Stingray players, how do you EQ?

[metron]

On my special, I go with +/- small amounts around the detent and mainly just with treble and bass. Mids usually sit at 50% with an occasional boost. I don’t love scooped mids.

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

View attachment 4726629
View attachment 4726630
View attachment 4726631

thats the miracle of the preamp though! You can put the bass boost really high, and then to avoid that distortion cut the volume really low and then also be able to have the treble boosted at a low volume

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

Here we are. The oft forgotten secret to a good StingRay tone is never maxing out the volume knob.
Got me: Vol 75%, Bass 75%, Treble between 30-55% depending on music.
Where you play matters, too. Plucking up closer to the neck gives a much rounder, more P bass tonality.
(1978 2 band)

it drives me up the wall every stingray demo is done with the player playing directly above that bridge pickup and the volume and treble at full blast lol. I get it, a lot of people like that sound maybe even 60% of musicman people prefer that sound but if they just had even 10 seconds of playing near the neck pocket they’d sell so many basses lol

the volume knob is really the key to making the bass and treble knobs as powerful and cohesive as they can be.

I've done hundreds of gigs with a variety of Stingrays. A lot of what you do with the onboard preamp will be informed by your rig, and the circumstances of your band. Are you in a dense acoustic environment and need to cut? Are you in a three piece and need to fill and cover? That kind of thing. Most of my gigs have been through a Markbass LM III through a variety of cab setups. I play finger style and mostly pluck near or just in front of the pickup. Most of my gigs are bass-guitar-drums.

On with the show:

Pre EBMM 2-band, downtuned to Eb, three-piece band:
Bass: around 75% or more if the room will bear it. Full if outdoors.
Treble: around 20% - adjust (usually upward) as necessary, it's a subtle adjustment that is needed to bring the preamp "to life"
Volume: backed off just a hair from full to tame it and also because there is a little hum on full. Some of these preamps have ferocious gain and desk operators will often ask you to haul it in, which needs to be done with care since, of all the Stingrays I've tried, these preamps are the ones where the tone thickens as you back off the volume.

this applies I think for all the early ebmm 2 banders! I also find weirdly that when the volume level is low enough on the old preamp it feels like the treble knob actually beefs up the tone, adding a kind of warmth to it. Where as when the volume knob is at full blast you get a lot of fret noise. Those old preamps do some really interesting things with compression

 

[drTSTingray]

Is it true that there is more boost available on the new specials? I thought the extra 9 volts was just there for headroom?

Yes - the bass boost at and towards the max seems to be more in Bongo/reflex EQ territory than previous Stingray (either 2 or 3 band). Remember they’ve got neodymium pick ups as well as the 18 volt preamp. I’ve never used either my SR4HH or SR5HH Specials in a band setting with more than a very small amount of bass boost.

 

[bigswifty1]

I also find weirdly that when the volume level is low enough on the old preamp it feels like the treble knob actually beefs up the tone, adding a kind of warmth to it. Where as when the volume knob is at full blast you get a lot of fret noise. Those old preamps do some really interesting things with compression

Agreed, those pre-EBMM preamps have a learning curve to them IMO. Some unintuitive interactions between the controls. Well worth it though!

 

[Jim C]

I can't understand how you 2 EQ users deal with sub harmonics with the bass control full up.
Try this test:
Set up a stage worthy cabinet and amp for stage volume with a Fender bass. Turn the passive bas tone full up and set the amp EQ for a clean but deep full rage tone.
Now try a SR 2EQ with the bass at half and treble 1/2 - 3/4. Notice how similar the overall EQ is.
Now turn the bass control full up. Yes it sounds vey full and rich but look at the woofer(s) in your cab as the cones try to dance outside the basket.
Better yet, go back to a Fender and push (not pluck) the strings toward the pickup without touching, The cones move nicely. Do the same with a SR with bass EQ at 1/2. You will get similar results. Now do this with the SR bass control full up. There will be a huge amount of excursion. @Passinwind can tell you better about the pre-amp design but as I understand it, it goes very low.
With an amp like an SWR without a HPF, it's a speaker killer combination.

(btw, I used my 83' bass full up for a lot of years before I discovered the extremely low freq. bump; I still like the volume full up but there is some interactivity of EQ depending on volume)

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

I can't understand how you 2 EQ users deal with sub harmonics with the bass control full up.
Try this test:
Set up a stage worthy cabinet and amp for stage volume with a Fender bass. Turn the passive bas tone full up and set the amp EQ for a clean but deep full rage tone.
Now try a SR 2EQ with the bass at half and treble 1/2 - 3/4. Notice how similar the overall EQ is.
Now turn the bass control full up. Yes it sounds vey full and rich but look at the woofer(s) in your cab as the cones try to dance outside the basket.
Better yet, go back to a Fender and push (not pluck) the strings toward the pickup without touching, The cones move nicely. Do the same with a SR with bass EQ at 1/2. You will get similar results. Now do this with the SR bass control full up. There will be a huge amount of excursion. @Passinwind can tell you better about the pre-amp design but as I understand it, it goes very low.
With an amp like an SWR without a HPF, it's a speaker killer combination.

(btw, I used my 83' bass full up for a lot of years before I discovered the extremely low freq. bump; I still like the volume full up but there is some interactivity of EQ depending on volume)

i actually started playing sabres cause of how low and deep they sound but recently I played a 79 fretless stingray, the thing was incredibly low sounding, so much so that I had to check if it was tuned to bead or something, bass was at full blast too! It was nuts

 

[Vanheusen77]

I agree that the bass knob can be a bit tricky since the boost is very low.

 

[jjk2007]

I had a 94-95 SR 5 that I took all over the country and played in multiple different rooms for a solid 3 years. My go to settings were treble and mids flat with just a tiny bass bump and set to parallel. When we played boomy/hollow rooms I would often switch to series or SC and also adjust mids accordingly. Always pulled some great tones out of that bass!

 

[Vanheusen77]

I think I gravitate towards bass between flat-75% and usually mids and treble flat. Would be cool to make other more extreme settings work as well! I do love these new specials…

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

Another funny thing about that old 2 band eq is when the volume is on a low setting the bass eq also increases volume, where as at full blast it doesn’t really change the volume much!

 

[Dave W]

On my 2 Band models, I boost some bass and some treble...sometimes a lot. It sounds glorious!
On my 3 band SR5, I boost a tad of bass and mids as well as run the pickup in series.

 

[Vanheusen77]

From interviews I would guess that the "bass almost all the way up" is a common setting among many guys like Tony Levin, Flea etc.

 

[KaseOfBass]

From interviews I would guess that the "bass almost all the way up" is a common setting among many guys like Tony Levin, Flea etc.

I know there’s a video with Tony Levin saying he turns the mids all the way down on the 3-band pre to get it to sound more like the 2-band.

 

[tubatodd]

Just curious. It seems a fair amount of high profile players boost a lot of or even max out the bass on the preamp which seems a little extreme to me. Since I’m sort of new to this bass design I’m curious how people use the eq.

I started something new recently. I created a Google Keep note with my bass settings so that know what I liked previously.

According to my notes....

Ray34
Bass: 60%
Mids: 90-100%
Treble: 10-20%

Ray4 (with Aguilar pickup)
Bass: 60%
Treble: 20-40%

(50% is the center detent)

 

[bassist4dalord]

I’ve got a SBMM Ray5 with the 2-band cut/boost preamp. I run my volume about 60% and start out with bass and treble at the center detent. I add or remove bass or treble slightly off center as needed and I’ve found this approach works really well.

This is the first active bass I’ve had in 15 years or so; I was 15 when I owned my last one and had a tendency to run everything wide open. I like to think I’ve matured since then.