Did you buy this bass new? Because if you did, I’d take it back to the store. It may not be the most expensive model out there, but I think you are allowed to expect a certain basic quality level.
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I encourage you to look for bass specific chorus, distortion, and chorus pedals. Pedals made for guitar, like the Metal Zone, often steal your low end.
I like both the Boss BC-1X Bass Compressor and Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive can get pretty gnarly sounding. I don’t care too much for the Boss Bass Chorus. It’s too subtle for me. Lots of people like the EHX Bass Clone chorus pedal. Check out this thread, Bass Chorus Pedals, for some comparisons.
Some other pedals, like phase, flanger, reverb, delay, and looper don’t need to be bass specific.
As for sounding like Tim Commerford, he’s very secretive about modifications done to his amps, and his distortion pedal is in a blank box containing his own modifications. I’m not saying don’t do it, just pointing out how it will be hard to hit it exactly. My recommendation, if you like playing your bass, stick with it and focus on getting a distortion tone you like.
oopsie, that was a typo, i meant the sub ray4, idek how i typed that extra 0
unfortunately, idk where to find quality used bass like that. Usually on facebook its just some random dirt cheap knock off bass. And the used basses always have a giant problem with them (cracks, giant scratch,…)
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does it like completely suck all the low tho? bc i know thats a problem of the metal zone but i dont need too much low end when playing distortion, just enough is fine
all of them are out of stock unfortunately
can you maybe guess what distortion/od pedal that can slightlt recreate his distorted tone?
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i did bought it new like 6-7 month ago so i dont think i can return it anymore
plus i have so much emotion attached with it? and most the problems are fixed by now, thanks to you guys
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If I was going to create a facsimile of his distorted tone, I would start with an MXR Bass Distortion pedal. Set the Wet and Dry knobs at noon. Use the button for the LED distortion setting, Set Tone all the way to the right. Start with Gain at noon and increase till you get as close as you can. From there I would look at boosting either the highs or the high mids on the amp.
This splits your signal into clean (Dry) and dirty (Wet) paths and then recombines them. If the clean side of your signal is too clean, you can turn the Dry down and the Wet up or, my preference, turn up the Gain on the amp. This will dirty up the whole thing. The clean/dry part won’t sound so clean and the dirty/wet portion of the signal will get even dirtier.
I don’t know how much you know about pedals. If this doesn’t make sense, once you have it in front of you it will be clear.
What kind of OD/Fuzz do you have now?
If you want to get real crazy, here is the Wah pedal he uses…
Dunlop 105Q Cry Baby Bass Wah Pedal | Sweetwater
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im no pedal elitist but i THINK, the dry signal is my unaffected tone and the wet is my effected tone
i saw them restocked like two or three weeks ago, but its literally out of stock now, guess its just a super great pedal
its an Xvive overdrive/fuzz that i bought bc it was on sale, and its an od/fuzz so i cant resist the Impulse. turn out the overdrive kinda suck. its fine when i put on flat/high eq, but if i turn the low up a bit, it starts phasing or kinda like chorus-y, idk how to describe but its not what i want, plus i cant change the od tone too much bc theres no eq, the fuzz does have an eq tho so idk why. But the fuzz is good, i dont own every pedal so i dont know if its good-good or its just good.
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Do you live in the US?
no
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Oh okay. There are quite a few available used and new here in the US. Outside the US, I don’t know anything about availability of gear. Ask away if you have any other questions.
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no thats all, tysm, i think ill choose the mt-2
edit: i forgot abt 1 more thing, is the maple fretboard on the sterling sub ray4 finished or raw wood? i dont think raw maple fb is very common but it’s fretboard doesnt look glossy like a finished fb so im not sure
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I assume it would be but @Al1885 would be the best one to say for sure.
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Sub ray4 fingerboard are either oiled finish or gloss there’s no raw wood.
I have both and like both finishes
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oo thank you, but why is the pickguard full of cracks tho.
also is there any big cons abt this bass?
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Because the plastic film is still on, lol. The Pickguard is pristine.
The pickup is a bit hot. It’s not uncommon for cheap and cheerful basses to have hotter pickups output because most would be plugged into a similar cheerful price range amp. It’s takes more finesse to get the right tone.
My personal experience is also the nut width. I like music man for their super wide nut width all of the sub series adopt the faster and narrower jazz profile it’s not a bad thing just personal preference. This has the same profile as their EBMM Sterling.
There’s not really any cons they bass is fantastically price and you get a lot of bass and iconic tones. The only model I would not recommend on the Sterling by music man model is the ray24. It’s not my thing. Their earlier model ray34ca is a much better bass.
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This is an important point a lot of new players don’t realize. New instruments ship with plastic film on the pickguards. You are supposed to peel it off, but a lot of people don’t know that. It’s usually like a brand new pickguard underneath.
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thats great bc im not a fan of p bass because of it’s thick neck, and it’s tone too, just not a fan of p bass
what does that mean? i saw a lot of people saying this when reading bass review but i didnt understand that at all
whats the difference between ray34 and ray34ca?
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Hot pickups basically loud pickups could be good or could be bad. Music man in general are pretty hot because of the active preamp.
Ray34CA stands for Classic Active. It’s a 2 band original 2 band EQ slap body means no belly carved. There’s also a special USA model called the Classic. That’s with birdseye maple neck.
Sterling by Musician Ray34CA
Ray34CA and USA Sub both are slap bodies.
EBMM Stingray Classic with birdseye maple neck and Flea bridge(mute bridge)
Ray34 is the copy of the music man stingray with 3 band EQ it also has the original stingray nut width. The only difference is the pickup shape. Instead of the 2x1 ear tabs it has the ramp like the EBMM Sterling pickup or Bongo style pickups very comfortable features to rest your thumb.
Sterling Ray34
Sterling Ray35
Hope that helps.
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Yeah, as Al says, “hot pickups” generally just mean that the pickups generate a stronger signal than average. This is not necessarily a good thing. It can more easily overdrive gear inputs and produce distortion.
Fortunately there’s an easy way to tame these beasts. You know those knobs you never use? The ones on your bass? One of those is “volume” 
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Which one is it again? lol.
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