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Ernie Ball Music Man Custom Design Experience

Music Man Serial Number Database

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5Stringer

5Stringer

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Owen, your blue pearl/rosewood Sterling was completed on 3/15/96 and shipped to the now-defunct Luchetti's Drum & Guitar in Albuquerque, NM.

;)

Dan
 
HornetAMX

HornetAMX

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5Stringer said:
Alnico magnets, as we still use on the StingRay, are generally considered a more "aggressive" sound, while ferrite is deemed to be "smoother", though that is very subjective. The inherent problem, though, seems to be that alnico is noisy and more difficult to keep quiet. Once the decision was made to have a single-coil position available as part of the 3-way switching system, it became obvious that alnico just wouldn't work as well as ferrite for the pole piece material due to the noise factor.
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Can you tell me what the 3 way switch does on the Alnico equipped SR5 basses? Thank you again for all of the info.
 
5Stringer

5Stringer

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HornetAMX said:
Can you tell me what the 3 way switch does on the Alnico equipped SR5 basses? Thank you again for all of the info.
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We used Alnico magnets in the first few years of the StingRay 5. The switching system was the same then as it is now - however, we discovered after a while that there was too much noise to be acceptable, especially in the single-coil position. So the designers went back to the drawing board and eventually came up with the design we use now to this day.

Arf!

Dan
 
Rod Trussbroken

Rod Trussbroken

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58403693-e6be-028001E0-.jpg


Number 1
 
5Stringer

5Stringer

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Rod Trussbroken said:
Dan...the serials for the SR5.

For all the early ones they're 5xxxx

Are there any 4xxxx. If so, can you give an example?
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Gav, According to my long, painstaking research, there are no StingRay 5's that start with a 4. They all started with a 5 through the first 10 or so years of production ,, guess we finally ran out of numbers from 50000 to 59999! :D

All the ones that start with 4 that I know of are Sterlings.

Dan
 
5Stringer

5Stringer

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Rod Trussbroken said:
Actually...number 1 off the production line was White (?) with Rosewood. I only have a black/white pic. Do you know the serial?
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Gav, I don't know how we can know for sure which was the first actually completed. I found the records of the ones that we know of with serial numbers, but there may have been prototypes, etc. that may have slipped under the radar.

The very first I can see after long hours of research (well, one or two hours, actually) being officially shipped out was serial #50183 and it went to a store in Hollywood, CA called the Bass Centre, long out of business. The description doesn't give a color, just "special" and indicates a rosewood fretboard. The date is 6/2/88. The second one to officially leave the building, on 6/7/88, was definitely a white rosewood - serial #50197.

Hope that helps in your quest!

Dan

;)
 
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