• Ernie Ball
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Bassman-SR

New member
Joined
May 28, 2021
Messages
2
Location
Leavenworth, Kansas
Greetings!

I've admired the MM StingRays from afar for years. And, as fortune would have it, tomorrow I have the opportunity to pick up a Sterling by MM SUB StingRay 4HH. Doing some deeper research on it, I see the switch is a 5-position switch changing between combinations of full or partial PUP choices.

I'm in a cover band doing mostly classic rock with some new Country tossed in. As someone a bit new to active electronics (my go to on stage for the last 15 years has been my Peavey Grind 4 with passive PUPs), is there a specific switch selection on the Ray that tends to work better for one genre than another? For those of you with similar setups, what's your switch selection of choice for what you play?

Thanks, in advance, for any insights! :)
 

nhbassguitar

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 31, 2015
Messages
111
It's going to depend on the line-up and what frequencies you want to fill in. The more midrange content your band already has, the less mids you'll want to contribute so you don't wash that range out. That would be the case with a band with two guitars and a keyboard, for instance. On the other hand, if the band is lean in the mids, then you'll want more of a "forward" sound to fill in that range. Example of the second case: a band around here was looking for a bass player for a country band that had only guitar, bass, and drums. If I were in that band, I'd probably be using both coils of the bridge pickup all the time.

So yeah, think in your mind, "What frequency range needs the most filling-in," and let that drive your decision which pickup configuration to use. And, record your next rehearsal with the new MM as a sanity check, with the microphone(s) reasonably far away, because what you hear real-time standing where you are never represents what's really going on sound-wise when the whole band's playing.

Hope this helps, and welcome to the family.
 

Bassman-SR

New member
Joined
May 28, 2021
Messages
2
Location
Leavenworth, Kansas
It's going to depend on the line-up and what frequencies you want to fill in... Example of the second case: a band around here was looking for a bass player for a country band that had only guitar, bass, and drums. If I were in that band, I'd probably be using both coils of the bridge pickup all the time.


Hope this helps, and welcome to the family.

That helps out a lot! We are the second example: one guitarist who handles rhythm and lead; drummer; and myself on bass. I'll start with both coils of the bridge pickup and tweak from there.

Thanks so much for the welcome... I'm pretty excited to check this bass out!
 
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