LeftyBassist.com

If you do decide to get one, make sure you can try it first or they have a return policy.

I'm in full agreement that if you can find a good one, they kick ass... but there are some bad ones out there.

I've had my hands on a couple.

Sorry I don't have Addison's chops for photo

I did own 2 SR5's back in the late nineties. One was the old natural satin finish with a rosewood board and weighed around 11 lbs. Sounded great. but was WAY too heavy for me. The other was pearl blue with a white pearl p/guard(and the cool white pickup cover) and a birdseye maple neck back when EB was making a lot of necks with birdseye. That one was a more reasonable 9 1/2 lbs and was well balanced and comfortable to play a 4 set gig with ,and also sounded great. The string spacing was fairly narrow and being a 4 string player i would get a little fumble fingered with it. Finally gave up on 5's but I do miss having that low D available for certain tunes. What I really liked about the SR5'S was how consistent the volume was from the lowest notes to the upper register.(and across all strings.) I agree with Addison, make sure you can demo before buying. If I ever decide to take the 5 string plunge again it would be the Stingray. IMO they're the best bang for the buck 5 out there at that price point.

I have a Valenti, great bass I have SN 0073, Nino is a great builder and for around $1800 I got to pick everything out I wanted (color, PU, matching headstock ect). The down side is I use every it now and then but I am not really a 5 string guy. I really want to play 5 string but somehow I feel more at home with 4 string.

http://valentibasses9.blogspot.com/

Yeah Nino makes good basses. Local guy out on Staten Island. He used to work for Sadowsky. The only thing about his basses I can't warm up to is his "sawed off" looking headstock design.

I don't normally play five strings but I have one of the Hohner headless basses,
which is good for me. The only other five-string I owned was an old Yamaha BB5
from the mid-nineties. If a song needed to go to low B, I'd use my Boss octave
pedal and just pedal it on down...

pete

What goes wrong with Stingray 5s other than being too heavy?

That's the trick (assuming I decide to go SR5). Hopefully I can find one locally or a trusted member here will put a good example up for sale.

I'm picky about looks too, so I don't think it'll be an easy find for me.

I have had a Cort Artisan A5 a few years ago. Very good quality bass, good sound. Narrow string spacing though. Sold it after a year or so.
More recently I bought a MTD Kingston Z5 from forum member Lefty007. Great bass, killer sound! Never heard a better B-string.The neck is quite broad and very thin. That is something I have to get used to.
Currently I borrowed a Stingray 5. Man that is a great bass, plays like a dream! Not sure however if the sound of this Stingray fits in my band setting. I play jazzy, loungy, fusion music with quite some Rhodes. Will give it a try in a week or so.

IIRC they can have dead spots on the G string. Didn't notice it on the one I owned tho. Maybe I just got lucky?

Here's a light SR5:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ernie-Ball-Music-Man-StingRay-5-Honey-Burst-Left-Handed-Rosewood-Neck-387-/321392867744?pt=Guitar&hash=item4ad481f9a0

I've had problems with poorly cut nuts, bad fret jobs and really bad neck angles.

The most common problem I've had is bad neck angles, where the saddles bottom out before I can get the action low enough.

Not sure if you guys know this or not... but pretty much EVERY SR5 ships with a shim in the neck pocket. You'd probably never notice this since there's no reason to ever take off an SR5 neck.

In fact, Ernie Ball has shims especially made for their basses in 3 different widths. If you call them, they'll send you some. They even have little holes for the screws to go through and are color coded by thickness. Brown, yellow and pink.

This tells me that they have issues getting the right neck angle cut into their neck pockets because their CNC tolerances are low... and instead of taking the time to get the neck pockets right, they throw a shim in there instead.

I've had saddles bottom out on SR basses before and the action has still been really high... when you call CS, their answer is to throw a thicker shim in the neck pocket, and, I'm sorry, but that's just lazy bullshit.

I understand the need for shims in certain circumstances, but EBMM now use them as part of the manufacturing process... and on a $2000 bass that is unacceptable to me.

That's shocking to read, Chris. I have had, without exaggeration: two Sterling, five SR5s, two Bongo, and four SR4. . . and all of them have had perfect setups and super low action, and perfect frets.

Now, of all of these, maybe only 2 or 3 had a decent weight, and my last SR5 was 8.5 lb (extremely rare). The rest were all heavy.

But not to defend EB/MM, I actually consider myself and EB/MM hater, because of some of their policies and overall mentality (too long to explain here now). And ultimately, the MM sound has proven time after time not to be for me. . . But I do enjoy playing them from time to time.

I had one older SR5 and one SR4 from when they first started making production lefties in '96 and they were both amazing. After that, not so much.

I guess it's just another episode in the continuing saga of "The Shitty Basses Addison Ends Up With" but here are some pics from my last SR5... it was one of the "Ball Family Reserve" Sugar Roasted models.

The first main problem it had was that the G-string in the nut was cut too close to the edge of the neck and the bevel on the frets were filed in too deep so the G-string would CONSTANTLY pop off the fingerboard while I played.

The second was that the B and E string saddles were bottomed out and the action was still really high for me... even when the neck was bone straight. As you can see in the pics, the B string is like 1/8" away from the 12th fret.











EBMM got the bass back and Billy Imperial sent me a message that the neck was "toast"... they replaced it and I got the bass back and it was amazing after that. Too much love was lost during the whole ordeal, however, and I ended up trading the bass away.

I too am a EBMM hater, but it's mostly because of Sterling Ball.

After I got the bass back, I posted a mostly positive customer service story on the EBMM message boards and Sterling decided to get on there and trash talk me... he said that that they only replaced the neck to make me feel better and that the bass left the factory within spec the first time.

So I posted all of these pics with copies of the emails I received and the thread was deleted shortly after that.

Pretty shitty way to treat a customer... let alone someone who bought three SR5's and two SR4's brand new, but whatever I guess.

Damn, Chris, you really have had bad luck with instruments. . . I also experienced the same problem with the G string falling off the fretboard. It was really annoying, but it looks like it was worse in that "Family Reserve" of yours because they probably polished the ends more than production basses. And not to derail this topic more, but yes, those guys at EB/MM, starting with Sterling, are a sack of poopooheads.

I can probably write an essay about lefty 5-strings, but these are the ones I've owned, in purchasing order:

-Warwick Thumb Bass blot-on: amazing sound, tight, bright and modern, piano-like, aggressive, but very heavy and difficult to play. Thick neck.
-Yamaha TRB-5: pseudo-Jazz-bass sound, thick neck but more playable than the Warwick. 35" didn't feel that long. Not too heavy, but not light either. I great bass to have in general for the money. Great fretwork and quality, usually.
-StingRay 5: I've had many, as I explained below. Still a great bass is you don't mind the flaws and find a light one. Recommended for funk and rock, but not Latin, reggae or Motown.
-MTD 535: one of the kings of the jungle. Mammoth sound, clear, punchy, big, articulate. The neck was chunky and that paired with the 35" scale made a chore to play, for my small hands, at least.
-Kinal: beautifully made boutique luthier. Only had it for a few days because the neck needed shimming, but I was too young to know, so I sent it back.
-Ken Smith BSR bolt-on: king of playability. The best 5-string neck, ever. Muddy sound. No body contours means it's not the most comfortable bass (I like Fender-type contours). Ken Smith is a character. You either love him or hate him. I didn't like him much, but I recognizer his a master builder.
-Lakland 55-94: one of my all-time favorites. Top-notch in every way. Mine was from the heyday of the company. Beautiful woods, craftsmanship. . . everything. But the 35" scale and wide neck was too much for me.
-Sadowsky 5-24: I've had three of these guys, One of my all-time favorite.
-Ibanez SR1205: incredible value for the money. Excellent everything. Light, balanced, beautiful fretwork (as good as any $5000 bass, no kidding).
-Carvin SB5000: Great value and quality, but the sound and feel never won me completely over to keep it.

Andrew here's a nice G&L @ Bass Place in Arizona. 9 1/2 lbs and they take trades. http://www.ebay.com/itm/G-L-L-2500-5-st ... 33918cb900

I am a huge SR5 fan and currently own 3 of them. I also have a Bongo5, Lull 5, and a German Corvette $$ 5.

The SR5's feel like home to me and really like the post 2008 return to the Alnico pickup. They can be heavy but I love the personality of these basses. My Bongo 5 has an arguably better sounding low B string, is light, extremely well balanced and sounds amazing but doesn't quite speak to me the way the SR5 does.
My Lull is a 35 inch scale Jazz 5. She has a great growl but the 35 inch scale is a tad harder to get around on. Great bass though.
The Corvette is very dark sounding but has tons of growl and may have the best low B of them all. Not as well balanced on a strap as some basses but I do love the brass frets, wenge board, and the overall quality.

In the past I have owned a G&L L2500, a Carvin LB75, and a Yamaha BBN5, none of which worked out for me. Funny how we all have differing tastes.

I have owned 3 different 5 string Stingrays and a 4 string fretless. As with Chris 2 of mine were just made poorly but I expect great things from MusicMan. My oldest bought in 2005 direct from Bass Central was the best of the 5ers but still ALL of the G strings were super close to the edge of the fingerboard and with the way they crown and round over the frets it doesn’t work. If you are going to do the “hot dog” fret ends the string needs to sit in before the drop off occurs and none of mine did. I will say I dig in more than most but I actually would shy away from the G string because of it and the G was always at a lesser output that the other 4 strings. To run a factory like MusicMan and design an instrument that needs a shim is to me the stupidest thing I have ever heard of in bass making history. The best CNC machines money can buy should allow for precision design and execution. I can attest to the necks having shims I have seen them. Every MusicMan I owned had the G and B or E bottomed out completely even with the shims. No more for me thank you.

I had my first MM for over 5 years as my main bass pretty much they sound great to me with new strings. As well as MusicMan I have owned maybe 30+ 5 string basses. Mostly German Warwick, Euro Spectors but a lot of others including Pedulla, Zon, Mike Lull, Lakland, Modulus, Warrior, FBass, USA G&L, and a few others. I have owned 14 5 string basses at one time. Since then I have sold all but 4 basses. My Warwick Streamer Stage II with J1 EMG pickups and Seymour Duncan 3 Band preamp remains since I have owned it as “home” it is absolutely amazing in every way. My next favorite is my Mike Lull between these two instruments I can fit in and play pretty much any genera of music and please almost everyone likes as far as vintage to modern.

Funny as of today I have sold over 15K worth of gear to furnish my shop to build 5 string basses I really want. I’m in that process now.

Schecter Stilletto Elite 5
I have almost all the parts to build a Warmoth Jazz V, which will be a thing of beauty if I ever get it done.

Mine is still available on reverb.com if you're interested! Only 400 and in great condition!