The MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar is an electric bass guitar produced by MusicMan Inc. This company was actually founded by two former employees of Fender, which was then one of the leading guitar manufacturers. Along with Walker and Sterling Ball, Leo Fender designed the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar in 1976.
The MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar is similar in appearance to the Fender Precision Bass Guitar, but features great innovations. One of the innovations is the “soapbar” humbucking pick-up, along with the Stingray’s 3-band equalizer. This equalizer enables the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar to boost, low, mid range, and high frequencies. This was indeed a major breakthrough for the Stingray since no other electric bass guitars without active preamps have this capability before.
Aside from these electronic advancements, the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar has a classic, heavy satin finish on the back of the neck for the players hand to conveniently slide up and down while playing. Moreover, the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar comes with a separate control plate and a pick guard that is egg shaped. Apart from these physical features, the most prominent physical feature of this guitar is the “3+1” headstock with which the three tuning machines are situated.
Over the years, modifications on the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar were made. One of the primary modifications done was the omission of the string-through-body stringing at the bridge, and the adjustable string mutes. However, for the 30th anniversary in 2006, MusicMan produced a Stingray which features the string-through-body design. Furthermore, it uses solid mahogany for the body with a Crimson Red Transparent finish.
Other modifications of the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar include a 5-string version with a distinctive truss-rod neck adjustment using a highly rust and corrosion resistant washer. These modifications made the neck adjustment of the Stingray easier.
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The Fender Precision Bass Guitar was patterned after the electric bass guitar personally designed by Leo Fender and was introduced to the market in 1951.
One thing that is advantageous for fretless bass guitars is that these guitars are not limited to certain temperaments or tuning systems. For this reason, fretless bass guitars can play music that is not only in 12-tone scales, which are very typical of experimental music. Moreover, fretless bass guitars are capable of absorbing energy from the vibrating strings much faster, thus producing a distinctive sound. This causes the pizzicato of fretless bass guitars to sound more damped than the other guitars.
The design and construction of the Gibson Thunderbird underwent a revolution, as its design was changed in 1966 due to a lawsuit that was filed by Fender because of its resemblance to one of its products, the Fender Jazzmaster. This has caused the design of the body of the Thunderbird to be changed to ‘non-reverse’, as opposed to its original reverse body design. However, the production of the revised Gibson Thunderbird guitars was discontinued in 1969. In 1976, the Thunderbird, in its original reverse form, was reissued as a bicentennial edition, and continued production until 1979. It was again discontinued since then. However, in 1987, the Gibson Thunderbird models were introduced again, with the Thunderbird IV, and the Nikki Six Signature Thunderbird IV in its line. Both of these models have two pick-ups and have retained the reverse bodies.
