Luthiery Laboratories

This OLP Stingray was one of the first basses I ever modded heavily. I routed a battery and a second pickup cavity, and did all sorts of experiments on it, before returning it to it's original single-pickup configuration, but with upgraded active electronics and pickup, and a nice new pearl pickguard.

Basswood body, smells like chocolate when you're routing it. The finish needed some TLC, and I replaced some rusty hardware. Eventually, I replaced the headstock logo with the current one.

These OLPs ( Original Licensed Product ) were much better instruments than they were supposed to be, and they were eating into Musicman's sales, so they discontinued the license and later came out with their own cheaper line. If you want a cheap Stingray, find one of these on eBay and fix it up.

Anyone who has one of these should do this. Laser-printer waterslide decal material from the hobby shop or the eBays ( inkjet is also available. )

Remove the tuners and sand off the old logo. Tape off the fretboard from the nut down - I use just two pieces of masking tape and a sheet of scrap paper. Spray a base coat of poly for a smooth surface, let dry. Apply decal, let dry, and apply a thin protective coat. Let dry, then slather with more poly. You only need to re-coat the front of the headstock, avoid the sides and back.

The idea is to build up a layer thicker than the decal. Lay the piece horizontal, and you can just about make a puddle of poly that will level itself. Then you can sand the whole thing flat, and the edges of the decal disappear, although as the poly cures and shrinks, the decal may bulge slightly. Lastly, apply a final thin top coat to restore the finish. You can also use lacquer, starting with some very light protective coats to avoid dissolving the decal, but I don't use lacquer for anything anymore. ( Never put poly over lacquer. )

I won this bass unintentionally on eBay, and it became my first testbed for all sorts of modifications. I dressed and leveled the frets perfectly, as good as a real Stingray ( yes, you can do that ) and it plays that good. It has the same baseball bat feel as a real Stingray. I replaced the crappy OLP electronics with a SBK-2. This does not make it equivalent to a real Stingray, as the SBK-2 is a very un-colored preamp, whereas the Musicman preamp is anything but, by design. Still, the SBK-2 is a huge improvement and gives a wide range of tones. A pull switch on the volume knob gives passive mode.

Then I installed a second pickup, which sounded like @ss, so I blocked in the extra pickup hole and mounted a new pearl pickguard. During all this messing around, I pulled the wires off the original pickup, so I replaced it with a Wilkinson. I don't think that there was anything wrong with the original pickup, or that the Wilkinson is noticeably better. These Musicman humbuckers are internally wired in parallel rather than the typical series, which gives them a very thin sound. I also experimented with rewiring the pickup in series, but that was just too boomy and I deleted it. Also, the pickup location on the Stingray seems to be some kind of anti-node, as opposed to say the Precision, which is in a sweet spot. Pickup location has a huge effect on tone and dynamics, and on the Stingray, Leo was trying to do everything differently, but in the process, he did everything wrong. So he compensated with a very non-flat preamp, and it worked - it became a classic.

These OLP basses can be a steal on eBay, and are perfect for hot-rodding. Simply changing out the electronics and doing a good setup can get you very close to the real thing.

stingray.eps