# NBD: Sterling Ray 35 (epic refinish pics on page 2)



## HighGain510 (May 28, 2011)

Well the Dingwall ended up not working out too well for me, I have stubby fingers and the 37" scale ended up being a little uncomfortable for me so I sent it back to BassNW (not sure why they have a 14-day hold period on refunds... seems a little odd, but that's their policy). Literally 2 days later I lucked into finding this little gem, a Sterling by Music Man Ray35 that had been upgraded by the original owner with a Nordstrand MM5.2 pickup!  












































































She plays great, *FEELS* great (that was my ONLY issue with the Dingwall, I just couldn't deal with the feel unfortunately, I was reaching on the low end which bugged me) and sounds great. So far my only complaints are this thing is heavy as a motherfucker (need to get a comfy bass strap, any recommendations welcome!) and the natural swamp ash is a bit boring especially since it's a multi-piece body. It sounds and plays great though so I absolutely want to keep this one. To fix the aesthetics I am planning on sending the body out to Marty Bell for a sparkle refin. I've narrowed it down to a few choices, so take a look at let me know which you think is better, I'm torn right now. I'm down to either the Brilliant Blue Teal or Brilliant Chartreuse finishes, which do you guys dig the most? I'm slapping a set of those DR Neon Orange strings on there which would go with either finish, so it's really down to which I like the most but I can't decide.

































Opinions on the options? It's going to look awesome regardless, might be leaning towards the blue a little more as it's subtle as far as his sparkle finishes go but still enough "bling" to it that I dig it. The chartreuse looks awesome in that slightly-tacky way, but I can't help but like it as well!  (more pics added to second post since Alex, for whatever reason, has limited each post to only 20 pictures even if they are hosted elsewhere... )


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## HighGain510 (May 28, 2011)

More pics of the color charts!


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## Skyblue (May 28, 2011)

Damn, that bass is GORGEOUS! Looks great as it is IMO, so I'm afraid I can't help you decide on a refinish (not a fan of sparkly stuff myself) but I'm sure it'll look great with any finish~


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## HighGain510 (May 28, 2011)

Skyblue said:


> Damn, that bass is GORGEOUS! Looks great as it is IMO, so I'm afraid I can't help you decide on a refinish (not a fan of sparkly stuff myself) but I'm sure it'll look great with any finish~



Yeah it's not "ugly" I guess, I'm just not a huge fan solid natural ash.   Also something funny that I read on TalkBass was that a lot of the guys who own EBMM Stingrays and have played or own the Ray35 models said the differences were subtle and a few of them even sold of their EBMMs and kept the Ray35s because they were such good basses. I have the same opinion on this one, I was shocked that for such a good price I was able to get such a solid bass out of the deal! Frets are dressed nicely and aside from maybe some little tweaks to the setup and possibly a new nut, this thing is a killer bass!


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## SYLrules88 (May 28, 2011)

my vote goes for the blue teal, but thats just because im not that big on gold finishes, sparkly or not. just seeing that color chart makes me want to send an axe off to get redone! i have a nice boring black one that could use a little life!

nice bass by the way! im sort of in need of a 5 string, i may look into getting one of these.


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## darren (May 28, 2011)

I quite like that brilliant bronze.


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## djpharoah (May 28, 2011)

He's back


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## HighGain510 (May 28, 2011)

djpharoah said:


> He's back



Stockpiling while I still can!


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## vampiregenocide (May 28, 2011)

I vote for brilliant stratosphere, though blue teal is nice.


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## technomancer (May 28, 2011)

Blue teal


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## Curt (May 28, 2011)

Blue Teal, Blue Teal, Blue Teal. DO IIIIIIIIT.


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## Origin (May 28, 2011)

Nifty and pretty as shit. I'd say keep the colour man  it's very tasteful.


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## TemjinStrife (May 28, 2011)

Really? Damn. I have a harder time playing Stingray 5s because of the gargantuan necks than I did my Dingwall


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## flo (May 29, 2011)

Painting beautiful wood like this is against the law.


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## HighGain510 (May 29, 2011)

Alrighty then, Blue Teal it is! 



TemjinStrife said:


> Really? Damn. I have a harder time playing Stingray 5s because of the gargantuan necks than I did my Dingwall



It's not that the neck SHAPE was uncomfortable, it was more-so the scale length on the lowest two strings. My fingers aren't tiny, but stretches like that are made for longer fingers!


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## White Cluster (May 29, 2011)

Needs to go to the Pacific NW for a new bridge


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## HighGain510 (May 29, 2011)

White Cluster said:


> Needs to go to the Pacific NW for a new bridge



Haha I don't know how the 2Tek sounds on a bass and since I know I like how this sounds already I am almost afraid to change the recipe...


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## Harry (May 29, 2011)

Congrats, sick bass man! Teal is a good choice too


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## Ishan (May 30, 2011)

How's that Nordstrand?


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## HighGain510 (May 30, 2011)

Ishan said:


> How's that Nordstrand?



I didn't get to try out the stock pickup (I have it, but I don't really feel like swapping them out since the Nordy is obviously a nicer pickups ) but this one nails the MM tone for sure. Very versatile, finger-style, slapping and picking all sound equally-awesome and I think a large part of that is the pickup combined with the MM preamp.  This is my first time trying a Nordstrand pickup of any kind and I'm digging it.


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## s_k_mullins (May 30, 2011)

Awesome bass! Can't wait to see this thing in blue teal


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## TemjinStrife (May 30, 2011)

HighGain510 said:


> Alrighty then, Blue Teal it is!
> 
> It's not that the neck SHAPE was uncomfortable, it was more-so the scale length on the lowest two strings. My fingers aren't tiny, but stretches like that are made for longer fingers!



Interesting. I have very short pinkies, but a lot of hand flexibility. The huge width+depth of a MM 5-string neck is a bit much for me to reach, but I have no problem with the longer scale Dingwall... even down on 1st position.

Whatever works for you, man! Glad you've found something.


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## HighGain510 (Jun 27, 2011)

Wow Marty Bell is the man!  In literally 1-week's time he turned this:







into this:














Should have it back by the end of the week and then it's off to see the tech to have a brass nut installed to replace the uber cheap POS plastic nut on there!  Going to be SEEEEEXXXXXXAAAAAY!


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## technomancer (Jun 27, 2011)

Damn that is going to be the sparkly hotness 

The second pic reminds me a 70s Vette Stingray I saw once


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## elq (Jun 27, 2011)

I tend to prefer the furniture look in guitars... but that is


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## guitarister7321 (Jun 27, 2011)

That looks quite balling.


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## TemjinStrife (Jun 27, 2011)

That needs a white pearl pickguard. NOW.


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## R0ADK1LL (Jun 30, 2011)

Yup, definitely needs a fancy pants pick guard.

Of the few Rays I picked up, none of them seemed to have the same magic as a real MM Stingray for me. But they also didn't have the pricetag. Looks like you've found something nice. Thumbs up for customisation.


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## HighGain510 (Jun 30, 2011)

Not sure if it is what made the difference or not, but mine was upgraded with a Nordstrand MM pickup by the previous owner. He said it sounds WAY better than the stock one did.  It plays great and I'm also not as picky about basses as I am about guitars since I'll be using this like 10% of my playing time I'm sure unless I finally get recording...


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## HighGain510 (Jul 3, 2011)

Getting closer to being playable again!  Big thanks to my lovely fiance for standing in as a temporary guitar stand since I needed to angle the bass for the pics to come out right! 























































The frets have a decent amount of wear in the first five or so positions so I think I might take her up to Phil Jacoby for a PLEK job with stainless since this is going to be my keeper bass. At ~$1K I'll have a bass that sounds great, looks great and plays great!  Marty did an excellent job with the flake finish, although the color is teal blue sparkle it really isn't very "teal" I guess, but it matched the sheet he sent me which is exactly what I wanted, looks hot against the maple!  More pics in a few weeks when everything is all done.


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## technomancer (Jul 3, 2011)

Daaamn that turned out great  Sparkly


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## vampiregenocide (Jul 3, 2011)

Looks gorgeous man.  Really great result.


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## TemjinStrife (Jul 5, 2011)

Yeah. Needs white pearl pickguard and white pickup cover.


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## Goatchrist (Jul 5, 2011)

Awesome! This looks damn fine!!


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## Andromalia (Jul 7, 2011)

One of the pics looks like she's ready to use the bass to fuel the barbecue, be careful !


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## Thrashmanzac (Jul 7, 2011)

it hurts my eyes! (in a good way)
its so sparkly!


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## technomancer (Jul 11, 2011)

That finish requires more people see it... title change and


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## HighGain510 (Aug 28, 2011)

Well I finally picked her up from Phil Jacoby yesterday braving the hurricane in a trip up to Baltimore!  So for fun in case you didn't want to go back to page 1, here is how this baby started off life:














Unfortunately I'm feeling REALLY tired (long days at work for the past month will do that to you   ) so I only have a few quick iPhone pics but here you go, here's what she looks like with the new stainless steel frets and brass nut:




















































Final verdict? HOLY FUCK. So obviously I love the sparkle/flake refin job that Marty Bell did on it but the really miraculous thing is how damn amazing it sounds! It has the stock Sterling MM-style preamp (not the same one they use in the EBMM Stingray, and this bass has a 4-pole 3-way switch, all of which Phil confirmed were actually EXTREMELY high quality, especially considering this is an import! ) and the previous owner sent it to me with a Nordstrand MM pickup but the two coupled together just made for a ridiculously good-sounding bass. All three positions on the switch are different and they ALL sound great!  I guess all in all between the bass, refin, PLEK + stainless refret + brass nut I have about $1300 into this bass and it plays and sounds better than some $2-3K basses I've had the pleasure of using. I don't play bass primarily so I didn't want to go small luthier build for my only bass but holy shit did I luck out on this project because for $1300 I have something truly unique and it sounds/plays great.  Happy camper over here! 

P.S. For anyone in the MD/DC/VA area looking for anyone to do high quality tech work, Phil Jacoby @ Philtone in Baltimore is literally the best tech I've ever met. Dude knows his shit inside and out, I've spent some time with him at the shop discussing the technical side of things and he has some serious knowledge of how to build and set up a guitar perfectly (he used to work at PRS too).  I feel lucky to know him and he considers me a friend now which is a bonus, he's just a tremendous person. He has a backlog (just as any good tech would ) but if you're patient, the work will blow your mind. I have had two guitars refretted by him (one by hand, this one by PLEK) and they both exceeded my expectations, dude is a master for sure.


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## technomancer (Aug 28, 2011)

Wow that looks absolutely fantastic


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## SirMyghin (Aug 28, 2011)

Cool bass, looked better natural ash though.


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## HighGain510 (Aug 28, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> Cool bass, looked better natural ash though.



Better is subjective, man.  I didn't think it looked BAD stock, but trans ash is kinda ho-hum, regardless of the cool figure in ash I wanted something a little cooler and I have always wanted one of the sparkle/flake refins from Marty so I'm really happy with how it turned out.


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## TemjinStrife (Aug 29, 2011)

Still needs a white/black/white pearl pickguard and white pickup cover


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