MusicMan Month: Sterling Bass

Obviously I am a big fan of the Ernie Ball MusicMan guitars and basses. One complaint that I have heard from bass players is that the Stingray bass necks are too fat, and that they wish they had more of a Jazz Bass neck profile. Haven’t these guys ever heard of the MusicMan Sterling bass? I guess not.

The Sterling bass was introduced in 1993, about 10 years after MusicMan was bought by Ernie Ball. These basses have a slightly smaller body than a Stingray, and a Jazz Bass profile neck with a 1.5-inch nut. They use a 5-bolt (instead of 6) to join the neck to the body, so there is a little better access to the higher frets. Who uses those frets, anyway?

The hardware is comparable to that of a Stingray, with Schaller tuners, and the high-mass MusicMan bridge.

With a Sterling you can get almost the same electronics choices as you would with a Stingray: single humbucker, dual humbucker, humbucker/single coil, and a piezo option. They are all ceramic magnet pickups. On difference is that if you get a single humbucker bass, there is a hum cancelling phantom coil underneath the pickup (not that I have ever has a super-hummy Stingray). All of the basses come with a 3-band preamplifier with cut and boost.

The one we have here today is a limited edition. It is finished in Copperhead Bronze with an anodized aluminum scratchplate. These were only available in 2004 from Guitar Center, and you could get a Stingray, Sterling or Stingray 5 in this finish.

This one weighs in at almost 10 pounds, which is a little heavy for my taste. Of course, it played well (like all of their instruments), and the craftsmanship is superb.

By the way, if you do prefer the Stingray shape and tone, but want a thinner neck, you are in luck. Last year they instroduced the SLO special, which will give you a Sterling profile neck on a Stingray body.

MusicMan Month: Benji Madden Signature Model Guitar

Benji Madden? You are kidding, right? Good Charlotte was a flash in the pan band, and Benji was more famous for who he dated than for his music. But hey, he got a signature axe.

And it is not too bad, either. In 2004 MusicMan produced these guitars, which are a variant of their Silhouette model. The biggest difference was in the electronics, as this was the only MusicMan guitar made with a single humbucker pickup (DiMarzio, in this case).

Other than that, feature-wise these are pretty standard-issue guitars. They have Schaller locking tuners, and string through the body standard bridges. They have the cool trussrod wheel that makes set-ups a breeze, as well as the 5-bolt neck joint.

The bodies on these are alder, and they were available in textured black, white and Madden Green. You could only get maple fretboards on white and green guitars, and rosewood on the black ones. There was an upcharge for the glossy finishes. They also all have the hokey (or cool, depending on how you look at it) brass knuckle inlay at the 12th fret.

They were a bit on the spendy side, though, and did not sell too well. The list price on these was $1599 (with a glossy finish), and the street price was $1199. I picked this one up new for half of that.

It played well and was light (maybe 6 ½ pounds), but it lacked lower end, and eventually moved on to the afterlife of crap that I used to own.

What is Benji doing now? The last I heard he was scheduled for a boxing match against Riki Rachtman. Seriously.

MusicMan Month: Dargie Delight Bongo Bass

MusicMan Bongo basses are perhaps the least well-known basses around. They were designed in conjunction with BMW, and were introduced in 2003.

Obviously, the shape is distinctive. Ergonomically, they are very comfortable to play. The bodies on these are made of basswood (bass wood!), because it gives good tone, and because it is a bit lighter than other woods. This is helpful because the electronics package is pretty heavy.

The pre-amplifier and pickups are where these basses make the biggest impact on me. These can be very aggressive basses. They have an 18-volt pre-amp, and the pickups use neodymium magnets. With the 4-band equalizer, almost any tone can be dialed in. There are plenty of pickup choices, including single humbucker, double humbucker and a Humbucker/single coil combination. You can also throw in a piezo bridge as an option.

These basses are used by gods of the bass community, including Tony Levin, Cliff Hugo and Dave LaRue.

The bass we are looking at today is a very nice California-made 2007 MusicMan Bongo 4 HS Dargie Delight limited edition bass guitar. MusicMan only built 277 instruments with this finish, and this is one of only 5 Bongo 4 HS basses made in this color.

The craftsmanship is exactly what I expect for an instrument that comes from the folks in San Luis Obispo. It is first-rate. As a big plus, this one weighs in at around 8 ½ pounds.

The humbucker/single coil combination is my favorite on the Bongo. The single coil has a very precise tone, and it can be blended with the humbucker to get any kind of tone that I need.

It is a shame that these do not sell very well, because Bongos are some of the best basses around. I guess too many players are stuck in 1960, and cannot get past the whole Precision/Jazz bass mindset.

Mahalo!

MusicMan Month: Rosewood Axis Super Sport Guitar

Hi there! I have always looked at today’s guitar as homage to the rosewood Telecaster that Phillip Kubicki made for George Harrison in 1969.

The Ernie Ball MusicMan Axis Super Sport guitar was a limited edition, and I do not see them very often. They have a very striking appearance, and are a great playing guitar too.

The neck is pure art. It is made of a solid chunk of rosewood, with 22 high-profile frets. There is poly finish only on the headstock. The rest of the neck is coated in gunstock oil and wax, and is a smooth as silk. All models use Schaller locking tuners (with pearly buttons!), so string changes are a snap.

There is a transparent finish over the bookmatched rosewood top, and the rest of the body is ash. The body has a classy cream binding around the top. They are surprisingly light, and the ones I have played have been under 7 pounds.

Rosewood Super Sports were available with either a hardtail bridge that strings through the body, or a Floyd Rose locking tremolo.

The electronics are the same as other Axis models, with volume and tone controls, and a 5-way pickup selector. These control two DiMarzio humbucking pickups or MM90 soapbar pickups.

The list price on these was $2225 when they were new, but they can be had for under $1000 on the used market.

The one pictured here is a hardtail with Dimarzios, and is a real peach. As I said before the neck is the best part, and I feel it gives the guitar a darker tone. It plays as well as any Telecaster I have ever owned, and I have had some really nice ones.

MusicMan Month: 20th Anniversary Stingray 5

The MusicMan Stingray 5 bass was introduced in 1987. It has to be one of the most popular 5-string basses out there, and it seems like every country band I have ever seen has a bassist that uses one.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of this model, in 2007 MusicMan issued a limited edition anniversary edition. Many consider these to be the finest 5-string basses that the company has ever produced. Only around 335 of these were built.

The 20th Anniversary SR5 was available with a single or double humbuckers, as well as a humbucker/single coil combination. All of the available pickups used alnico magnets. They were also available fretted or fretless, and with maple, rosewood or Pau Ferro (fretless only) fretboards.

Besides the pickup changes, the pre-amp was also voiced differently. And to round out the functional changes, these basses got a mahogany tone block, as well as a slightly different body contour and a five-bolt neck to improve upper fret access. These basses play very well, and have a much deeper sound than a regular Stingray 5.

Visually, these basses are real lookers. They received figured maple tops, and all almost all of them were finished in the translucent California Sunset finish

Of course, everything else on these basses, such as the hardware and craftsmanship, meets the high standards that MusicMan basses have had since Ernie Ball bought them out in the mid-1980s.

These basses came in a custom G&G hard case, complete with a 20th anniversary emblem inside. The list price was around $3000, so they were pretty spendy when they were new. Nowadays, you can find them for pretty reasonable prices on eBay.

This is one that I got from a friend on the Ernie Ball forums. It weighs in at around 10 pounds 5 ounces, and is a joy to play except for one small problem: I do not play 5-string basses. I may never learn this lesson.

MusicMan Month: Albert Lee Guitar

Today we are looking at an Ernie Ball MusicMan Albert Lee guitar. Albert Lee is a true guitar hero who was born in Britain and relocated to the US, where he plays country, rhythm and blue and rock music. His signature model guitar was introduced in 1993.

The Albert Lee guitar is available in a few different configurations: hardtail or tremolo, and 3-single coil pickups or 3 soapbar pickups, as well as a piezo option.

The guitar we are looking at today is a hardtail with 3 single coil pickups. It was built in 1994 and is finished in the breathtaking Pinkburst finish.

The 10-inch radius neck is made of insanely-figured birdseye maple. You do not see this wood used very much anymore, as the prices have gone up as more auto manufacturers are using it. The neck is finished in gunstock oil, so it darkened a bit over time. Schaller non-locking tuners were used back then, they have since moved on to locking tuners. The fretwork on the medium frets meets MusicMan’s usual standards, which means that it is excellent.

The body is made of ash, and with the hardtail bridge it strings through the body. The factory equipped this one with 3 Seymour Duncan single coil pickups laid out Stratocaster style. The body cavity and the underside of the pickguard are well-shielded, and the wiring is very tidy.

This guitar is really comfortable to play, and to me the neck is the best part. Despite the strat-like appearance, to me this guitar plays more like a Telecaster, which is fine with me. I have always liked the tele necks more.

This one went to live with my buddy Rob in Australia, where these are a little harder to come by. He was tickled pink to get it.

August is Ernie Ball MusicMan Month

Hello! Until a few years ago, I thought of MusicMan as the company that made Stingray basses for Flea. That’s it. I had no idea about the wide variety of guitars and basses that they make.

And I am pretty sure that there are still quite a few guitarists and bassists out there that are in the same boat as me. Of course there are exceptions, such as the Eddie Van Halen signature guitars that were built years ago, but there is a lot more to MusicMan than this.

MusicMan started selling guitars basses and amplifiers back in 1974. The company was started by Leo Fender, Tom Walker and Forrest White. Sales were slow, and by 1984 were near bankruptcy.

The Ernie Ball company bought the MusicMan in 1984, and started introducing new and innovative models. All of them are built to very high quality standards, and are highly-regarded by real musicians. This has been a successful formula that continues to this day.

So, I am going to devote my blog for the month of August to these fine guitars and basses. I am a fanboy of the highest order, so this will not be a tedious task.