Music Man StingRay (1976)
In January 1965, Leo Fender, suffering from health problems, sold his company, Fender Manufacturing, to CBS for 13 million dollars. But the father of the electric bass still had a few surprises for us, in 1974 he founded another company, Music Man, and in 1976 he presented his idea of the seventies Precision, the StingRay Bass, on the market.
Two features that make it immediately popular: the headstock with the asymmetrical arrangement of the tuning machines and, above all, the electronics consisting of a single passive humbucker magnet supported by a powerful active circuit.
In 1978 the Sabre model was put on the market which, with two humbucker magnets, allowed for greater tonal versatility.
Precision, Jazz, StingRay, in these three names we can summarize much of the history of the electric bass.
The StingRay, despite the single pickup, immediately proved to be a versatile bass, much appreciated for the slap with its brilliant and defined timbres that Louis Jonhson was able to produce out of it or, in the pop and rock field, by fretless bass players like Pino Palladino.
In 2005 was introduced the two humbucker pickups version of the StingRay.
Obviously there are also imitations of this model of electric bass.