Ernie Ball Music Man and former Rage Against The Machine bassist Tim Commerford have joined forces for a pair of StingRay signature bass guitars.
The collection comprises an active four-string StingRay, finished in a military spec Xavier Green paint job, and a passive version in Quentin Blue, each of them in a matte poly finish.
Both instruments have been released in limited quantities. They are only making 50 of each. Commerford has been involved with the design at all stages.
In the minds of many RATM fans, the StingRay is the Commerford bass. Commerford says it has been a long-standing relationship ever since he first set eyes on one in a pawnshop. No bass compares.
“This is a bass that I fell in love with at a pawnshop and used to play the first Rage record, and I’m proud to play these basses and to feel wholeheartedly that they are the best basses I’ve ever played in my life.”
Many bass guitarists would agree. Commerford and Ernie Ball Music Man last teamed up in 2021, for a run that included various takes on the StingRay. There were long and short-scale models, active and passive.
These are designed in a similar spirit; the only big aesthetic signature detail on these new StingRays are subtle.
You’ll find Commerford’s name engraved neck plate alongside his logo and the number of the model, but otherwise these are simply tailored to his specs – anyone who appreciates a StingRay (and who doesn’t?) will have a lot to like with these.
Both models have a similar build, of solid ash bodies, roasted maple necks that join the body with a five-bolt joint. The heel has been sculpted nicely. They have painted peg-heads to match the body’s finish. There are high-contrast parchment pickguards, in the classic oval profile.
The fingerboard is ebony, has an 11” radius and seats 22 stainless steel frets. All the high-end EBMM touches are present and correct; the gunstock oil and hand-rubbed special wax blend on the neck. The Ernie Ball Music Man neck is a modern wonder of the world.
Commerford has spec’d this up with black hardware. You’ll find custom lightweight clover-style tuners on the headstock, with tapered string posts to improve the break angle over the nut.
Everything is geared up to be just so on these basses – the nut is compensated to help make sure that intonation is on-point. The bridge is a string-through-body design with vintage-plated saddles.
The big question is whether to go active of passive. Both of these have a single neodymium Music Man humbucker, with the active model active model searched by an 18V preamp with a volume control and a three-band EQ.
The passive version has a three-way rotary pickup voice selector, giving you parallel, single-coil and series pickup configurations. It has a passive-boost via a push-pull on the volume pot, and a tone control, too.
In other words, both are hugely versatile. Perhaps the coolest signature feature here is the adjustable thumb ramp, a rest positioned just beside the pickup that is a godsend for a thumb player like Commerford.
“This is what truly makes this bass unique,” he says. “If you’re a thumb player and you anchor down like I do, to just have a few spots to be able to put your hand that are comfortable is really helpful.”
Also, in Commerford’s line of work, overdrive, fuzz, effects are not out of the question, so you will find adjustable mute pads on the bridge to help dampen some of the noise that comes with that.
“It’s a Music Man StingRay but, better than that, it’s my own version of that,” says Commerford. “This bridge, to me, is a work of art, and the mutes that are on it really are useful, especially for effects, distortion and whatnot.”
The Tim Commerford StingRay is available now, priced $3,099. See Ernie Ball Music Man for more details.
