Martin Stinger Bass

can't tell you the exact year...probably 88-89 I got my first bass. It was an orange SBX 4 string with a single passive P-type pickup. It was a damn good little instrument given the entry level price...as far as I know, it's still functioning (which earned it the name The Beast over the years). The thing had dents and scratches, beer spills, was puked on once...you name it. The tuner on the E even bent in a fall, but I've played many a bass that held tuning nowhere near as well. And it played like a dream when well properly adjusted. Only had 2 problems with it--a loose jack plate, and a buzzing fret in the upper register--both easily fixed. For a weekend warrior who jams at a buddy's house or plays low intensity gigs, this bass is a worry free friend.

I'm assuming these were maple (rosewood fret board) maybe ash?

definitely a noisy stage instrument...though I never ran it through a truly quality amp.

with the exception of one high register fret which buzzed terribly until filed down, the action was excellent. Hated the neck joint and horns though...it seemed clumsy in the upper register. Not being a huge soloist, it was an annoyance, not a death sentence

best I've ever seen over the course of many years with the exception of a Steinberger L. The thing is like the AK47 of basses--drop it in mud and bang it on a rock and you'll never notice a difference in performance

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for the money, if you just want a workhorse not a racehorse, you can't go wrong

I don't know about place or date of manufacture, but do agree that it was likely made offshore. 4 string with passive J and P pickups with volume and tonal controls , giving it a fair range. Mine hums (most passive instruments can & do!). Bridge and tuner equipment not bad. Nut sucked, made of plastic (as most) and broke, so I made one from bone. I guess I'm trying to say that I've held far worse basses!

As stated above it has a fair amount of sound range and is noisy, but is hard to detect with a loud guitar player standing beside me!!! No good for studio. I use heavy nylon covered strings on it to keep the sound pretty much "in the basement". Hold tuning incredibly well.

Replaced the nut and set intonation and action myself. I set it just shy of fret buzz and it damn near plays itself.

I have played the **** out of this thing. Hundreds of gigs later with no backup and it still kicks ass. I've been so hard on it thru the years that I now use it as my backup.

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Have played for decades. Picked this bass up for what I thought was a bundle back then, but turned out to be a steal for what it has delivered. I don't believe another bass of similar quality could top it.

The Martin Stinger SBL-10 is one of many subcontracted electic instrument that Martin had produced for them in the 1980's. All that I could find out from a factory representative (by phone) is that the instruments were built by a undisclosed factory in southern, South Korea.
"They kept no records of serial numbers or any other data". He said " Everyone involved with that project has left the company and no information is avalable"
I got the feeling that he was blowing me off and didn't want to claim anything to do with the run. Perhaps they do not want it out that they ever had anything to do with a instrument from overseas. Yet, he did say, "The instrument was built and imported for Martin". However, by all accounts the instruments are not blue booked as a Martins.

Great sound PJ set up. Mine been professionally set up and has great action. No static or hum since I purchased it new. It has never been opened for any reason.

Out of the Factory the set up was generic at best. Mine is white with all black hardware, pickups, tuners, bridge,Etc. Never had any issue with it. The pick ups have the standard spring mounting adjustment. the pole pieces are non adjustable.
Mine is in mint condition, I have never seen a better example of this bass. I purchased a Fender shortly after the SBL-10 and rarely play it but. I keep it becuse it is a fun and nice looking bass.
SBL-10 ??? 35??? (Martin) Stinger circa 1986
Four String Electric bass
White finish/ black hardware
Strings: GHS pressure wound, set # L7200
.040 .054 .076 .096
Frets: original 1986
Setup 08/24/06
S/N: may be in neck cavity (Unknown)
Blue book value: $200.00

I have mine as a collectors piece because of it's excellent condition. I never have played it on stage because it is so clean and not a scratch on it. I do not have an opinion on professional usage. The truss rod has only needed adjustment twice. Everything (except the plastic jack plate would have to be replaced with a metal plate) is very solid on the SBL-18. Ironically I also have a 1979 American made Martin EB-18 four string. It is just to awesome to leave the house as well.

Never needed any product support and the bass is to old for that now.

I have played for 30 years now and have a few favorate basses that I only play at home. I like the care free finish of the SBL-10. As I have said it is 98% mint. I started playing with a 1965 Danelectro Silvertone 1444L bass which I still have in excellent shape. Then I purchased the SBL-10 and settled on a Fender Precision. I play a 2006 Fender Stu Hamm Urge II signature bass now. I would regard the SBL-10 as a Entry Level bass stock but, with a few prossesional changes it would be a excellent stage bass. I would use it as a special tune set up bass to play Nirvana etc.

The Martin Stinger Bass I have is an SBL-10. The reviews I have read before have talked about basses with split P pickups only. The bass I have has the split P in the front and a J style pickup at the bridge. The bridge is fully adjustable with floating blocks that carry the strings. The floating blocks are adjustable up and down and can be set higher on one side than the other if desired. They make is relatively easy to set the strings so they match the curvature of the neck perfectly. The intonation can be adjusted by spring covered set screws that move the blocks forward or backward as needed.

The bass I have is serial number 7070601. I have no idea when it was made but the warranty card (which was never sent in apparently) shows a copyright date of December, 1985. A buddy of mine had it and I wanted one to kick around on. I am routinely more a guitar player than bass but I like to write songs and it's nice to be able to lay down my own bass lines when I'm recording.

The bass has twenty frets on a rosewood fretboard on a maple neck. The tuning heads are much the same as those I've seen on a Fender bass and are quite "beefy."

The body is solid but I have no way of telling what kind of wood it is. It has a high gloss black finish and no pickguard (don't know why you'd want one on a bass anyway). The body is nicely beveled in the back to fit smoothly over my inferior exterior (my gut).

It has a three position selector switch, one tone knob and seperated volume knobs for the P and the J. The knobs are black and are standard knurled knobs maybe a half inch in diameter.

The pickups have no name or numbers on them that I can see but they are really pretty hot. As I said, I'm not a bass player but my buddy is and he can get across pretty well with this thing just coming through a little 60 watt Peavey.

The body style is much the same as the Fender Jazz bass but most closely resembles the Lakeland Skyline.

I got a grey-blue gig bag with it but it has no name on it. It has a spacious zippered compartment adequate to hold an extra set of strings, a cord, cleaning cloth, strap, etc.

Finally, I went out to the Martin web site and put in Stinger Bass and got nothing. I think this was/is just a low end instrument they made offshore. I gave $250 for mine but I think it is a pretty nice instrument and it plays very well.

The base suits my music style fine. I play classic rock and classic country and a little jazz. I get no noise from this bass and it has a rich, deep sound. I would call it warm.

I bought the base used and a buddy of mine (damn good technician) set it up for me. It had been abused. As for the factory fit and finish I would have to say I was fairly impressed for the price.

Bass seems to be very durable. Everything is heavy duty. The only time we have had to adjust the neck is at string change. We do that routinely on all our instruments. Not much change from time to time.

Like I said earlier, I tried to get info at the Martin web site but got nothing. The original warranty was for one year.

I own (5) other instruments. A Dean Classical, a Fender Telecoustic, an Epiphone PR5E, an Epiphone Casino and a Gibson "The Paul Deluxe." If it were stolen I would probably just do without. I just play garage band kind of stuff and can't really afford to put a lot of dough in any of it. I did compare it to some other low end basses but for the money it was the top.

Korean made, serial no. J0400005 (in case someone knows how to translate that to date of mfg.), 4-string, 20 fret, bolt on satin finish maple neck with 4-on-a-side beefy but no-name covered machine heads, P-bass style split-pickup and P-bass style contoured solidy body in black with white pick guard and knurled Tele-style chome controls for tone and volume. Vintqge Tele-style four-saddle bridge provides excellent adjustment of intonation and action, Price used included a new gig bag and a Korn sticker plastered on the pickguard, which I promptly removed!

I'm running into the "bright" input of a 100W Sunn Concert Bass head without effects ithats pushing a ported JBL cab loaded with a pair of JBL 12s. Also tried the guitar through an AIMS 140W all tube head and have to admit I liked the sound better, but that head was priced way out of line so ... sigh!



Action as found in the shop is adjusted great, no fret buzz, plays "like buttah" and intonation is dead-on all the way up the neck. Guital electronics run cleanand noise free, delivering everything from sweet big bomber low-end sustain to glass breaking percussive attacks at the treble end of the control spectrum. Mess with the amp and the variation in sounds seems virtually endless. I'd describe the overall sound as round and rich, without the muddy overtones that can cloud a base signal and make it tough to tell what pitch you're listening to. My only dislike so far is the "made in Korea" decal on the back of the neck. I like the way the bass looks, feels in my hands and sounds -- what more can you ask for?

Don't know about the factory set-up. But being the slouches they are, I'm sure C.F. Martin & Co. told their asian licensee to just "slap 'em together and push 'em out the door, comrades." Just kidding! The Martin name on the headstock gives me a measure of confidence that nothing is going to be terribly wrong. I'm going to credit the set-up to an after-sale tech -- who did a fine job on everything from bridge and action adjustment to tweaking the pickpu positions. I'v noticed no flaws, but I'm still short of owning this thing for a full day. Then again, I don't really expect any surprises.

Have owned the bass less than 24 hours and I'm a fiddle and guitar player. Wanted a bass to noodle around on as well as a student instrument for my daughter and grandson. Like this one so well I may keep it as my personal axe. Hardware and finish are rock solid. Neck is arrow straight. I'd gig without an a backup if I was the bassist. Then again, I sometimes drive without a spare and go 10,000 miles between oil changes! Would I expect the Stinger to crap on on me in a club -- hell no. (But then I never saw that divorce coming, either.)

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I've been playing fiddle 41 years, guitar 38 years, bass 21 hours. I Own a wonderful circ. 1750 Italian fiddle, a '66 Rick 340 6-string, A Fender '69 Thinline Tele reissue, a '82 Mex Fat Tele, a '55 Flot-A-Tone tube amp, 70s era Gibson GA 17 RVT tube amp, A new Fender FAT Series Blues Junior (my current favorite) a Yamaha fifty-one-

twelve that I use as a stage monitor for fiddle (Barcus-Barry bridge transducer and pre-amp) with direct box to PA split to my monitor, and the 100W Sunn head and JBL cab.

Purchased used in 1994, unsure of manufacture date. Made somewhere in Asia I imagine. As will be made obviously clear in the following paragraphs, I don't know too much on the specs...and didn't really care all that much at the time!
The neck was a fairly thick maple affair, also with maple fretboard. Four strings, long scale, and a heavy body of unknown wood. I mean really, REALLY heavy! Stock split P-pickup as I recall, volume and tone controls. The only thing that really stood out was the finish, sort of a white-to-gray burst that looked really cool for my tastes.
Very basic, and too heavy to play for extended periods, but good enough for what I was doing at the time.

Grunge was at its height, and I traded in a low-end Yamaha RBX for this because it had the look and sound I wanted. Similar to the bass used by Mike Starr of Alice in Chains in the "Facelift Live" video, one of my favorite bands at the time. Plugged into a little Peavey MicroBass or an old Randall RB60 combo, this thing rumbled along with everyting from AIC and Soundgarden to Slayer and Pantera, plus had some decent high end to boot. I also had a Samick fretless (with P/J pickups) which was better for anything requiring much "noodling", so this was my main tool for bottom end.
Not a diverse sound, but emulated the sounds I wanted, mainly loud and low. Also sounded great through a Boss SD-1 for a sick distorted "For Whom the Bell Tolls" bass intro.

This was the only bass I've ever owned that I could easily play both with and without a pick. No problems at all, even though one of the tuning keys was broken and literally taped in place. I really didn't inspect it before I bought it, and if there were any flaws, it doesn't matter.
I won't rate this part, since it could have had numerous cosmetic problems that I didn't care about. It played fine and never gave me any hell.

In the time that I owned this bass (two years), I never so much as played with anyone else. I played bass in three bands in high school, went away to college (where I bought this), and traded it off after graduation. Of course, then I joined a band! Anyway, I have no doubt that this thing could have withstood almost anything. Thick finish - and fairly ugly to any non-grunge/metal player - and heavy-duty hardware. Someone must've done a real number on it to break the tuner. HUGE strap buttons too.
Easily able to take the worst torture possible at a gig, but I'll never know.

I've been playing guitar and bass for nine years, so probably 3-4 years at the time. It was a step up from a Yamaha, plus I bought a Samick fretless around the same time. For the music I was into then, it worked wonderfully and was worth the money. However, after two years, I wanted to once again divide my time between bass and guitar, and traded this off to pay for a better guitar amp. Had it been stolen or lost, I would've had to do without because I was a poor college student at the time.
Five years later, I wouldn't buy this instrument again. The neck was too thick and the body too heavy, and simply not right for the more melodic music I play now. I don't know if Stingers are considered good or bad, regardless of the Martin name, but it suited my purposes.
If you play metal and need a roadworthy bass that will stand up to some serious onstage thrashing, this is a good choice at the price. If you want lots of features or "beautiful" finish, look elsewhere. Although I no longer have it, I don't regret buying it.