Sterling by Music Man StingRay Ray4 Bass Guitar Vintage Cream

For background: I am a semi-professional musician and recording engineer/producer. Besides some short stints in LA, I’ve mostly spent my music career in the local San Diego scene doing a variety of things from guitarist and bassist in bands, recording, live engineering, and DJing. I’ve been playing guitar specifically for 25 years. I also worked at the Taylor guitar factory in finish for 2 years so I know a fair amount about the guitar manufacturing process. I consider myself semi-professional only because I shifted my main career to technology and now music is more of a “serious hobby.”

I wanted this bass for two reasons: first, just for fun! I mean, it’s fun to switch it up now and again! But more importantly as a useful tool for recording songs. I’m always borrowing basses or telling people, “I’ll get the bass guitar in there later…” Plugins are cool, but I’d rather PLAY.

Forever ago, I knew if I had the money, the Stingray was the bass I always wanted in my instrument arsenal. But they’re expensive! I was STOKED to see that Ernie Ball/Music Man decided to make a cheap version that is licensed and has some assurance of quality control. A company like that, being one of the smaller brands, absolutely cannot afford to tarnish their reputation with bad instruments.
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THE REVIEW:

THIS BASS IS AWESOME! Out of the box I am immensely impressed. This is not a completely flawless instrument however, what you are getting for your money is like a gift from the music Gods. I’ll start with the “bad.”

The finish: Overall its really great. It’s a satin, which is cheaper to do than a gloss finish because the last coat goes on flat and does not require buffing. In fact, over time, your arms and such will end up buffing it. So it’s not a durable type of finish either. Also, you can’t fix tiny flaws, of which there are maybe 1 or 2 that I found. But honestly, this is all completely negligible to consider. The finish is fine. If you expect some amazing finish, you gotta pay. If anything, I can’t stand “perfect” looking guitars that look like they haven’t been played anyway.

The input jack: When I first plugged in, I used the right angle side of my cable. This was scary. It doesn’t work!! I would have to slightly tug at the cable to get a connection. This could be partly due to the design of the cable (Monster mid-range, don’t recall exact model). I was slightly bummed but this but honestly not discouraged. At this price, there HAD to be something. LOL. Anyway, I swapped around my cable for the straight end and it works just fine! So for now I’m good but I would like to address the input jack connection soon so it’s nothing to ever worry about.

The “good.”
The bass sounds amazing. The pickup, they really did not hold back on this thing. It sounds fantastic. The fret board and action is setup very well. Very smooth. The intonation is slightly off on the E and D strings but that’s easy to adjust. Honestly impressed with how close they got it to perfect from the factory though. It even stayed in tune all the way from Indonesia. It was cool to immediately play a little lick on it.

Last thoughts for beginners:
I rated this a 4-star guitar for a beginner. It would be 5 stars because it’s so amazing for the money but the issue with the input jack is scary enough for a noob. Someone who doesn’t know any advanced guitarists or luthiers might end up thinking their bass is “broken” for who knows how long before they address simple issues like that. I know because I’ve seen it happen. New players will quit practicing because they broke one string. You want the experience to be as easy as possible for a beginner. This is ALMOST their. If you have guidance, you’re fine with this instrument.
Another note is the active pickup. Active pickups are just another extra annoyance for someone just learning. They won’t appreciate the enhanced tone and will be lazy about replacing batteries. …but dang it sounds LEGIT.

Model: Red Satin Burst, Ray4.

The bass arrives in perfect condition and to be a 299.99 bass it sound really good, this bass is for practice or to take with you so you more expensive bass don’t get damage is a good deal also for beginners but the color in the picture show like the bass is a light cream, more like white pearl and is not like that, this bass is like you see in my pictures, is really cream color, so if you order this because the color you saw on amazon picture be prepared to be disappointed, I don’t care about the color because I like stuff that looks different so I was please, now out of the box the action was low enough for me to don’t changed, what I did was change the strings for S.I.T David Ellefson signature strings, the strings that came with the bass are not bad but after play for 2h my finger turn black so I understand those strings was cheep and old, so after I switch the strings the bass sound way better, also I fix the intonation because it was not right, those are minors set up for a bass that cost so low…look good and sound preaty good for the price, don’t spec this bass to sound like the real Music Man or the sterling that is not SUB edition because is not but sound better that lot of bass i try that are under $350.00