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Sterling by Music Man SUB Ray4 and Ray5

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#401
recycled rocker said:
I bought a black and maple ray4 and was surprised that i dint see what most are raving about first off the nut was hanging over the bass end and 1/16 of an inch and about 1/8 over on the treble side no biggie i thought. so out came the tools. The fret ends were very sharp so some fret filling was done along with work on the nut. I figured i was being nit picky no big deal so while i had tools out i just did a complete setup. Adjusted the trussrod new strings set the string height and intonation. It was starting to play pretty nice with some work. Then all 3 pots stopped working no volume control or tone control.i broke the tools back out and removed the controls to find that 2 screws were already stripped on the control cover ehh nothing a little ca glue cant fix. Found the cause of the problem with no controls was a pickup wire was shorting across the volume pot. Fixed that and luckily the preamp wasnt blown. Now i must say after about 5 hours of work it plays and sounds very good. I am assuming i just received a bad one. A couple of issues a few others have noted i looked into on my bass. One was the pots shafts being bent. I removed the knobs and checked the shafts and they were straight but with the knobs on they wobble looks to me that the wobble is in the knob itself.
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In regards to the knobs..

Hmm..this is an interesting observation..I will look at mine..perhaps I can just pick up replacements on the cheap. Or ignore it..like I do now. (perhaps it would be nice if sterling set up a program to replace them - just sayin)

Others are complaining about the pre amp being hot...I kind of like it. Though I'm using an old Crate head that that has a -15 db channel. Suits it perfectly.
 
#403
jlepre said:
I NEVER do that, as it just dampens the overall tone of the bass. Always run into the 0DB input to get the full effect. Just adjust the volume input on the amp.
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I hear what you are saying..but my bass is so "bright/hot" that even WITH the cut it sounds killer. I'm pretty on top of my EQ due the the fact that I'm only running into two tens without a crossover/tweeter. (For small bars/clubs I've found this to be plenty)...(and I'm no longer interested in lugging **** around).

And to your point (which I think should simply be on a case by case basis), my Warwick and my Ibanez both have to be run through the 0db. The cut simply killed these guys. I've found the combo itself tends to trump all..whatever it may be.
 
#404
EighthNotes said:
That's my local mom n pop too! Surprising that they gave you that response to the blemish. They are usually over-protective of their instruments to begin with to prevent that but they tend to be a little more helpful than that. I need to head over there and check these out ASAP.

[/derail]
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It can be a real mixed experience at PNS. There's a lot of knowledge in the employees, and most are friendly. But sometimes because they do know so much, and be a little older..sometimes they are just dicks.

The blemish on mine was from the factory, and the dude seemed irritated when I asked if they had any more of the model in stock. They were sorta helpful when I asked about raising the action a little bit. Ok, let me modify, they had someone look at it, but literally did nothing. Of course when I got home I did it myself. A few slight turns of allen wrench and checking the intonation 95% of the noise went away and didn't affect the playability. So they were pretty useless.

Sorry..I've had good purchases there as well. Back in the day, they and hollowood were the only two games in town. Now with TWO GC's in town, they should probably learn to be a little nicer. (and not fake nice, just..decent human beings).
 
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#406
jlepre said:
Just to re-emphasize the pre amp isn't necessarily TOO HOT. The volume pot has no gradual increase in volume. It just goes from silent to quite loud with nothing in between.
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I don't know...relative to my other active basses this is certainly the loudest. The volume sweep is not good on mine either..but since I run wide open not a problem....I guess this is what happens when you buy the first model year of something.

Ps..despite my issues (volume sweep, bad knobs, lotsa output, finish blemish)..I still really like this bass..I used it in rehearsal with two bands and in both I was getting unprompted comments on how good it sounded...I am actually considering picking up the maple neck black one as well. (I'm going to sell my unused basses to make room and free up funds.)
 
#407
OK, so I have been shouting the praises of these basses since I got mine but had my first "hot" issue yesterday. I have used the bass with my Ampeg PF-350 head in practice for about three or four weeks. No issues, fairly loud as we practice at full volume. Took it out to the first gig last night and I kept cutting out. I thought I had a bad cable because I had brought a few cheapos out with me so I swapped out the cable and it was still happening. I finally realized that the amp was clipping and the limiter light was going crazy. I did not adjust the volume between moving the head from practice to the gid, everything was pretty much the same, just a different house cab. I pushed in the -15db button and turned up the volume a bit to be heard in the mix and it still clipped and the limiter cut me out a few times. I am guessing this is the same "hot" issue that you have all been describing. Any advice?
 
#408
moten33 said:
OK, so I have been shouting the praises of these basses since I got mine but had my first "hot" issue yesterday. I have used the bass with my Ampeg PF-350 head in practice for about three or four weeks. No issues, fairly loud as we practice at full volume. Took it out to the first gig last night and I kept cutting out. I thought I had a bad cable because I had brought a few cheapos out with me so I swapped out the cable and it was still happening. I finally realized that the amp was clipping and the limiter light was going crazy. I did not adjust the volume between moving the head from practice to the gid, everything was pretty much the same, just a different house cab. I pushed in the -15db button and turned up the volume a bit to be heard in the mix and it still clipped and the limiter cut me out a few times. I am guessing this is the same "hot" issue that you have all been describing. Any advice?
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Do the mod or change out the preamp (which I'm planning to do). That preamp really needs a redesign. There's no reason for it to be so hot and overdriven! The mod only gives you more control of the volume. It doesn't change the nature of the preamp. It's still HOT!
 
#409
moten33 said:
OK, so I have been shouting the praises of these basses since I got mine but had my first "hot" issue yesterday. I have used the bass with my Ampeg PF-350 head in practice for about three or four weeks. No issues, fairly loud as we practice at full volume. Took it out to the first gig last night and I kept cutting out. I thought I had a bad cable because I had brought a few cheapos out with me so I swapped out the cable and it was still happening. I finally realized that the amp was clipping and the limiter light was going crazy. I did not adjust the volume between moving the head from practice to the gid, everything was pretty much the same, just a different house cab. I pushed in the -15db button and turned up the volume a bit to be heard in the mix and it still clipped and the limiter cut me out a few times. I am guessing this is the same "hot" issue that you have all been describing. Any advice?
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*makes mental note "bring a back-up bass". I'm lazy..and sometimes do not..but would hate to have that experience.


Mine seemed CRAZILY bright through 0db port. Bordering on potentially piercing at a high volume. (In some of the frequencies). This was from the minute I plugged it in. The -15db suited it perfectly though. The "wincing" moments went away immediately. Though now, I have NOT experienced that sort of reaction that you are having. That's a whole different ball of bananas. You might want to replace whole pre-amp. Though I would try it again at home...it's possible there was something funky going on with the house power at the gig you were at. My buddy has a Tele that at some gigs..that particular guitar will make a tube amp go ****ing insane. Like, dive for the power cord to kill it crazy sounding. But it seems to only do it at certain places. At my house, that tele sounds like ****. (dirty power I'm sure), but at his house, you can record it clean with a mic in front of the vox and it sounds chimey and clean. like ultra clean. So what the f*ck?
 
#410
I have the Ampeg PF-350 too, and just sitting at home, with the pad on, I still was getting limiter light action. The other problem was that I couldn't get the action right, and although I'm OK at minor adjustments I wasn't going to start messing with the truss rod.

Judging from the previous poster, I'm glad I took it back a few days ago to GC (along with a pedal that I bought that I ended up not liking) and upgraded to an Ibanez SR375M, which I used at rehearsal on Sunday and it rocked the house. Just me, but I'm also leery of GC only "exclusives".
 
#411
Trust me, it's the preamp. It's designed with the gain ALL the way up and unless you install a gain pot, it's gonna stay HOT! The mod just gives a smoother volume control whereas before it was either off or on all the way. Like I said, either swap out the preamp or deal with it.

A Bartolini is going in mine!
 
#412
It is weird though that I have played for three or four practices that are 3+ hours long at almost full volume with no issues and then during a one hour set and then a second one hour set at the end of the night (it was a fundraiser gig at the local bar where we are the "house band") the issue would creap up. Mayb it was the power as suggested. I am sure it has the preamp issue as well but od that it wouldn't come up at almost the same volume level as practice in a shorter amount of time.
 
#414
zaviere said:
anyone having a similar issue? I got the new sub ray4 in white and I've noticed that if I play a little aggressive on the e string, it sounds like it clips. I'm running the bass thru some pedals into a gk mb200 and a tc electronic rs210 cab. I also have a sterling ray34 that does not do the same. I found that if I cut some of the bass on the ray4 and just boost the bass on the mb200 it seems to be fine. I have changed the battery as well. is it defective or am I possibly doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

Mine was doing the same thing. I thought it was clipping the input of my amp, but after some testing...including plugging directly into a mixing console so that I could get a more accurate meter and control of the input level, I determined that playing aggressively on the E string would actually clip the onboard preamp. Not sure if it's defective or not, but I was able to eliminate it by lowering the pickup.
 
#417
I have the sb4&haven't experienced any of what some of you guys(girls) describe. The volume pot is very smooth&gradual in rolling up&down. No clipping of the preamp or my amp at all. I wonder if this is only common to the ray34. Any of you sb4 owners having this problem? The p'up wiring is different in the two basses so I'm curious.
 
#418
Gimme4 said:
I have the sb4&haven't experienced any of what some of you guys(girls) describe. The volume pot is very smooth&gradual in rolling up&down. No clipping of the preamp or my amp at all. I wonder if this is only common to the ray34. Any of you sb4 owners having this problem? The p'up wiring is different in the two basses so I'm curious.
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Is yours a SUB SB4 or a regular SBMM SB4? These are the SUB series we're talking about.
 
#420
I have a 5 string set of DR black beauties that I bought for a 5er I had for a few days before I decided I hate 5 string basses. I've heard of BEAD tuning on basses and was thinking about trying that on my sub. Anyone try this? Pros and cons? Thoughts/opinions?
 
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