Stingray and bongo with tube amps

[bottomzone]

Try out some other amps until you find something that sounds good to you. Maybe Mesa, Gallien Krueger, Aguilar, and Phil Jones to name a few.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

I've got the Bongo 5 HH and the bass 400+.
I generally don't gig the 400+ due to weight, but I'd probably use channel 1 with volume at 4 and master at 3 for a medium room.
Bongo plus Mesa tube amp sounds huge!

 

[logdrum]

According to the lawyers of Clarence Leo Fender estate, when he sold Music Man to Ernie Ball, there was a binding clause that Music Man basses for the next 75 years should not be connected to any CBS Fender product and that includes future owners of Fender.

So no, do not connect it to the Fender Bassman or any Fender amp. You could be liable for legal damages.

 

[matbard]

Two days ago I attended to a bass-only event here in Italy. We had a Fender ACB 50 (mine), a vintage Ampeg V-4B with a fridge cabinet and the new Jaad Freer Audio Volta (the very same unit toured by Kevin Scott) with a 410 Venere cab. We tested all the amps with many basses, and I brought my MM Stingray Retro '76: the combination resulted easily as the best of show overall.

 

[Nebadon2000]

I have to say, I sometimes struggle to get a really satisfying tone from a StingRay through an SVT.

I just find it takes a bit more work to get it dialled in without fighting it - which really boils down to how I like to have the 2band EQ StingRay set.

Too much bass boost at the instrument, and the tube in the SVT preamp compresses, acting like a tape bias - you end up with totally out of control woofing lows, mushy mids, painful razor sharp sizzle when you try to brighten things up again.I

I think the key is to be judicious the a 2band EQ, or not veer too far from the centre detents on a 3band EQ, taking advantage of the additional mid-band.

That said, I've got lovely results out of my Marshall, and Sound City tube amps, just utilising their tonestacks - but perhaps a significant contributing factor was that I was not using an Ampeg 8x10 cabinet.

I've also heard people other than myself manage to get great tones out of a StingRay & SVT - here's one of my all time favourites :


He is playing with a pick right on top of bridge may have a lot to do with his tone; yes it is a good one

 

[Tim Skaggs]

The bass has a volume knob on it. When you turn one way, it has less output.

….and also has a really funky effect on the tone along with a very non-linear taper of the output, much like an on-off switch. Some might like it, some not so much. Mine has a new push-pull pot to switch between series & parallel of the pickup wiring and that new pot has a much more linear taper.

All done because I was in the not-so-much camp AND the volume function awareness club. With the sparkling extra highs of the pickup in parallel, it was the best win-win-win of whatever week I did it last year.

If only the volume control could dial a few pounds off the bass….

 

[Geri O]

My Stingray SR5s sounded great with SVTs.

Hot output from the bass aside (something I never had a problem with using my active Mike Lulls with somewhat hot output with my then-SVT rig), I would imagine that the SVTs would do for Stingrays (I've seen for myself) and Bongos what they do for all basses....make a unique tone that a lot of folks find very desirable for them.

I seldom, if ever, used the tone controls on any of my basses, so I wasn't tossing an already-EQed signal to the SVT. Really, the only reason I looked for alternatives to SVTs was the weight and manageability. I found that and more with the Mesa Subway series. (the musclemen around here that can carry an SVT on each shoulder, your responses to that are so predictable, so don't bother, unless it will make your manhood feel better).

I do still love seeing SVTs on backline gigs. Regardless of what bass(es) I'm playing.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

Some folks may find hotter pickups into a tube amp to sound better than lower output ones. YMMV, but volume knobs do exist and the great part about active basses is it won't affect the tone (that the bass puts out) if you turn the volume down.

I say go for it, I see PLENTY of bassists using MM basses with SVTs.

 

[johnpbass]

I think Stingrays sound great into a tube amp.
Interestingly enough, I think my Stingrays have a fairly low output compared to some other active basses.

 

[Wood and Wire]

He is playing with a pick right on top of bridge may have a lot to do with his tone; yes it is a good one

Which is how I used to play, with my pinkie hooked around the back of the bridge for the first year or so of owning a StingRay, and I could never get that amount of body, or heft to the tone - very clear top end, with a quite nasal midrange, and very tight bottom but no real heft without relying on the amp & cab, which usually just muddies things up.​

​

I ended up changing position after the guitarist in my band played my StingRay on one song, and being a guitarist was strumming up near the end of the fretboard - it sounded amazing.

I just can't get comfortable playing in that position - I'd either need to wear the bass below my knees, or above my belly - and the strings are way too floppy, with too wide an oscillation.

I settled slightly in front of the pickup, which for me is the best combination of natural hand position, tone, and string response.

 

[Wood and Wire]

….and also has a really funky effect on the tone along with a very non-linear taper of the output, much like an on-off switch.

Not on a StingRay; it's a buffered output from the preamp, so the volume control has no effect on the tone.

Of course, the output level will affect how the input of a tube preamp reacts.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

Not on a StingRay; it's a buffered output from the preamp, so the volume control has no effect on the tone.

Of course, the output level will affect how the input of a tube preamp reacts.

Volume control definitely had an effect on tone of my SBMM SUB series Stingray. It looses significant low end at anything less than max volume, but the original volume control was more like a switch. 1/8 turn went from max to very low output. The other 7/8 of the range had little change.

 

[agedhorse]

Volume control definitely had an effect on tone of my SBMM SUB series Stingray. It looses significant low end at anything less than max volume, but the original volume control was more like a switch. 1/8 turn went from max to very low output. The other 7/8 of the range had little change.

Is it possible that it was "repaired" or "upgraded" by somebody under-qualified to do the work and simply screwed it up?

 

[FRoss6788]

Volume control definitely had an effect on tone of my SBMM SUB series Stingray. It looses significant low end at anything less than max volume, but the original volume control was more like a switch. 1/8 turn went from max to very low output. The other 7/8 of the range had little change.

The electronics are likely not the same as Ernie Ball products.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

Is it possible that it was "repaired" or "upgraded" by somebody under-qualified to do the work and simply screwed it up?

I don't think so. I bought it new & it had very high output when stock. I played it that way for a couple months into a GK MB500 amp which has a -10db pad that pretty well tamed the high output of the bass. I started occasionally using the old Fender Studio bass amp. It didn't like the high output (unless we played Grand Funk songs) & I didn't like the tone with the volume turned down. I read on the web that pretty much everyone encountered the high output issue. There was a long thread here on TB regarding the high output, a mod / fix, and some mention of a change in future models; Sterling by Music Man SUB Ray4 and Ray5

I didn't do the specific mod as outlined, but I did try the pickup in parallel, liked the results a lot, and made the change with a push-pull pot to go back to series if I want to, which I very rarely do.

I can turn down the volume on the bass now, but I don't need to with the pickup in parallel which is how I run it 99% of the time. To me, it sounded like the pickup should have always been in parallel & putting it in series was a mistake to the point people were publishing a fix for the output issue. As for my stock volume pot, it could have been flaky from birth.

 

[Cory rich40]

It always works well for me.

How'd you like that ACB50?

I love the ACB50!! It's an awesome rig

 

[Wood and Wire]

Volume control definitely had an effect on tone of my SBMM SUB series Stingray. It looses significant low end at anything less than max volume, but the original volume control was more like a switch. 1/8 turn went from max to very low output. The other 7/8 of the range had little change.

Either that's unique to your instrument, and not by design, or SBMM do things differently to EBMM.

I wouldn't expect a Squire to be exactly like a Fender, for example.


* also, a volume control effecting tone typically rolls off top end, not low end - so something is amiss.

 

[Wood and Wire]

To me, it sounded like the pickup should have always been in parallel

Yeah, StingRay pickups are wired in parallel.

 

[mikeswals]

For 25 years I've been playing StingRays into various tube amps, mainly Mesas. Sounds freakin' great!

 

[Tim Skaggs]

Either that's unique to your instrument, and not by design, or SBMM do things differently to EBMM.

I wouldn't expect a Squire to be exactly like a Fender, for example.


* also, a volume control effecting tone typically rolls off top end, not low end - so something is amiss.

The hot output thing is definitely not unique to the SBMM Stingrays; the internet is full of questions & solutions about that.
One thing that very well may have been unique about my bass is the volume pot. Its non-linear taper was extreme, however the new pot has a similar effect when the pickup is in series.

The high end roll-off with volume decrease is definitely well known with passive instruments & treble bleed circuits to counteract, but I don't see it being very closely related to that scenario, being a 25k pot & active preamp.