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Stingray popularity decline?
- Thread starter nomaj
- Start date
Your time will come sooner than you think..I can feel it.
It makes sense to me as a drummer all the high end drums have low-mass hardware for maximum wood resonance. When I came over to bass land y’all had it all backwards talking about how badass your hardware was 
For me as a non SR lover, what I appreciate about them is the HH pickups and pickup spacing. I always check out basses that have HH SR style pickups.
I used to believe that high-mass cast bridges were superior. Then I learned otherwise.15 minutes is all I need. lol. Did I win something?
I mean that it is a bent plate, not a high mass cast. Most basses in the MMSR price range have nicer bridges. It works, but it could be better IMO. Sorry to offend the fanboys.
I used to think that too, but now I think surface contact is the thing. The difference between a bent plate Fender and a bent plate Lakland is the greater surface contact. Every high mass bridge I can think of is larger than a Fender bent plate. Again, more surface contact.
I think maybe structural rigidity may be what I'm actually going for. I don't find that in typical bent plate designs.
Scott, my main bass is a Classic Sabre which I love, wish they weren’t gone, but I get it. But, I think you have really created a new huge wave of interest with the Special, you are correct, this is the first new bass I have had any interest in in literally decades. Now, we just need to work on the neck and color combos. Great colors and great necks, just not paired in ways I would really like. Truly nit picking!!
It’s my understanding that rolled metal plate is stronger than cast metal. Cast metals do not have the grain structure that rolled and forged materials do. There’s more mass in cast bridges — and they look pretty, too — but they are not necessarily stronger.
32 combinations for each 4 and 5 string! 64 total!! Hopefully there is ONE you can fall for!
You mean the bridge that was originally on the Music Man Sabre?
32 combinations for each 4 and 5 string! 64 total!! Hopefully there is ONE you can fall for!
True, but a tobacco burst Cutlass with a maple neck, and a black Caprice with a maple neck, would really tip the balance.
Nothing beats the vintage satin tint on those Cutlasses/Caprices
- Dec 28, 2009
- 2,053
- 1,380
- Disclosures
- Endorsed by K.B. Guitars, Nordstrand Audio Pickups, Von York Strings and Gallien-Krueger Amps.
The one thing that I have always wondered about with the Stingrays is why they went away from having string through body bridges? My Stingray Classic has one and I totally prefer that style bridge over a standard bridge.
32 combinations for each 4 and 5 string! 64 total!! Hopefully there is ONE you can fall for!
You would think!! What I really want is the Cruz Teal with a maple fretboard. Oh well, we all have to compromise sometimes!
Good question, especially since that's the way that Mr. Fender originally designed it.
- Dec 28, 2009
- 2,053
- 1,380
- Disclosures
- Endorsed by K.B. Guitars, Nordstrand Audio Pickups, Von York Strings and Gallien-Krueger Amps.
When I was playing Music Man basses, I preferred the more modern Stingrays over the Stingray Classic because they had natural necks as opposed to gloss necks. Tummy cut and forearm cut on the body, making the ergonomics of the bass more comfortable and I like the 3 band eq over the 2 band for better versatility and volume output.
On my Stingray Classic, while I hated the glossy neck, I loved that it was birdseye maple instead of standard maple. The volume output on it was the equivalent of a passive bass. In fact, my custom shop P bass with Nordstrand Audio NP4a pickups in it has a higher volume output than my active Stingray Classic does but the 2 things I really loved about that Stingray Classic was the string through body bridge and out of any bass that I ever owned, be it Music Man or any other brand, that bass would sit in the mix like no other bass. It sounded as close to perfect as you can get when I would play it live.
On the night SEAL Team 6 killed Osama Bin Laden, a friends band came through town on tour. They asked me to sit in with them on a few songs so I did, and brought that bass. When I got there we realized that they all play through in ear monitors and don’t use any stage monitors at all. On the songs that I sat in on them with, I had to play completely by memory and all I could here on stage was the drums and a little bit of vocals in the mains. A fan at the show recorded one of the songs I played with the band and I was able to hear what everything sounded like from the crowds perspective. When it comes to my own amps and set up while playing, I am a tone nerd and am very specific and precise on getting everything to sound just right. When I heard the mix that was coming through the mains, it was spot on and the bass was coming through very clear on each note being played but was not overpowering.
The other times in recent years I have heard my basses in a house mix has been at church. I would mainly play my Music Man Bongos, and they always sounded really good in the house mix too. Same with my regular Stingray basses but my Classic would always come through any mix and sound the best. I’ll give it to the folks at Music Man that whatever they did when they built that bass, they obviously did very right!
they are similar, but the MM version looks like a nurse's orthopedic shoe. I meant what I wrote actually. lol.
