Tips for buying an older bass

I think if you are an experienced player, you probably will do way better picking something that feels right. But if your a beginner, most basses won’t feel right anyway, cause of lack of dexterity. So I think it all depends, although like I said, most of the time you should go for something that feels right. For my jazz bass, the reason why it felt weird was cause I was so used to playing modern feeling basses, and my jazz bass has a vintage feel to it (at least a lot more than the other basses I played)

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Sure. Also, if you play any instrument enough, it will probably eventually feel right. Because it becomes the normal instrument. Just whether you want to go through all that or not.

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Aww, Joe, bummed to hear that that Gibson is just sitting there now, I remember when you bought it - but that’s how it goes sometimes, glad at least it still looks great :slight_smile: Sometimes a nice looking bass can be motivation enough though to have around, even if you end up playing your other bass!

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Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I am a huge mm fan. The issue with the sub basses for most was the eq. My bongo has a million different eq setups available, so what do I do? What a lot of others do, I leave them flat and adjust my amp. Problem solved.

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Nice bass

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It has a few issues I’ve been working through. The E string was way louder than the rest, but I evened out the action a little bit and lowered the pickup a touch on the E string side to fix that. Now I’m just worried about the low end not having the fullness that I was hoping for. I’m not great at describing sound/tone, but it is lacking something to my ear. I ordered some new strings for it, hoping the ones on it are just dead. We will see.

Hopefully I can get it setup to my tastes a bit better, because it really is a beautful instrument and cosmetically perfect. It has a great acoustic sound, a great feel, I just can’t dial in a tone through the eq or the amp that gets me really happy.

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I found a tip through a Google search saying you can email Steling and have them look up the SN. I tried it, and they they did reply quickly and let me know it was made in 2014. Doesn’t matter much, but figured I would share in case anyone ever needs this info.

info@sterlingbymusicman.com

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I agree,
When I bought my first Ricky,
I hated it as well but I put some flat wounds on it had it set up adjusted my resting position and now I love it

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Reading older threads, I’m curious how this turned out?

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Got it straightened out nice after some new strings and a setup. It is a ton of fun to play, and my go to bass when I want to play metal or do some slapping, because the bass just wants to go hard. My problem is I don’t play much metal or do much slapping, so it doesn’t get used a ton. I usually keep it in drop D and pick it up for that rather than retuning another bass. I just got another used bass, a Yamaha TBRX604, and I have a feeling it will mean the SBMM gets picked up even less. I may try to sell the SBMM just to find it a good home where it will be used as much as it deserves to be. Not sure yet, we will have to see how it plays out having both, but I think pretty much anything the SBMM can do for me, the TBRX should be able to do better. Maybe I’ll just setup the SBMM for a great slap tone and use it for that. The problem of having too many basses is a good problem to have!

You picked a hell of a time to bump this old thread and ask about that bass lol! It might be at a critical juncture of its life right now.

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Lol, it’s fun to hear it was fully revived by strings and setup before arriving at this juncture! Congratulations on your 604 find !!!

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Yeah, I just keep going back to my 604 too. Pretty sure I am going to sell my Warwick.

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Yeah, I just keep going back to my SBMM’s, pretty sure I am only gonna keep my SBMM’s and LTD B-4E, sell most of the others, keeping the Araya of course, and the Scecter 5 string, but gonna start thinning out. Who knows, if I get enough cash from it, a MM might be in the future :smile:

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