Ernie Ball Music Man unveils limited edition Tim Commerford Artist Series StingRay collection

Ernie Ball Music Man has spec'd up a most exquisite signature StingRay series for former Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave bassist Tim Commerford. 

Commerford has been a long-time StingRay aficionado and has mixed things up with short- and full-scale StingRays in the series, and a choice of active or passive electronics. Altogether, there are four bass guitars in the series, all with four strings, and each limited to just 50 pieces worldwide.

The short-scale StingRays are offered in Natural and Vintage Sunburst finishes, with the full-scale basses available in Black or Natural. All feature a strings-through-body bridge setup, with adjustable mute pads, a height-adjustable finger ramp, and they are numbered with a signature neck plate.

The Commerford StingRays are fitted with a single MusicMan Neodymium humbucker at the bridge position, with the passive control circuit comprising a 500k push/push volume POT for gain boost, a 100k tone pot with a 0.1uf tone cap. The active basses feature a preamp with 18 volts of headroom and controls for volume, treble, mids and bass.

Necks are fashioned from select roasted maple, with a choice of roasted maple on the full-scale Black model and short-scale Natural model, or rosewood on the short-scale Vintage Sunburst, and ebony on the full-scale Natural models. All have ash bodies, with the necks attached to the body via a five-bolt join.

Elsewhere, there is the usual touch of EBMM luxury, with 22 stainless steel frets, electronic shielding, necks given the full spa treatment with gunstock oil and hand-rubbed special wax blend. It's lovely stuff. And, of course, you have the iconic egg-shaped StingRay pickguard and banana-shaped control plate.

The Tim Commerford StingRay collection is available now, priced £2,274 [approx]. See Ernie Ball Music Man for more details and to order direct.

Ernie Ball Music Man Tim Commerford StingRay

(Image credit: Ernie Ball Music Man)
Jonathan Horsley

Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and guitar culture since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.