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Sterling by Music Man SUB Ray4 and Ray5

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#943
Halvorsen said:
Stopped by my local GC and had them call the warehouse about my Sub Ray5 Walnut. They said 11/08/13 before it ships. I'm not counting on it showing up before December.....:rollno:
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Why don't you get it from one of our many independent dealers? They have them in stock, as that has been a color mainly available through them. Black was exclusive for GC/MF.

Check on our website and contact any of our EDN dealers.
 
#949
Can anyone tell me if there is a problem with these basses? I have heard something about "hot output" which distorts the sound.. if so, how is it fixed? I really want to buy one because I want this MM sound without spending 2000 dollars!! :)
 
#950
filipposbass said:
Can anyone tell me if there is a problem with these basses? I have heard something about "hot output" which distorts the sound.. if so, how is it fixed? I really want to buy one because I want this MM sound without spending 2000 dollars!! :)
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I own a Mint Green SUB Ray4 and I own a MM Stingray and I can tell you that the SUB doesn't sound at all like the Stingray, in fact, I was very disappointed when I plugged it in and heard it. Its a great looking bass and has great build quality, but where it lacks is in its electronics.
 
#951
lostrings said:
I own a Mint Green SUB Ray4 and I own a MM Stingray and I can tell you that the SUB doesn't sound at all like the Stingray, in fact, I was very disappointed when I plugged it in and heard it. Its a great looking bass and has great build quality, but where it lacks is in its electronics.
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I agree with this to a point. Bargain bass, bargain electronics. My Ray5 doesn't do the Ray thing well. It doesn't even sound all that great. Once I clean the tone up a bit with an outboard preamp and a compressor, though, I can assure you - it ain't bad.
 
#952
I own the mint green and tried it side by side with my friends 06 mm stingray. They were very similiar. I actually prefered the sub ray only because I could play it out and not worry about someone stealing it. I also never noticed a problem with the pre amp being too hot. It is louder than my passive basses but thats it. Go get one they get close to the ray sound at a very good price.
 
#954
filipposbass said:
Can anyone tell me if there is a problem with these basses? I have heard something about "hot output" which distorts the sound.. if so, how is it fixed? I really want to buy one because I want this MM sound without spending 2000 dollars!! :)
Click to expand...

I didn't notice any objectionable distortion though I did have to turn my amp down much lower than I do with my passive Jazz bass. The distortion may depend very much on the style you play, how hard you hit, and the preamp of your amplifier itself.

I bought my Ray5 for playing hard rock, so if there was any distortion it was very mild and not objectionable. I played direct into a MB500 with the -10db input pad turned on. That said, it's quite possible with the high gain in the bass preamp, the electronics tolerances can result in no distortion on one bass, and unacceptable distortion on another bass.

When you're talking about a $300 instrument there are things you must expect to be lower quality to hit the price point, and electronics are the main one.

The only thing I demand on a $300 instrument:
- properly aligned neck/body, nut and bridge.
- properly aligned routes and drilling for pickguards, tuners and pickups.

Everything else can be typically upgraded or replaced. A guitar with misaligned parts will always be a piece of junk.

That means it's reasonable to expect *some* of the following:
- poor pots (notchy, bent shafts, scratchy)
- poor jack and switch (crackles)
- cheap tuners that slip
- unimpressive pickups
- finish imperfections

Most of these are easy to fix and still be a good value. It's unlikely you'd have *all* those problems so it doesn't take much to take a value priced guitar and turn it into a very good guitar.
 
#955
Hot output fix.............bring down the pickup height. I switched out the electronics to a full EMG system and still had hot output. I adjusted the pickup height down. Mine is almost flush to the body. I can turn it up all the way now and not have to adjust my amp. By the way, the EMG MM pickup doesn't quite sound like the real thing either but it's a nice sound. And clean.
 
#956
I don't own a Sub Ray4/5 yet, but reading this thread has me thinking about buying a SUB Ray5 as my first fiver... when some new color choices come out.

I'd definitely want to have a good solution in hand to limit the voltage output before committing to the buy.

SBMM said:
...and the back of the PCB


View attachment 343138

Let me know if you need anything else!
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Schematic?

As was previously mentioned, changing the SMD resistors on the PCB is the definitive answer to the gain problem. It would be much easier to look at the schematic to do this, as looking at the PCB requires someone to spend a lot of time tracing the circuit and working backwards. I'm not really into reverse engineering the product to fix what seems to be a manufacturing defect.

If we had a schematic to look at, then tweaking the circuit's gain would be easy. A really nice fix to the problem would be to install a volume pot with a push-pull switch that could do some resistor substitution to allow switching between a normal output and a padded output level, or two different output levels of the user's choosing.
 
#957
I bought a Ray5 about a month ago. I had the hot output issue with mine as well. I ripped out the stock pickup and preamp and replaced it with a Bartolini pickup and Seymour Duncan's MM 3 band preamp. I also added a three way mini toggle to allow me to have parallel, single coil and series tones with the flick off a switch. The bass is a beast now with no clipping. I thought the stock pickup sounded pretty good, I would've kept it but I wanted to try the Bart with it.
 
#958
Of note - I also bought a Delano pickup to try as well but due to the string spacing, I didn't install it. The Delano is built for spacing closer to 18mm and the Ray5 is 16mm if I'm not mistaken. The Bartolini covers it, no problem. The Delano would probably work but the B and G strings were barely lined up with the edge of the pole pieces. I wanted to try a Nordstrand, but the 6-8 week wait time for him to make it put me off. If someone gets a Nordy, make sure you order the OLP spacing, not the Lakland. The OLP spacing is narrow, Lakland isn't
 
#959
I just dropped in a Kent Armstrong MM4 with a series parallel push pull pot, man just incredible!I have to figure out & post a sound clip,I believe in series the one that sounds more scooped? well it nails the stingray tone! & parallel more mids just killer the articulation & clarity. this is the least amount I've ever spent on a bass & I'm the most pleased with.
I'm freak en shocked
Invalid Link Removed
 
#960
IMG_2391_zps889bfff3.jpg


yeay!got mine last week, I'm a happy guy...this buy is a value for money:)
 
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