My Vintage Music Man Stingray Guitars and a problem

[TheMusicMan]

I just thought you may want to see some pics of my sting ray guitars. I have two stingray 1's and a stingray 2. I love them but I am also having an issue.

I am using Ernie Ball 10's for strings, have checked the radius of neck matched saddles and string height for radius, no fretting out and neck is almost straight with just slight relief.

The low E string on all three guitars when fretted sounds ....for lack of a better term wonky. Hollow not quite a dead string sound but just off, very difficult to describe. I don't always remember them playing like this, but then I have been playing a strat for a month or two until I got around to setting these up again. I just dont know what the issue could be. Any ideas?

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I tried posting them to the forum but I guess they are too big. You should be able to see them fromt he link above. Thanks in advance to anyone who views and comments. I have searched the web and cant find what the issue is. Most things say nut, but since it is fretted and still doing it I just don't think thats the issue. Looking forward to getting them all up and running for some gigging! Hope you can all help me out!

Thanks

 

[DrKev]

Welcome to the forum!

Nice guitars! Not something a lot of us know much about here (because we are the Ernie Ball Music Man forum and not the pre-Ernie Ball Music Man forum) but if any of our forum members have much experience they will I'm sure chime in.

However, how strong are the magnets on those pickups? When there is weird issues with low E strings my first thought is always pickup height. If the pickups are too close to the strings they will pull the strings "out of tune with themselves". Known as "stratitis" because it happens most often on guitars with single coils but can happen with any pickup with string magnets, hence my question.

Easy to test - Just lower the pickups and see if it fixes itself.

 

[xjbebop]

Welcome aboard!
My first thought from your description was pickup height as well... ???

 

[TheMusicMan]

Welcome aboard!
My first thought from your description was pickup height as well... ???

I am going to try adjusting it down and see what happens I Will keep you posted! Thanks for feedback and I welcome any and all other suggestions.

 

[TheMusicMan]

I am going to try adjusting it down and see what happens I Will keep you posted! Thanks for feedback and I welcome any and all other suggestions.

I went ahead and adjusted the pickup height. It may have helped a little but odd tone and sound was still present. I gave neck slight more relief and raised strings a bit and readjusted saddles for radius of neck. It seems to have done the trick.

Thanks so much for your advice. It seems the move across country may have caused some expansion or contraction being in a different climate and more humidity. All of it played into creating the issue. That is why it was present on every guitar. A complete re setup seems to have correct the issues!