Making a Squier Bass into a Pre-EB Stingray

This is an experiment to see if it was possible to get the sound of a Music Man Stingray bass from a much cheaper Squier.

This video is a bit of a deep dive - I thought it might be helpful for anyone interested in what makes a Stingray sound the way it does.  And more generally, ways to get your bass to sound more like any other bass.
But please feel free to skip straight to any portions of the video!  No hard feelings.  :)   All of the talking is just to provide context, and more information.

The demos basically show the "steps" I tried before I was pretty satisfied with the sound - including passive non-Stingray pickups at the right position, then a passive Stingray pickup at the right position, then adding an active Stingray-style preamp/controls, and finally 100% matching the Stingray preamp/controls.

Let me know what you think!


Timestamps:
Stingray demo:  0:53
Fingerstyle demo #1, bass 75% treble 75%:  10:44
Fingerstyle demo #2, bass 75% treble 75%:  12:08
Fingerstyle demo #3, bass 50% treble 50%:   12:57
Slap demo, bass 75% treble 75%:  13:50
Conclusions, recommendations:  15:13

* You may be wondering why there aren't demos with more EQ settings. Honestly, they just weren't very interesting (e.g. bass 0% treble 0%), or they weren't very fun to listen to (e.g. bass 0% treble 100%). Hope the 2 settings I used were satisfactory.


More info:

Basses used:
1983 Music Man Stingray (pre-Ernie Ball), all original.  Stock pickup and active 2-band EQ preamp.  Strings:  DR FAT-BEAM FB-40 roundwound (fresh).
2020 Squier Classic Vibe '70s Precision Bass ("Squier-Ray").  No onboard electronics - see video for description of outboard preamps.  Pickup:  Nordstrand MM4.2.  Strings:  DR FAT-BEAM FB-40 roundwound (fresh).
1998 Squier Precision Bass (5-pickup bass).  Pickups:  Five Dimarzio Area J pickups.  Controls are the same as a stock Jazz (or Precision) bass, all passive except for demo using outboard 2EQ preamp (see video for details).  Strings:  DR FAT-BEAM FB-40 roundwound (fresh).
1973 Precision Bass, all original as far as I know.  Stock pickup and controls.  Strings:  D'Addario ECB81 Chromes flatwound, 45-100.

Basses are direct into a Focusrite Scarlett interface.  Only "effect" is some light compression.
Note, all basses are recorded with the Scarlett's input set to "Line", not "Instrument", due to the majority of setups being active preamps.  Unfortunately, this also makes the passive settings sound a bit darker than "Instrument", which would normally be used for passive.  For a fair comparison, I had to pick one setting for all basses, and picking "Instrument" would have made all of the active basses sound far too trebly.  Just wanted to clarify why the passive settings may sound slightly dark.

If you're interested in the demo basslines, they're based on:
Fingerstyle demo #1:  Moving Up (Donny Benet). Bassist: Donny Benet.
Fingerstyle demo #2:  Konichiwa (Donny Benet). Bassist: Donny Benet. UPDATE: I got one of the notes wrong! See here for the right way to play it, by the man himself:    • Donny Benét- Back in the Studio: Ken ...  
Fingerstyle demo #3:  Konichiwa (Donny Benet). Bassist: Donny Benet.
Slap demo:  Reach Out (George Duke).  Bassist:  Louis Johnson.

Photo credits:
Louis Johnson photo credit and licensing information:  Lioneldecoster (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Stingray Pre-EB 2EQ schematic - By Bajaman.  https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewto...
Stingray 3EQ schematic - By Dominic DeCosa.  https://www.talkbass.com/threads/diy-...
Donny Benet:  https://www.facebook.com/donnybenet/p...
Joe Dart photo:     • Ernie Ball Music Man: Joe Dart's Sign...  
Squier Classic Vibe '70s Precision Bass:  https://www.sweetwater.com/store/deta...
Nordstrand Audio MM4.2 Dual Coil pickup:  https://nordstrandaudio.com/products/...
Mojotone Music Man Clone 2-Band 3-Knob bass preamp:  https://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/Mo...
Bernard Edwards - From https://alchetron.com/Bernard-Edwards, photo credit unknown
Fender Vintera '60s Jazz Bass:  https://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/...
Sterling by Music Man StingRay Ray4:  https://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/...
Hofner H500/1 Vintage 1964 Violin Electric Bass:  https://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/...
Fodera Matthew Garrison Signature Imperial 5 Elite:  https://fodera.com/products/matthew-g...

All other photos are my own.

Background music:  Original (mine).