Introduced in 1987, the StingRay 5 was the first all-new Music Man bass designed and built in San Luis Obispo by the Ernie Ball team. The five-string's styling is based on the classic look of the Silhouette guitar. Advanced active electronics combine the best of the four-string StingRay along with innovations from Music Man designers, such as a ceramic humbucking pickup with a hum-cancelling "phantom" coil for noise reduction and three-way pickup selector for series and parallel combinations. The tuners are placed in a 4+1 configuration and the six-bolt on maple neck has a rosewood or maple fingerboard with 22 high-profile wide frets. The StingRay 5 is also available with an optional piezo bridge pickup, and as a lined or unlined fretless with a pao ferro fingerboard.
In 2005, the StingRay 5 was updated with two humbuckers or a bridge humbucker paired with a neck single-coil pickup and a five-way pickup switching system. The single humbucker model continues to be in production as well. The following year, Music Man released a Limited Edition StingRay 5 featuring a five-bolt neck plate, no pickguard, and an ebony fingerboard.
As of 2008, Sting Ray 5s are built using alnico pickups, which are also found in their four-string counterparts. These pickups give the instrument a sound more like a StingRay 4.