Looking for advice on my next bass

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You got something against Aguilar? :wink:
I love my Aguilar pick up. I also don’t really have a problem with the stock Ray4 preamp, although, I know you can turn it into a 3 band with an upgrade, but I don’t mind the 2 band, and I don’t hear such a major difference with some of the upgraded preamps, that I choose to leave it stock.

That said, if I were to get 3 more Ray4’s (not out of the question), I would do so for 3 different mods.

1, I would get a Retro-Vibe 78 clone 2 band preamp, that is made identical to the 78 stingray, and I would look for one of the Tone Monster pick ups that are voiced to be like the older stingrays, to make it more of a classic, old school smooth tone stingray

#2 - I am going full fledged NOT STINGRAY, so that I would turn it into a modern metal sounding bass with the classic stingray look.
This would get a DarkGlass Tone Capsule, and a Herrick MM Neo-Bucker pick up.

#3, I would probably go for the EMG pick up / preamp combo, because I hear such great things, and would just love to have one.

But truth be told, I would love to find another used one that I could for a pick up test bass, and get a range of the cheaper ones to test them out and rate them for others to know.
From the cheaper
%Wilkenson (MM style)
%Wilkenson (MM with 4 upper poles and 8 lower poles, like a mass single coil has)
%Radio Tone
%Kent Armstrong
%Herrick (many to styles II want to try)
%Delano
%Delano with the jazz poles on the bottom like the Wilkenson has, to do a direct comparrison between a #50 pick up and a $160 pick up of the same configuration
%Herricck - I also beleive they do one with the 8 small jazz poles on the mm style pick up too

Tone Monster
Nordstrom’s
Seymour Duncan

And I am sure there are many, many, many more.
I wish I had Al’s basses, so I could get a bunch of these pick ups to test out.

Heck, I might buy a couple pick ups, and try to talk him into putting them in, just so we can hear how good / bad / different they are.

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Keep thinking about a Darkglass tone capsule but then I play the Ray4 and I’m quite satisfied with the Noll upgrade.
It’s also a passive/ active bass now which is a bit different

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The DarkGlass is really an awesome, capable and versatile preamp, with lots of options to exploit pick ups that have options themselves, like more then 2 cools, up to 8 coils, with Herrick pick ups, and lost of things you can do (may need a switch added to be able to go all out with the Herrick pick up that is 8 coil / 4 individual humbuckers, one per string, or any options you can wire up how you want, IMO, its overkill for me, but it is super cool it is available), so yeah, for sure, it is a cool Preamp, and in the grand scheme of things, it is not all that pricey. I figured it would be over $200, well over, actually, but it is just about the same as an EMG.

BUT

I personally would not put this in my ONLY Ray. You are going to tone monster the hell out of the bass, but you are gonna change it so much, that you wn’t be getting that standard Stingray sound for when you want it

That s I want a totally separate Ray4 to drop a Tone Capsule into, so I can make it Metal AF.
I actually had even thought it would be cool to get a Ray34 (since they are old school / classic looking, or that is the idea behind them) wth the flat slab body, and vintage tint to the neck and headstock, whatever that means.
I thought it would be really cool to get the most classic looking Ray you could get, and then drop in the tone capsule and a Herrick pick up, or Delano pick up, and just metal the shit out of it.

Like I said, I want at least 2 more Ray4’s (hopefully I could find some used ones for the $150 0r less range, so I can really play around with them and go all ot with some tonal options
PLUS
Be able to record samples here so others can decide which way th ey want to go, instead of me just saying “I have an Aguilar and love it”
I mean, hard to go wrong with an Aguilar, even with the stock preamp, but would be cool to be able to tell and post dome sound samples of many other pick ups for others to hear and decide.

Course, this plan will be on the back burner for sure, since I’ may even be selling off all my basses and equipment soon, in a rapid fire sale, even selllingn things for less then I should be, use to get the quick money I may be needing ASAP.

Won’t be selling my Ray4, and if I can help it at all, I will keep the Stingray SLO Special and LTD B-4E, but everything might be up for grabs as early as tomorrow.
Pedals, Pedal Board, SWR Workingman10
Calllien Krueger head, Line 6 bass pod Pro rack mount, and anything elso that is laying around.

Just keeping the DAI, Ipad, IPhone and necessary wires to keep recording.
Everything elso is on the choppping block
Unfortunately.

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Aguilar are great their preamps are awesome. The pickup I feel a little underpowered for my taste especially the MM. I have it in my ray35 running 18v, thought I didn’t run their preamps because I went with naked control plate pickguard and keeping the MusicMan preamp looks great.

In general, I found that Aguilar and Seymour Duncan bass pickups do a thing or two really well. They are not jack of all trades like some but that’s not a bad thing in many situations.

I wish I’m as adventurous as @T_dub and @John_E when it comes to MusicMan pickups you guys go wild. That Sims are out of this world monster. I’m more conservative on my MM for now, I’m still having fun with the Ps and Jazz pickups.

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I think that is what I love about my Aguilar, it works really good for what it is, with the stocck 2 band preamp.
I didn’t find its 3 band preamp to offer much noticeable improvement for the pick up, so I just love it with my stock Ray4 preamp.

Now, if I were to upgrade the preamp, to say the EMBg, then I might see a big difference between the Aguilar and EMB, I don’t doubt that.

But again, I love the Aguilar pick up for the sipe plug n play, with AWESoME results.
If it were added with a preamps then I probably wold skip over the Aguilar and go EMG or something else.

I stilll want to try that Retro-VibeMM 78 Clone preamp, that is supposed to be a direct copy, and with a good pick up, maybe even a MM pick up from a Stingray, that it could sound amazing.

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If you or @howard, or even @Al1885 ever find one that is IN STOCK, please let me know.

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In other news, my project bass came in today

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First impressions - it’s light, seven pounds and change. The fit and finish are great, The fingerboard has a light gloss, the neck is satin and feels like natural wood, no stickiness at all.

It is 32" scale, so medium scale. It has the traditional Fender headstock, and the traditional Fender neckdive.

The pickup is hot. I play it at less than half volume so I don’t mess around with the amp settings, it sounds louder than my active pickup in my Sire.

The frets are all smooth which is something I didn’t expect. So I looked at the headstock, sure enough this is made in China in the factory with the Paranormals. So not surprised at the quality anymore.

If short scales are like this I get it. It’s very playable.

One thing I did not like is how it was packaged. Guess Squire had to cut corners somewhere I guess. It wasn’t in a box with pieces of foam to gently cradle the nexk and body. Nope, it was in a box with some foam and another box over the headstock and neck, with the bass wrapped in the white foam paper stuff. The box was smushed with a few chunks taken out of it, and the outer box was just smushed in all dimensions. Looked inadequate.

But it did its job, the bass looks perfect.

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Looks like the pickup will come tomorrow and the build can start. Really raises my hopes for the Paranormal as they come from the same factory.

I have gone back to the black and gold on the Paranormal. whill just go with silver hardwate. Because the pickguard is anodized aluminum, and looks sick with the metallic textures.

And I am done for acquiring basses. I have what I need.

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I’ll just save this quote for later…

:wink:

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I really like medium scale, love the Yamaha Motion Basses I have tried.

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Ha.

The one bass left to get is a P Bass, but in no hurry.

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LOL

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:joy::joy:

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So, newbie question. Are the SBMM Ray34’s passive with active EQ?
I tried an internet search but couldn’t find a definitive answer.

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Ha Ha Ha
I can’t wait to see how the Peavey Corrus I bought is packaged then it arrives tomorrow. I wonder if they just bubble wrappped t, then wrapped a bunch of brown paper around it with lots and lots of duct tape. That would be my guess. LOL

Yeah, MM pick ups are usually hot. Even, or especially the cheap ones. It is probably the heat of that pick up making it loud, and I would bet if you rolled the treble on the amp up, your ear would start bleeding. Fortunately, you only have a tone knob, and not a bass / treble boost, cuz if you did, you would have to boost the bass around 20% (assuming the boost is flat LAA THE WAY OFFO and the treble mo more then mayb e10%.
Thanks god for your A<P EQ.

I bet once you drop in that new pickup (and preamp if you are gonna fall in love with it.
She sue is pretty.
I have my blue ‘Ray4 which I love, But it s Matte, and tea A BIT SJINssscup items mw

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Yes and no.
They are Active EQ.
Most any bass that is called Actove os rea;; talking about the Active EQ.

There are such things as Actuve Pickups, but they are rare, and I hve only really seen them in Guitars, not Basses, although I am sure they do exist somewhere, somehow.

But to your questions yes, passive pick up, with active EQ, so volume and 3 band eq

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I said that everytime I ordered one, by the time it arrived I already have the stablemate picked out for that new bass, lol.

Worse is you’d probably acquire the same bass again, hey everyone needs a spare.

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Thank You Sir.

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Do not know about the SBMM Ray34 but my Yamaha TRBX504 is active and passive.
Mine always seems to be in the passive mode. The tone is a lot mellower to me and provides the less bright sound I like.

The other thing is to be aware that with an active or active/passive bass the battery is always being drained when your guitar is plugged in so make sure you have a spare on hand.

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There’s a lot of truth in what you say. But I have a lot to explore with what I have, so now to focus on getting good

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I had a spare alnico mm style pickup delivered yesterday which I’d forgotten about! Need a bass to fit it to now

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