Steamthief
Well-known member
My story begins with a Fender Jazz 75 RI bought on eBay. Had problems with the neck, dead spot on 5th fret and slight hump on skunk stripe. I decided that the sound was too similar to my Fender P/J, so I went to GC Labor Day sale to trade in. While there, I picked up a white Stingray, which played and sounded great! I was set to buy it, but they were offering only $300 for the Jazz! On the way out, a 70-ish man saw the Jazz and offered me what I paid for it, so I had cash two days later.
At that point, I was PO'd at GC, so I looked around a few other shops and saw a transparent red/maple SR4 that was beautiful. Almost bought it, but wanted to see other colors before pulling the trigger. Came on the EBMM site, checked out dealer inventories, and saw a metal flake brown/rosewood/mhs SR4 at a shop 90 miles away. The "build your bass" illustration didn't do the color justice, so I made the drive on a Saturday before a practice to see it live.
In person, I was blown away, this bass spoke to me. I plugged it in, quickly ran up and down the fretboard to ensure there were no dead spots, and bought it. I hurried to practice, plugged it in, and was kind of disappointed. The feel wasn't right, the sound was kind of listless, and I couldn't dial in a cutting tone. Bummed out, I put the Ray back in its case and went to my familiar P/J. Once home, I polished the bass, cleaned the chrome, buffed out the remaining adhesive on the pickguard, took pics, and posted it for sale on TalkBass.com. A few of you probably saw the ad. I got a few offers, none good enough in my eyes to part with the bass, but one buyers' question last Saturday got my attention.
He had a question about action and high frets, wondering if the bass had any string rattles due to imperfect fret finishing. Now even though I wasn't digging the sound, I know the build quality of MM is great, so I went back to the site here to check out factory action. Well, my bass was at 6/32" at the 12th fret! I got a 3mm hex wrench and gave the wheel a quarter turn, and ohhmygaaawd, there's the feel of the Stingray that made me want one in the first place!
This got me thinking - I had found out the build date for this bass was 12/19/00, so I wondered if the battery in the preamp may be dead. I pulled it out, and it had a "use by" date of March 2005. I replaced it, and all of a sudden, the high end totally sprung to life! That being done, I unwrapped the new set of Slinkies that I was going to ship with the bass when I sold it, put them on, and the Ray of Light shined down from above! I then turned up my Rocket Bass combo and played my Stingray for the next couple of hours.
Saturday night, I deleted my classified ad on TalkBass. This instrument is a keeper. Sure, I was an idiot not to check the relief and swap the nearly six-year-old battery and strings in the first place, but the important thing is that I did check this stuff before I sold this funky bass away. For those of you who actually finished reading this, thanks for hearing my story! Here's the perp in question:
At that point, I was PO'd at GC, so I looked around a few other shops and saw a transparent red/maple SR4 that was beautiful. Almost bought it, but wanted to see other colors before pulling the trigger. Came on the EBMM site, checked out dealer inventories, and saw a metal flake brown/rosewood/mhs SR4 at a shop 90 miles away. The "build your bass" illustration didn't do the color justice, so I made the drive on a Saturday before a practice to see it live.
In person, I was blown away, this bass spoke to me. I plugged it in, quickly ran up and down the fretboard to ensure there were no dead spots, and bought it. I hurried to practice, plugged it in, and was kind of disappointed. The feel wasn't right, the sound was kind of listless, and I couldn't dial in a cutting tone. Bummed out, I put the Ray back in its case and went to my familiar P/J. Once home, I polished the bass, cleaned the chrome, buffed out the remaining adhesive on the pickguard, took pics, and posted it for sale on TalkBass.com. A few of you probably saw the ad. I got a few offers, none good enough in my eyes to part with the bass, but one buyers' question last Saturday got my attention.
He had a question about action and high frets, wondering if the bass had any string rattles due to imperfect fret finishing. Now even though I wasn't digging the sound, I know the build quality of MM is great, so I went back to the site here to check out factory action. Well, my bass was at 6/32" at the 12th fret! I got a 3mm hex wrench and gave the wheel a quarter turn, and ohhmygaaawd, there's the feel of the Stingray that made me want one in the first place!
This got me thinking - I had found out the build date for this bass was 12/19/00, so I wondered if the battery in the preamp may be dead. I pulled it out, and it had a "use by" date of March 2005. I replaced it, and all of a sudden, the high end totally sprung to life! That being done, I unwrapped the new set of Slinkies that I was going to ship with the bass when I sold it, put them on, and the Ray of Light shined down from above! I then turned up my Rocket Bass combo and played my Stingray for the next couple of hours.
Saturday night, I deleted my classified ad on TalkBass. This instrument is a keeper. Sure, I was an idiot not to check the relief and swap the nearly six-year-old battery and strings in the first place, but the important thing is that I did check this stuff before I sold this funky bass away. For those of you who actually finished reading this, thanks for hearing my story! Here's the perp in question:
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