Stingray popularity decline?

[dirtychinchilla]

I went to the final warped tour last week, I can assure you ska/punk and metal bassists are still rocking the stingray hard.

Final? Is it over??

 

[Jscriv]

Final? Is it over??

Yeah, last year they tour the whole country. I guess they might do like a one week thing going forward but warped tour as we know it is done this year

 

[mcnach]

Paul S. Denman...

I don't understand your point. Is that clipping anything?
That's a beautiful Stingray sound, by the way, and a good example of how a Stingray is not all clank as some suggest.

 

[mcnach]

They addressed the "zing" with the specials released in 2018. Definitely thick and vintage sounding, IMHO. But if you crank up the treble, and you really can max it, you can bring back the zingy character if you want.

I know they changed the preamp voicing, mostly on the mids control, but the 'zing' is only there if you want it, from the beginning. I think we tend to associate the Stingray with that sizzle on the top end, but a lot of people have recorded without it... take John Deacon (Queen), Bernard Edwards (Chic), Cliff Williams (AC/DC), the guy from Sade I just watched a clip from whose name I already forgot and a bunch more...

I'm quite curious to try a new one although I doubt I'd be tempted: I still love my 2002 (with a John East 3-band) and the price hike, ouch.

 

[5StringBlues]

I don't think the Stingray's popularity is in decline, I just think that the.. uh.. their appeal is becoming more selective.

 

[mcnach]

My 2 cents: I always wrote off stingrays as their 'iconic sound' is that trebley 'zing'. Not my cuppa tea. Not to mention it is the sound demos usually focus on.

Then I saw King Crimson and the badazz Tony Levin with his SR5. Thick, meaty, not at all 'zingy'/thin. Then I tried one. That treble knob moves, who knew? I think it can do thick, punchy, meaty. So with the sounds being more old school focused, it might be that folks don't realize the versatility a stingray has.

A 4 string black with maple is on my GAS shortlist now. And yes their sterling/SUB line are to me the best new bass you can buy for $300drooldrooldrool

ssssht! you're not supposed to mention the treble control, it's a secret!
The same with the fact that both treble and bass controls on the 2-band are interactive and you can get a mids-in-your-face tone as well, not just the scooped tone that the "dime all controls" brigade would have you think

Having said that, in all seriousness... it took me a bit to figure the 2-band preamp too. My first 'real' Stingray was the 2002 2-band. I loved everything about it but I was not entirely happy with the preamp, being used to 3-bands... so I put a John East preamp with the sweepable mids. It's essentially a 2-band inspired on the '76 model, to which a mids module has been added.
Later, I found a lovely 4-string SUB, 2-EQ, and bought that. It sounded very punchy, and I never felt I needed a 3-band on it. Then I found the pickup was wired in series in that one, which accounted for the extra low mids and I think that configuration works better than the parallel one if using a 2-band.

 

[mcnach]

Sounds good, but are the necks still like baseball bats?

You asked as if that were a bad thing!



To me a baseball bat neck is a Warwick Corvette from the mid 2000s... or even some Precisions, but the Stingray, while being wide, it has a relatively slim cross-section, which is what makes it feel good in *my* hands. I'm the guy who has bought Jazz basses and put Precision necks in them...

If you prefer Jazz basses, then yes, you're probably not going to like Stingrays.

 

[mouthmw]

I'd just like to add a few things.

On the subject of "active basses and Stingrays being too hot, and having a signal that clips pedals". That is huge BS. I have a pedalboard with 10 pedals, been through your J, P, PJ and Rays. My old 2 band USA SUB had a signal slightly LOWER than my passive P with EMG GZR. The 3 band Stingray after that had a signal somewhat on par with the EMG GZR, and now my John East MM preamp (basically your 2 band ray preamp with sweepable mids control) is somewhat on par - I bump the low mids just a bit. My previous J basses (all passive) had the lowest output of them all. I never have to use the active input on my GK amp, as my P and Ray don't clip the input. Which is good, because active inputs suck ass.

NONE of them ever clipped any of my pedals, or behaved bad with a fuzz pedal. In fact, my ray sounds better with a big muff than my P, because it's more focused. It sounds great with OD, Phaser, envelope filter, you name it.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but along with P basses, Stingrays are my favorite looking and sounding basses, ever. And the logo IMO is brilliant.

Baseball neck? Meh, I'd take those and P necks over the skinny J neck any day.

Gassing for the new model, hopefully I'll get one when they arrive in Europe.

 

[corndog]

I greatly prefer my fully custom warmoth P (Jazz neck) or a G&L ASAT, both of which can be bought for several hundred dollars less than a typical new MM.

MM necks feel like playing a 2x4. They are basically just a bass full of compromises, not very versatile or particularly great tone wise. P's sound better, J's and G&L's are more versatile, the MM just kinda falls short in both respects.

You couldn’t be more wrong. 2x4 neck? Have you played a Slo Special? A Jazz more versatile than an HH or HS? Have you played an HH?

A lot of folks here will say the ASAT is nothing but a compromise.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Sounds good, but are the necks still like baseball bats?

Were their necks ever like baseball bats? The SR profile is, essentially, a P bass. To me, a Warwick Thumb is an example of a baseball bat.

 

[mouthmw]

Were their necks ever like baseball bats? The SR profile is, essentially, a P bass. To me, a Warwick Thumb is an example of a baseball bat.

Agreed. On top of that, they're more like B necks (1.625"), rather than C necks (1.75"), so they're not exactly in the realm of super chunky P necks.

 

[brianrost]

Back then, a heck of a lot of people were dumping Pre-Ernie Ball Stingrays, and replacing them with Ernie Ball versions

I was writing about EBMM Rays. One local store had three used Rays hanging on the wall one time I walked in, $350 each. Priced in the local wantads were similar. That was about 40% of a new one at the time.

 

[Marcus Willett]

I have that album! Bought it when it came out. I finally got to see him a couple years ago at a nearby jazz club.

Those were good times, after a 20 year absence I'm back in Florida so I'll need to go check him out again.

I had one for a while. It was my main bass, but I got sick of that tone. I also don't slap.

I'm no doubt in the minority on this, but I've never liked the slap tone of a Stingray. For me, the quintessential slap tone is the Marcus Miller (i.e. Fender Jazz with pre) tone. When I think of the Stingray, I think of Denman, Palladino, Edwards and other great fingerstyle players who got that thick meaty yet still tight and defined sound. The slap tone of a Ray always seemed....obnoxious to me. Of course, I know there's not many folks who agree with me on that.

 

[DangYankee]

It’s the same width as an American P Bass

I hate those too, that's why I have the Jazz neck.

 

[FunkySpoo]

Weird and interesting how people have different opinions on a product, especially necks. I had a Stingray5 and thought the neck felt like a pencil. The neck on my Spector Euro5LX took some getting used to as it feels much much wider than my SR5

 

[Edmang]

Sounds good, but are the necks still like baseball bats?

Never felt a Stingray had a baseball bat neck. Only bass I played that had a baseball bat neck was on a G&L L2000.

 

[Bassbeater]

I don't really like them, never have.

 

[amper]

The necks on my two basses have dramatically different profiles. If anything, my Warwick feels much more baseball batty than my StingRay, and I love them both.

Also, I didn't buy a StingRay or a Warwick in the early 2000s because I was influenced by popular bands of the 1990s who played them, I bought my StingRay for her sound and my Warwick for her feel, but I do think it's funny that my friend Joe Rolland from Tapping the Vein went from a StingRay to a Tobias, and I went from a Fender to a StingRay and a Warwick around the same time.

It does seem like the Warwick bubinga Corvette Standards were really popular in the 90s/00s, probably because they were the cheapest of the Warwick basses and were sold at GC.

 

[Jim Carr]

I don't understand your point. Is that clipping anything?
That's a beautiful Stingray sound, by the way, and a good example of how a Stingray is not all clank as some suggest.

Point being that it sounds gorgeous and is used in some of the most wonderful music I know.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Jim Carr]

...a good example of how a Stingray is not all clank as some suggest.

Indeed, yes, and the studio recording sound is even more amazing than the live recordings.