MusicMan StingRay 2018 Dual Humbucker — Five Sounds in One Bass

I had this bass for a very short time. Not long enough to do a proper full review — and I regret that, because the more I played it, the more sounds I kept finding.

The MusicMan StingRay 2018, with dual humbuckers and a 5-position pickup switch. One of the most popular short videos on my channel came from this instrument, and the reason is simple: this bass is genuinely impressive.

Let me give some context about where MusicMan comes from, because the history matters.

Music Man as a company was founded in the early 1970s by Forrest White and Tom Walker — both former associates of Leo Fender. Leo himself joined shortly after. The StingRay debuted in 1976 and was the first production bass to feature an active onboard preamp. That was a genuinely revolutionary thing at the time. Before the StingRay, active electronics on a bass meant custom modifications or boutique instruments that most players couldn’t afford.

The single-humbucker StingRay defined the sound of funk and R&B in the late 70s and 80s. Marcus Miller, Louis Johnson, Flea — the list of players who built their signature tone around this instrument is long. When Ernie Ball acquired the brand in 1984, production quality stayed high and the design evolved carefully over the following decades.

The 2018 version I had was from the modern era of StingRay production. The big difference compared to the classic single-humbucker design is the second pickup and the 5-position switch. Five pickup configurations: both humbuckers full, neck humbucker alone, bridge humbucker alone, and two coil-split combinations. That’s a massive range of sounds from one instrument.

In practice what this means is: you can go from the classic thick StingRay bridge humbucker tone straight into something closer to a Jazz Bass neck pickup sound, and then to something in between. Each position has a genuinely different character. On the classic single-humbucker StingRay you get one sound — a great one, but one. On this bass you get five.

I played it on multiple sessions while I had it. Slap, fingerstyle, studio contexts where I needed to blend into different things. Every time I needed a different texture, I moved the switch. It delivered. The active preamp on the 2018 is clean and transparent — it boosts without coloring, which lets the natural character of each pickup position come through.

My one regret is that I didn’t have it long enough to really push it. A few days isn’t enough to fully understand what an instrument is capable of. But the impression it left was strong. If you’re a StingRay player who wants more tonal flexibility without changing basses, the dual-humbucker version is worth serious consideration.

The five-position switch on the 2018 dual humbucker StingRay expands the tonal vocabulary significantly beyond what the single-pickup version offers. Each position produces a genuinely different character — this is not a subtle variation, it’s a meaningful tonal change. Position 1 is full neck humbucker: thick, warm, round. Position 3 is both pickups in parallel: that classic MusicMan bark with added low-mid weight. Position 5 is full bridge humbucker: aggressive, defined, punchy. Positions 2 and 4 are the coil-split variations.

For players who use one bass across multiple styles in the same gig — covers bands, session work, anything that requires switching character quickly — this routing gives you a working toolkit. You don’t need to bring multiple basses if you understand how to use what’s available on this one.

MusicMan’s active preamp in this era has a slightly different character than the current production. The low boost is warmer and the high boost is more present without becoming brittle. It’s a version of the preamp that many players specifically seek out in the used market.

The StingRay design itself dates to 1976 and Leo Fender’s work after leaving the company that bore his name. The dual humbucker variant is newer — it arrived in the late 80s as an option and has evolved over the decades. The 2018 model represents a mature version of that evolution.

What I found most interesting about spending time with this bass was how quickly I stopped thinking about the electronics and started thinking about the music. That’s the highest compliment you can pay an instrument — it gets out of the way and lets you focus on playing. The 2018 StingRay with dual humbuckers has enough tonal range to stop being a technical problem and become a transparent tool.

The 2018 dual humbucker StingRay proves that MusicMan’s design still has room to evolve without losing what made the original great. If you have a chance to play one, do it with an open mind and give all five pickup positions a proper audition. The versatility might surprise you.