The history of the bass guitar is full of fascinating titbits of information. Just following the path from Leo Fender’s groundbreaking 1957 Precision Bass, to his secret co-development of the Music Man StingRay, two decades later, makes for some exciting detective work – and that’s all before he later went on to form G&L with George Fullerton.
Most revered
1976’s first StingRays were a not-terribly-matching set, comprising a guitar model and a bass. The guitar failed to attract a whole lot of love, and was gone by the early eighties. The StingRay Bass, however… well, that’s gone on to become one of the most revered instruments in modern music!
Tony Levin
Name players were quick to hop on board the new bass. Tony Levin is one of the best-known, using an early StingRay Bass on John & Yoko’s Double Fantasy album. In an interview last year with Premier Guitar, Levin said that the newcomer felt like a Fender, “…but had lows that engineers were craving, and that I just couldn’t get with my Precision.” Other StingRay names over the years include Flea, Gail Ann Dorsey, (David Bowie’s bass player), Tim Commerford, Trent Reznor, and the legendary Bernard Edwards of Chic.
3-band active EQ
Boosting that low end that Levin enthused about, the StingRay was the first production bass to feature an onboard 3-band active EQ, which continues to be a major draw to this day. Add in the massive hardened steel bridge and stainless-steel saddles, atop a hefty Ash body, and you’ve got one of the planet’s truly great low-end machines.
StingRay humbuckers
Because Leo Fender and his Music Man partners got the StingRay pretty much perfect from the start, it remains virtually unchanged. Tiny tweaks here and there across the intervening five decades, but the StingRay you buy today is largely the StingRay as it stood in 1976: solid Ash body; select one-piece Maple neck/fingerboard, with an 11” radius and 1-11/16” / 42mm nut width, (neck features a silky-smooth, hand-rubbed gunstock oil & wax blend finish); 3-band active EQ; 5-way selector switch; fully shielded control cavity; chrome hardware. And all the power of the mighty StingRay humbuckers!
Professionally played
Completed at the Ernie Ball / Music Man facility in San Luis Obispo, California, on April 16 of 2013, your awesome jet black StingRay Bass comes in its original Music Man case, and is in Excellent professionally played condition. Slight playwear on the scratchplate, a couple of tiny dinglets, and that’s it. Plug into your rig and you’re good to go. And, of course, our FREE COURIER DELIVERY is included to any address in Australia – generally 1 - 2 days on the east coast, more distant areas slightly longer. $100 airfreight to New Zealand, (usually 2 days), and $175 to the US, Canada, UK and mainstream European countries, (3 - 5 days)
Weight: 10lb 5½oz / 4.7kg
Just Guitars
