Sterling Stingray too hot for Rumble 800

[Ryan Kohler]

How much of the active preamp do you have boosted?

None. I included that info in my original post but i misworded it. I meant to say that the treble and bass are neutral on my BASS. They are at the middle indent position. Certainly not dimed, that’s for sure.

 

[Ryan Kohler]

That’s a pretty common thing with those basses. Lower the pickup. That should solve your problem.

Yeah, i might have to try this. Damn this bass is loud.

 

[Ryan Kohler]

I don't know, I've got a little Rumble 100 and it handles my Sterling Ray5, I just turn the volume down on the bass. Those Sterling pickups are really hot, so as others mentioned you need to be mindful of unleashing too much.

That’s the problem though. It’s hard to find a sweet spot on my volume knob every practice/show. That seems like a finicky solution to me. I wish there was a way to play my bass at full volume and not explode my preamp. If there was a way to control the signal somewhere between my bass and my amp i would be interested.

 

[Ryan Kohler]

I had this issue when I played StingRays. Often times they would overdrive the input no matter what the EQ settings. When I lowered the pickup, the tone suffered. I put it through a TECH21 sansamp bass driver DI/pre. This helped, but I ultimately decided StingRays (and all active basses) weren’t for me.

I have a programmable sansamp di but i much prefer the tone of the rumble (when its not farting obviously.) The di is too mid scoopey for me and the overdrive is less natural to my ears.

 

[Ryan Kohler]

The pickups and the preamps on Sterling Ray 5 SUBS are very hot and you will be lucky to run it through anything with the volume on full.

Try the bass’s volume at 50%, plus you could drop the Gain volume on the Rumble right down.

The gain knob i have fully counterclockwise

 

[Ryan Kohler]

I had an active bass that behaved precisely that way when the battery was on the way out. Lower volume on the bass was fine, but full on would distort and make nasty sounds. My 2 cents.

I replaced the battery, so its brand new!

 

[Ryan Kohler]

You know Sterling produces non-SUB bases.....right? OP did not mention new or used.

It’s a used sterling sub 4 string

 

[Ryan Kohler]

Apparently the Sting Ray's hotness is a known issue!

Welcome to TalkBass, Ryan.

Other than that, try turning the Rumble's Gain fully counter-clockwise. It won't affect the volume, it's more of a pad to increase your bass signal, which you obviously don't need. Also, there is no "neutral" settings of EQ on the Rumble, 12 o'clock is not flat, they are all active. So turn down the Bass and Treble settings, at least, perhaps the Mids as well. Also, turn off the horns in the combo and cab. Lots of Rumblers do that, just because.

Come discuss in the Fender Rumble Club and get a free membership. See what the Rumblers there with active basses do.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

Thank you! Yeah, i do have the gain knob fully counterclockwise and it’s still not enough. I’ll head over to rumble club!!

 

[Lance Bunyon]

Apparently the Sting Ray's hotness is a known issue!

Welcome to TalkBass, Ryan.

Other than that, try turning the Rumble's Gain fully counter-clockwise. It won't affect the volume, it's more of a pad to increase your bass signal, which you obviously don't need. Also, there is no "neutral" settings of EQ on the Rumble, 12 o'clock is not flat, they are all active. So turn down the Bass and Treble settings, at least, perhaps the Mids as well. Also, turn off the horns in the combo and cab. Lots of Rumblers do that, just because.

Come discuss in the Fender Rumble Club and get a free membership. See what the Rumblers there with active basses do.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

This. Lower the gain, lower the pickups, back off on the basses preamp. And if you can get enough volume without cranking the basses volume I don't see the issue.

 

[Seth DuSith]

One thing you can do is buy a cheap EQ pedal with a volume knob, and use it to dial out some over powered frequencies, and lower the over all volume. I find that my bass sounds better when I have the bass knob under 12 I clock. It's a very powerful bass boost

 

[Tim Skaggs]

If you have some kind of limiter / compressor with a level control to run through, you can pad down the output of the bass. I bought a new Sterling Stingray SUB in Jan ‘22 & had the same problem. I rewired the pickup in parallel & that took care of the high output issue. I used a push-pull pot so I can switch back to series by pulling up the volume control, but I never use that setting.

 

[-Stingray]

Battery, battery, battery.

 

[Yahboy]

Try lower the pickups height to let it output close to your passive bass.

Ray4/5 has hot preamp actually. Meanwhile, the current Ray4 maybe wire in series and the stock pup has 4 wire compare to early pup has only 2 wire and only wire in parallel.

Or, how about install a trim pot at onboard preamp ?

 

[Bob Coldwell]

Does the bass have an internal trimpot gain control?

 

[2F/2F]

Your description isn’t cutting it for a theory to be formed. Post a video.

 

[Seth DuSith]

If you have some kind of limiter / compressor with a level control to run through, you can pad down the output of the bass. I bought a new Sterling Stingray SUB in Jan ‘22 & had the same problem. I rewired the pickup in parallel & that took care of the high output issue. I used a push-pull pot so I can switch back to series by pulling up the volume control, but I never use that setting.

I didn't even think of that. Good suggestion

 

[Seth DuSith]

Battery, battery, battery.

Yea thats another one. I hear you get distortion when the battery is dying. Check your battery

 

[Ryan Kohler]

Have you tried it without the additional 210 connected?

Yes i have. Same thing.

 

[Ryan Kohler]

Yea thats another one. I hear you get distortion when the battery is dying. Check your battery

Not trying to be rude but i did address this idea in my post.

 

[Seth DuSith]

Not trying to be rude but i did address this idea in my post.

Well, he said it first, not me. The fact he said it has me questioning if I read it or not