“This bridge is a work of art”: Tim Commerford’s new Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay is a love letter to the pawnshop bass that shaped the first Rage record – and it’s uniquely primed for his playing style

Ernie Ball Music Man has unveiled a new signature guitar for Tim Commerford, which serves as an ode to the bassist’s beloved pawnshop StingRay that featured on the first Rage Against The Machine record.

Two formats have been introduced: an active four-string in a Xavier Green finish and a Quentin Blue-colored passive edition.

Commerford – whose politically-driven basslines helped raise the profile of the StingRay bass significantly – says he fell in love with the StingRay as soon as he saw it.

“This is a bass that I fell in love with at a pawnshop and used to play the first Rage record,” he remembers. “I’m proud to play these basses and feel wholeheartedly that they are the best basses I’ve ever played in my life.”

It’s high praise for the StingRay, which has been further optimized as part of this limited signature run. Only 50 of each variant have been made, and Commerford was heavily involved in every step of the build process to ensure his pawnshop star got a faithful recreation, with some modern tweaks to boot.

There is a minor Commerford flourish – his name is engraved into the neck plate, alongside his logo and the model’s number – but otherwise, they stay true to the DNA of the bass that has rarely left his side throughout his career.

Solid ash bodies and roasted maple necks with five-bolt joints and ebony fretboards are common across their respective specs, while painted headstocks to match the body colorways and black lightweight clover-style peg heads are nice aesthetic touches. They’re augmented by classic oval pickguards.

They both also feature string-through bridges, which benefit from vintage plated saddles and adjustable mute pads. Further adjustability comes via the custom finger ramp for setting the height of the beveled thumb rest to each player's desired point.

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Naturally, they deviate when it comes it electronics, but they are in fact different takes of the same recipe. Both passive and active models feature StingRay humbuckers with neodymium magnets, “bringing you more output and a wider range of sounds”.

The passive model offers a three-position parallel/single-coil/series pickup rotary switch and a push volume control with a passive gain boost to ensure its tones cover a wide spectrum. The active ’bucker, meanwhile, comes with a three-band preamp with 18 volts of extra clean headroom.

Commerford, who leans heavily on his picking hand thumb, sees the adjustable thumb ramp – positioned beside the pickps – as a worthy USP for his twin signatures.

“This is what truly makes this bass unique,” he says. “If you’re a thumb player and you anchor down like I do, to just have a few spots to be able to put your hand that are comfortable is really helpful.

“It’s a Music Man StingRay, but better than that, it’s my own version of that,” Commerford states. “This bridge, to me, is a work of art, and the mutes that are on it really are useful, especially for effects, distortion and whatnot.”

The Tim Commerford StingRay models are available now, priced at $3,099 apiece. Check out Ernie Ball Music Man for more.