way it looks now.

 

[sj_bass]

What say you, assembled S.U.B. Clubbers? In your experience does/can the S.U.B. Bass sound like a 2-band Stingray or is it more of its own thing, tone-wise?

Looking forward to your responses!

My EBMM S.U.B. (2-band active) reminds me of my old '81 that I used and abused for so many years. My '10 EBMM Stingray (3-band) can get close to that tone, but I really need to roll off more of the top end to get a similar sound.

Love them both, for their uniqueness. Just like all of my children; each one has it's own special vibe.

 

[gimmeagig]

I just noticed something about my black 2022 Stingray 5. When I look at the back of the body in just the right light, I can tell that it is glued together from many 3/4" wide pieces of wood. I know that people have their preferences of "tone wood " or weight. But apparently my bass was put together from leftover junk because it is a low end instrument and it needed to be made cheap. So it should not resonate as well as the expensive basses.
But listening to my bass not plugged in, it resonates perfectly. Every bit as good as my high end boutique basses.That is surprising to me. And at 9.9 pounds it's not too heavy. Maybe that whole "tonewood" thing is overblown?

 

[bigtone23]

I just noticed something about my black 2022 Stingray 5. When I look at the back of the body in just the right light, I can tell that it is glued together from many 3/4" wide pieces of wood. I know that people have their preferences of "tone wood " or weight. But apparently my bass was put together from leftover junk because it is a low end instrument and it needed to be made cheap. So it should not resonate as well as the expensive basses.
But listening to my bass not plugged in, it resonates perfectly. Every bit as good as my high end boutique basses.That is surprising to me. And at 9.9 pounds it's not too heavy. Maybe that whole "tonewood" thing is overblown?

We have been in a golden age of affordable instruments for nearly two decades. Where the late 20th Century still had a lot of semi-skilled and inconsistent, hands-on production of the lower lines of product, modern production methods (especially with CNC, etc... ) have resulted in a much more consistent product with tighter build tolerances.
However, there is a certain amount of luck with instruments on the lower end of the scale. Wood is still the wildcard: sometimes it's light, sometimes dense, it could be this species or that species, the body could be 3 pieces with a nice veneer and sprayed with a transparent finish, or it's several pieces (or plywood) under an opaque finish. The neck is also a significant part of the equation, if it's good and it's resonance works with the body resonance, it's gonna have the potential for the bass to sound good.
Regardless, every now and again it just works out and an inexpensive instrument punches way above it's weight class. Had someone told me in the 80s or 90s that I would be really impressed by a Squier, well... But here I am, super happy with CV/VM caliber instruments: a Bass VI, 70s Jazz V and a parts Precision. All have been deeply set up/tweaked/modified, but the end result of these $400 instruments can easily compete with instruments that cost 3-4 times as much.

As everyone with a US made SUB knows, they are insane, even at today's prices. Unlike a Squier, these were spot on right off the line.

 

[nickpc]

So I went down the rabbit hole on the PreAmp on the USA SUB basses - the active (2-band) one that I have in my '03, and am now more confused than I was when I started.

It's boost-only, correct? So turned all the way down is "flat" and dimed is, well, dimed.

I also saw a bunch of references (here and elsewhere) to the bass and treble controls doing more than just boosting (or cutting) bass and treble but doing some passive-ish tone stuff as well.

So does anyone have a good explanation on how the circuit works, and more importantly (and fun, honestly) what are everyone's favorite settings?

 

[bigtone23]

So I went down the rabbit hole on the PreAmp on the USA SUB basses - the active (2-band) one that I have in my '03, and am now more confused than I was when I started.

It's boost-only, correct? So turned all the way down is "flat" and dimed is, well, dimed.

I also saw a bunch of references (here and elsewhere) to the bass and treble controls doing more than just boosting (or cutting) bass and treble but doing some passive-ish tone stuff as well.

So does anyone have a good explanation on how the circuit works, and more importantly (and fun, honestly) what are everyone's favorite settings?

There was a post somewhere on TB where someone showed the graphs of what is going on with the 2EQ circuit. From what I recall, it's not quite boost only. The treble control has some cut and the bass control cuts just a little bit when fully CCW. Also, it's not really capable of 'flat,' but can get sort of close.
I tend to run the bass around 1-2 and the treble around 4.

 

[bigtone23]

Found it!
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/music-man-stingray-2-band-eq-frequency-curves.1102711/

 

[nickpc]

Found it!
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/music-man-stingray-2-band-eq-frequency-curves.1102711/

Super helpful, and yet still very confusing - thanks for sharing this! It does look like it's boost-only, but the way the two band work together isn't simple/predictible.

I guess that's why the sound is so unique. I'm still amazed by the quality and versatility of this bass, especially for the price I got it for!

 

[bigtone23]

Super helpful, and yet still very confusing - thanks for sharing this! It does look like it's boost-only, but the way the two band work together isn't simple/predictible.

I guess that's why the sound is so unique. I'm still amazed by the quality and versatility of this bass, especially for the price I got it for!

I'm most certainly not an expert on the MM SR, but do nerd out on the inner workings of instruments.
In a simplified nutshell...
The 2EQ preamp was designed for a musical instrument tonality, not an audiophile goal of 'flatness.' The preamp is designed to get a variety of nice, usable bass guitar tones. The preamp isn't really capable of 'flat,' the amp it's plugged into is also not capable of 'flat.' Flat was for PA or audio.

When the SR was being designed, it was to have active electronics, as that was more modern and forward thinking vs the 'old' passive basses of Leo's history. While in prototyping and beta testing, it helped to have the pickup moved further towards the bridge to make room for the slapping/popping that was coming around. With that pickup placement, the instrument lost some low end, which was made up for with the extra bass from the preamp. Also, the pickup and preamp brings on some really sizzly highs, which was mostly lost on the bass cabs of the mid 70s-early 80s, before horns and tweeters became the norm.
Therefore, the preamp needed to be able to really boost some lows, but have somewhat typical boost/cut in the treble. That's why the bass control barely cuts at 0-1, but then goes into boost from about 2 and up, and the treble control is cut from about 0-4 and boosts from 5 and up.

 

[Danny O Danny]

Hello, I found this particular group/forum/thread via a Google search, and read all 99 pages. It was very helpful in my recent decision to buy these two basses a week apart from each other: a 2003 USA SUB Stingray and a 2004 USA SUB Sterling. I've owned a few Stingrays over the years, my favorite of which was a '78 Stingray that I played all through the 80's. The SUB Stringray reminds me very much of my old '78 in terms of sound and feel. On the other hand I've never owned or played a Sterling model, but I really like the neck and the slightly different "mid-forward" tone. I'm contemplating converting the Sterling to fretless as I think it would be really well suited to that.

 

[stambroker]

Hello, I found this particular group/forum/thread via a Google search, and read all 99 pages. It was very helpful in my recent decision to buy these two basses a week apart from each other: a 2003 USA SUB Stingray and a 2004 USA SUB Sterling. I've owned a few Stingrays over the years, my favorite of which was a '78 Stingray that I played all through the 80's. The SUB Stringray reminds me very much of my old '78 in terms of sound and feel. On the other hand I've never owned or played a Sterling model, but I really like the neck and the slightly different "mid-forward" tone. I'm contemplating converting the Sterling to fretless as I think it would be really well suited to that.

View attachment 7194975

Awesome, congrats! Love the pickguard on the one on the left. I still play my passive 2003 SUB w/ LaBellas all the time, it's a monster - the best thing I ever did was sanded down the back of the neck and applied tung oil, it's incredibly comfortable to play.

 

[Danny O Danny]

I played my first gig with the SUB Sterling last weekend. It was a joy to play and sounded great.

 

[tekhna]

I've had my eye on a SUB locally for a bit for what seems like a decent price, although it's not mint. Some headstock nicks, etc. But the thing that's held me back is actually the neck finish--are they satin or gloss? Not sure I can deal with a gloss neck.

 

[nickpc]

I've had my eye on a SUB locally for a bit for what seems like a decent price, although it's not mint. Some headstock nicks, etc. But the thing that's held me back is actually the neck finish--are they satin or gloss? Not sure I can deal with a gloss neck.

Mine is more satin feeling than gloss. It's also 23 years old, so that might not be factory.

It's local? Go check it out - getting your hands on it will tell you if it's going to play well for you or not!

 

[Danny O Danny]

I've had my eye on a SUB locally for a bit for what seems like a decent price, although it's not mint. Some headstock nicks, etc. But the thing that's held me back is actually the neck finish--are they satin or gloss? Not sure I can deal with a gloss neck.

The back of the neck is painted, so it seems gloss to me. Doesn't bother me, or seem overly sticky, but I've learned from posts in this thread that a lot of folks remove the paint (there are several photographic examples if you page through the thread). Apparently, under the paint it is the same neck finish as Music Man basses of that time period (which I guess is satin). Some folks have also opted to sand down to the bare wood.

 

[shrigg]

The back of the neck is painted, so it seems gloss to me. Doesn't bother me, or seem overly sticky, but I've learned from posts in this thread that a lot of folks remove the paint (there are several photographic examples if you page through the thread). Apparently, under the paint it is the same neck finish as Music Man basses of that time period (which I guess is satin). Some folks have also opted to sand down to the bare wood.

The black paint is nitro, which makes for easy removal with acetone. I’ve done a few this way. My current Sub 5 still has that paint and I don’t mind it. It’s getting a cool worn look