M.I.A missing members

THIS! What matters is NOW, and then you can look at it again in 10 years time!

Good luck with it!

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Welcome back @T_dub. Iā€™m glad to hear youā€™re on the mend.

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Welcome back Toby @T_dub,
Great to hear your on the road back, we have all missed having you around the forum.
I did a cover using ā€œErnieā€ and must say it is a great bass.
I love the neck on it, very smooth and fast, it is fast becoming my go to bass.
It is really nicely balanced on the strap compared to the P-basses.
So a big thank you for pushing me in the EBMM direction :+1: :sunglasses:
Cheers Brian

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Let me add my ā€œWelcome Backā€ to the others, @T_dub . . . :slight_smile:

Great to have you back with us again, and hope all works out for you!

Cheers, Joe

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Awesome Brian, I am so glad to hear you are loving your Ray. I was able to find one I could not pass up on, and the small amount I have played it, it is freaking awesome, and I am really looking forward to getting some time with it this week. I still need to do a set up on it, and when I do it, I will get some pics to post.
It is an 2014 EBMM Stingray Slo Special. It is pretty much a Stingray 4H - 3eq, but they have a special neck on them, which is what I could not pass on. The neck on this one is 38mm at the nut, which is the same as on the EBMM Sterling model bass and the SBMM Stingray Ray 4 and Ray 24.

The neck width at the nut, on the standard EBMM Stingrays is 42mm
and the neck width at the nut on the SBMM Stingray Ray34 is 43mm
I like the way they all feel, but the go to bass I have been playing the last 6 months is my SBMM ray4, so I was happy to have found this Slo Special to get, and it feels awesome, comfortable and familiar right away, but it has a certain FEEL and LOOK of quality about it, where you know the neck alone is worth more then the whole SBMM Ray 4. LOL
But I would never talk down on my SBMM Ray4, it is an awesome bass, best $300 bass out there IMO.

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Thanks @eric.kiser and @Jazzbass19, it is good to get back, I hope this time around sticks. I am going to be sure to not ā€œover doā€ things right now, and make sure to STOP before my body is telling me to stop. I need to do about 1/4 what my pride and ego tell me I should be able to do. If I dont over do it, I should be able to get back again later today, and if not, it will be tomorrow for sure, and then I will keep it up until I can get on twice per day, and then when I can get up 3 and 4 times per day, soon enough, it will be back to normal.

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Wow, thatā€™s wider than I expected. My Yamaha is 38mm. I think the Yamaha BBā€™s are 42mm though, they are definitely more P-bass in feel anyway.

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@T_dub it is good to hear from you man. You are in our thoughts and prayers for everything. You know my story I had both my knees reconstructed at 30 my left one was a complete replacement with a bunch of other stuff and I am doing pretty good 12 years later but like you I have thought about how many times can I have this done in my lifetime

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I think they round up. Website says
SBMM Ray34 is 43mm at nut (1.69)

EBMM Ray 4 (is actually listed on the MM site as)
1-11/16 (1.6875) - (42.86mm)
I have seen it on other sites listed at 42mm

it does not feel that big just picking it up, but if you pick up the smaller one and play for a bit, yeah, you notice it for sure, but they way they make the neck, it doesnā€™t feel like it is that much bigger, if feels like it would be about 1/2 as big as it really is. At least in my hands thats how it feels.

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Iā€™ll grab one and fool around a bit the next time I go shopping. Which might be this week if I have time.

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Yeah, you can pick up the two cheaper SBMM, the Ray4 and the Ray24 for the feel of the narrow neck, or you can pick up EBMM Sterling 4, as it is standard neck for those. It might be harder to find a narrow neck in EBMM unless you can find a Slo Special or any other special they may have made in the past that has the narrow (sterling) neck.
The SBMM Ray34 or most EBMM will show you the wider (Stingray) neck.

I guess the best way to differentiate between the two would be to just call them
Stingray Neck (1.69)
Sterling Neck (1.5)
Kind of like Fenders being called P necks and Jazz necks.

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Welcome back Toby! Hang in there and take it slow, man. We all missed you!

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Good to see you back @T_dub. All the best on your personal human upgrade days. Make sure they watch the truss rod video before doing your knees.

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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Ha Ha Ha.
Yeah, that would be a good idea, but This one I had before sounds more like a truss rod job. LOL

Back in 1990, on September 22 to be exact, I was in a car crash, and along with many injuries, (broken ribs, Fractured cheek / eye socket, broken fingers, lacerations all over my right arm and face, etcā€¦) after they cut me from the car, with ā€œthe jaws of lifeā€ and airlifted me to the UCI medical center, they had to do an emergency surgery to set my right femur, which was a compound fracture. after several days in ICU, with my leg in traction, and me getting cleaned up from all the other injuries, I was thrown out of the ICU because I was a difficult patient.
Thing was they were IV feeding me Demerol, which I have a slight allergy to, and it makes me very aggressive with advanced narcissistic involuntary Rage. :wink:
My parents finally, after 4 days convinced the treatment team to switch the medication, which they finally did change to morphine, and I sort of woke up looked around and said ā€œwhat the fuck happened to meā€

I lost 4 days to that drug, I have no recollection, except I have very vivid memory, about 30 seconds long, of being in the ICU, with my arms tied to the bed, and my left arm was in ace wrap up bandage with 3 finger splints.
apparently I was ripping off full plaster casts they put on my wrist to support the 3 broken fingers (on my fretting hand, that never healed properly because my action while on the wrong drug"), so they put the splints on the hand and wrapped them up with an ace bandage and-tied my-hands to the bed. My only memory of it was that I was banging my wrist against the bed rail, trying to pop the clips off the ace bandage, and once I did, I was twirling my wrist around, as best I could, trying to unravel the ace bandage. thats a true story, I kid you not.

Back to the leg.
After about 5 days in the hospital, they took me to surgery, a 10 hour one for my leg, the compound fracture.
They cut about a 6" incision on the right hip, along the leg vertical right on the side, and they expose the bone under the hip joint, and core out the bone, down the center of the bone, then pick up the 2nd part of the bone that broke off, and drill down the center of it to just above the knee joint.
They take a titanium rod and hammer it in from the hip down to the knee, and then they use screws, 2, coming from the outside of my knee, just above the joint, thru the bone, into tapped holes in the titanium rod.
They set the leg just right, to the exact height it should be (I donā€™t know what computers or lasers they used at the time to do this, but it is pretty amazing, even tho it has probably been far surpassed by todays standards)
and then use 3 screws below the hip joint, thru the bone, into tapped holes in the rod.
They gather whatever other splinters of bone are left, and sort of place them around the big gap in bone, and its all done.

Over the next year, I would keep going to the Dr, getting x-rays and watching the slow progression of the leg healing itself.
After about 6 months, it was all but healed and grown back together, but there are small lines between sections of the bone that look like they would be a fracture, but still not healed.
After a year, those small lines vanished, or in some of the larger areas, turned into witness of fracture lines.
So,
Back in the OR, they reverse the process.
Cut the hip
un screw the screws
incision by the knee
un screw the screws
Drill the bone down to the rod, which has threads in this end.
thread a tool in, like a puller
They use hammers and pull weights to yank the rod back out
stitch everything up and send me packing.
This time, I still am on crutches for about 6 weeks, and still I had to report to the doctor for about a year, while they watched the core and marrow of the bone grow back to its completed self.
Only then would they turn me loose to go snowboarding and surfing.
Well, about 6 months into the first surgery, they released me to go surfing, but said I am doing so at my own risk and to always be careful, cuz if I were to fall hard enough, my body would break AROUND THE TITANIUM ROD, not the other way around.
for 2 years, when I was 18 years old, I could not Skateboard, ride BMX bikes, or Snowboard, all of which were part of my daily life, depending on season.
for 6 months in between I was able to surf, but then was cut back from surfing for 6 months again, and then I was able to surf for 6 months, and then 2 years past, and I was released to do all the activities I wanted.

I have lived many years after that Snowboarding, skate and Surfing a lot of those years. I ride bikes, but more beach cruisers now. I have had a great life doing so, but it was never the same as after that crash.
Considering that crash took out ā€œMy Good Kneeā€ and my other knee had already been blown out twice (soccer and jumping my BMX bike) I already started slowing down and not being as aggressive in those sports as I was when I was way younger, but I have, until a few years back, continued snowboarding and surfing, and riding beach cruisers, but not so much skateboarding anymore.

Full Knee Replacement, which would allow me to ride my bike up and down the beach again, which would help me get in shape, putting me back in the water, giving me knee strength when winter hits to put me back on the mountain.
Considering
back in 1990, While I was in the ER for the first few days, before the major surgery, they told my parents I would probably not walk on my own again, and after that surgery, when I started standing on crutches and walking in the hospital for short distance, without bearing weight on that leg, they said I would use a walker, crutches and a cane at least, and could still end up in a wheelchair for most if not all of my life.
Soā€¦
Considering all that
I have lots to be grateful for, and lots to look forward to.

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Wow @T_dub Tobyā€¦ I mean really, Wow!

Thanks for sharing that. Holy cow!

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What a ride @T_dubā€¦ best of luck!

(so glad to see you posting again man!)

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That really is a truss rod story! And a true inspiration from hearing what you are capable of. I will remember this !!!

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Dear BassBuzz family,

My old laptop has finally died and I will be away from the forum for an indeterminate amount of time till I get a new one.

Although, I may use my phone to log in and drop some ā€˜likesā€™, I wonā€™t be able to contribute anything meaningful till I can get myself set back up.

Take care. Iā€™ll be back soon.

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Sorry to hear that @eric.kiser. Thanks for letting us know. You will be missed.

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