A Particular Sound

[mikefoltz]

Greetings all,

Years ago I owned a Stingray and now I have a Sterling. When I bought my first Stingray the dealer showed me a way to make it sound like a standup bass for playing bluegrass. Does anyone have the settings to get this sound out of my Sterling? Thanks, Mike

 

[MrMusashi]

now this might sound stupid but my best advice is:
close your eyes and fumble around with the controls untill you get the sound you want
you can also mute the strings with your right hand palm to muffle it up a bit, or put a piece of foam between the body and strings.
flatwounds would also muffle the sound up a bit

hth!

MrM

 

[oli@bass]

"years ago" is a bit of a coarse time window. If it was "many years ago", it could have been that the dealer used the string mutes which are not available anymore on StingRays and Sterlings since around '94.

If it was "a couple of years ago", the dealer could also have shown you that sound on a HS StingRay by switching to the single coil and turning down the treble.

If it was "a few years ago", then that StingRay probably neither had the string mutes bridge nor was it a dual pickup model. Still remains the question whether it had a 2 band or 3 band EQ. So that leaves a couple of possible choices:

- turn down the treble and mids all the way and then get back a tiny bit of treble
- move your plucking position near the end of the fretboard
- string it with flats and do all of the above