NAMM 2025: Cory Wong with a guitar that isn't a Stratocaster? Do not adjust your set. The maestro of 21st-century funk guitar has teamed up with Ernie Ball Music Man for a pair of signature guitars that were inspired by the iconic StingRay bass guitar.

Available in two versions, the high-end StingRay II, and the even more high-end StingRay II Deluxe (would you just look at that roasted figured maple fingerboard!), these dual-humbucker equipped electric guitars present Wong with new tone options that he has been spent years searching for.

“I’ve been on the hunt for a humbucker guitar for a lot of years and I finally found one,” says Wong. “So many great tones in R&B, funk and rock require humbucker, and I’ve been missing out on some of those tones in my sonic palette. I’ve been a Strat guy my whole life, but I wanted another guitar, that would be a good contrasting companion.”

Wong has not soured on single-coils. And he for sure is not decommissioning his signature Strat any time soon, not ever. In the Ernie Ball Music Man intro video, Wong even thanks Fender for being cool with him teaming up with a rival company on a signature model. But these StingRays, well, they are like he says, they are something different, a launching pad for different sounds and styles – even if they do look kind of familiar.

Yeah, the oval white pickguard, the body shape, you can see the resemblance; the apple has not fallen that far from the tree. There is a lot of StingRay bass DNA, albeit with considerable updates. Look at that 4x2 headstock shape. This is non-traditional. Wong wanted it a little longer than your regular EBMM headstock. The ergonomics were tailored for a guitar player.

If you’re looking for a reference point for the neck shape, the James Valentine signature model is a good place to start. Wong’s custom profile is a little thinner.

The builds of Wong’s StingRay IIs are quite similar. Both have Custom HT Music Man humbuckers at the neck and bridge positions, both hooked up to a five-way selector switch. The body is solid alder. The necks are roasted figured maple, with a rosewood fingerboard on the StingRay II with the aforementioned Deluxe having a figured maple ‘board.

The Deluxe has a painted headstock to match the finish. The StingRay II (we hesitate to call this “the regular StingRay” because there’s nothing standard issue about these top-shelf electrics) shows off that figured roasted maple on its peghead.

The necks are finished with gunstock oil and hand-rubbed wax, and that always gets us with EBMM – its super Cali factory goes ballistic on making these builds as premium as possible. Ditto, the Schaller M6-IND locking tuners, the Music Man tremolo. Yes of course the hardware is gold.

Wong loves the neck. “I don’t know what kind of sandpaper they’re using at the factory, but I’ve honestly never felt a smoother neck in my life,” he says. Cory, it’s the gunstock oil and the hand-rubbed wax! Cory!

We could go on. But just check them out in the video above, and see more of them over at Ernie Ball Music Man.

The Cory Wong StingRay II is priced $2,999 available in Charcoal Blue and Cashmere, the StingRay II Deluxe is priced $3,299 and comes in Pine Green and Polaris White. Exquisite. The Polaris White is an EBMM Vault exclusive, limited to 30 units worldwide.

NAMM 2025: Sterling By Music Man has unveiled three new signature guitars that rework Tosin Abasi, Rabea Massaad and Ryan “Fluff” Bruce’s super high-end Ernie Ball Music Man designs at a more affordable price point.

Abasi’s Kaizen is offered as a six or seven-string guitar, and you would be hard pushed to find a more modern-looking electric guitar for under $1,000.

Massaad’s Sabre looks a chip off the old block in Ashen Burst and Blood Flame Burst, with Massaad’s signature white ring inlays on the fingerboard, Luminlay glow-in-the-dark side markers, and with that generously contoured S-style body that’s all about the ergonomics.

Fluff Bruce’s StingRay has that retro-modern vibe. Retro in that it looks like a bolt-on from the ‘70s, particularly with those Amana Boat Blue and Rula Thumb Red colour options. And modern in the sense that does not ship in standard tuning. Bruce tunes down. The factory setup on this one presents the YouTuber’s signature doublecut with a set of Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky electric guitar strings tuned to Drop C#.

There is no word yet as to when these will officially be available. Sterling By Music Man has yet to release all the specs. But they will be launched at some point this year and we do have some details.

For many players, the Kaizen is the big one. Co-designed with the Animals As Leaders guitarists, this has the familiar body shape and some premium touches. There are Steinberger tuners, a roasted maple neck. It is, however, a standard scale instrument instead of the multi-scale of its EBMM version.

It features a pair of SBMM high-output humbuckers and a three-way control switch, volume and tone, and a vibrato. The finish options are metallic purple and solid black, and expect to pay $849 for the six-string, $899 for the seven-string.

It looks like Massaad’s SBMM Sabre will be similarly versatile as his EBMM. A pair of custom-voiced Alnico V humbuckers are hooked up to a five-way selector switch and there is a push-push coil split. It has locking tuners, an SBMM tremolo, and that figured maple veneer looks pretty classy. It is priced $899.

Finally, Bruce’s StingRay has a Seymour Duncan electric guitar pickup pairing, with a Trembucker at the bridge and a JB Jr at the neck.

These are hooked up to a three-way pickup selector, volume and tone pots, both of which are mounted on a metal plate. It has a roasted maple neck, and you have the choice of fingerboards, with the Rula Thumb Red model with what looks like a rosewood fingerboard, and the Amana Boat Blue with roasted maple.

These are priced $879. For more details on the SBMM range, head over to Sterling By Music Man.

Ernie Ball Music Man has refreshed its lineup of James Valentine signature guitars, rolling out four classic finishes and “enhanced playability” to make them more comfortable to play for longer.

The Valentine lineup is a funny one, because it tends not to get as much attention as Ernie Ball Music Man’s collaborations with John Petrucci, St. Vincent, Omar Rodríguez-López, and Rabea Massaad, and yet it is a ridiculously well-appointed electric guitar that is designed for all kinds of styles and sounds.

Valentine says this year’s new models make him think of an old Les Paul he had at high-school.

“When I designed the guitar, it came at a good point because I was saying, like, ‘Okay, this one guitar, this is going to get me through everything I need to do,’” says Valentine. “And for the last eight years, this is the only guitar that I’ve played onstage.

“And these new colours, I have wanted this Cherry red for a long time. This was the colour of the guitar I had in high-school, which was a Les Paul Studio, and on all of these colours it feels nice to be going back to what I consider the classic guitar colours.”

There are two models available in the 2024 collection. One is the classic JV configuration, with his custom humbucker-sized single-coil at the bridge position, humbucker at the neck, and a three-way pickup selector switch, volume and tone.

There is a coil-split on the tone knob and a push-push onboard boost on the volume control that can apply up to 20dB – more than enough to make push the front end of your guitar amp and send it into overdrive.

The classic single-coil/humbucker version is offered in Trans Buttermilk and Gloss Black finishes.

And there is a dual-humbucker version, available in Cherry red and Ivory White. This similarly has the onboard gain boost, but this time a five-way blade pickup selector does the job of the coil-tap in giving you those in-between tones.

Both models have solid ash bodies. Depending on your finish, you have the option of a 10” rosewood fingerboard or figured roasted maple. The scale length on these is 25.5”.

Versatility is the name of the game. But what luxury, too. There are roasted figured maple necks as standard (plus the gunstock oil and hand-rubbed wax blend to make them the bee’s knees), stainless steel frets.

The electrics are all insulated to make these super low-noise instruments. There are Schaller locking tuners, a super-solid hardtail bridge.

They would make a formidable option for the jobbing session pro. And, of course, they are priced accordingly at $2,999 street. For more details, head over to Ernie Ball Music Man.

In other Ernie Ball Music Man news, the brand recently expanded its collaboration with former Rage Against The Machine basses Tim Commerford, unveiling a pair of limited edition signature StingRay bass guitars, with active and passive versions.

Ernie Ball Music Man and former Rage Against The Machine bassist Tim Commerford have joined forces for a pair of StingRay signature bass guitars.

The collection comprises an active four-string StingRay, finished in a military spec Xavier Green paint job, and a passive version in Quentin Blue, each of them in a matte poly finish.

Both instruments have been released in limited quantities. They are only making 50 of each. Commerford has been involved with the design at all stages.

In the minds of many RATM fans, the StingRay is the Commerford bass. Commerford says it has been a long-standing relationship ever since he first set eyes on one in a pawnshop. No bass compares.

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

Many bass guitarists would agree. Commerford and Ernie Ball Music Man last teamed up in 2021, for a run that included various takes on the StingRay. There were long and short-scale models, active and passive.

These are designed in a similar spirit; the only big aesthetic signature detail on these new StingRays are subtle.

You’ll find Commerford’s name engraved neck plate alongside his logo and the number of the model, but otherwise these are simply tailored to his specs – anyone who appreciates a StingRay (and who doesn’t?) will have a lot to like with these.

Both models have a similar build, of solid ash bodies, roasted maple necks that join the body with a five-bolt joint. The heel has been sculpted nicely. They have painted peg-heads to match the body’s finish. There are high-contrast parchment pickguards, in the classic oval profile.

The fingerboard is ebony, has an 11” radius and seats 22 stainless steel frets. All the high-end EBMM touches are present and correct; the gunstock oil and hand-rubbed special wax blend on the neck. The Ernie Ball Music Man neck is a modern wonder of the world.

Commerford has spec’d this up with black hardware. You’ll find custom lightweight clover-style tuners on the headstock, with tapered string posts to improve the break angle over the nut.

Everything is geared up to be just so on these basses – the nut is compensated to help make sure that intonation is on-point. The bridge is a string-through-body design with vintage-plated saddles.

The big question is whether to go active of passive. Both of these have a single neodymium Music Man humbucker, with the active model active model searched by an 18V preamp with a volume control and a three-band EQ.

The passive version has a three-way rotary pickup voice selector, giving you parallel, single-coil and series pickup configurations. It has a passive-boost via a push-pull on the volume pot, and a tone control, too.

In other words, both are hugely versatile. Perhaps the coolest signature feature here is the adjustable thumb ramp, a rest positioned just beside the pickup that is a godsend for a thumb player like Commerford.

“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.”

Also, in Commerford’s line of work, overdrive, fuzz, effects are not out of the question, so you will find adjustable mute pads on the bridge to help dampen some of the noise that comes with that.

“It’s a Music Man StingRay but, better than that, it’s my own version of that,” says Commerford. “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 is available now, priced $3,099. See Ernie Ball Music Man for more details.

Ernie Ball Music Man has launched a run of Tosin Abasi’s Kaizen signature guitar in a limited edition Gallium finish that ages over time to give each guitar its own unique look – and what a look it is.

Seriously, when the Animals As Leaders guitarist first teased this Gallium-finished Kaizen in February, we couldn’t quite believe if. It looked like it was a one-off, a distant ancestor of Joe Satriani’s Chrome Boy recovered from an alien spacecraft.

But in truth this was something completely different to the metal and metallic finishes we have seen on electric guitars before.

It was all-new to Abasi, too. “I’ve never seen anything like it on a guitar and I can’t wait to get mine,” wrote Abasi.

Well, it is here now, available from Ernie Ball Music Man and its dealers, priced $3,799 for the six-string variant, $3,999 if you want this sci-fi awesomeness translated to an extended-range 7-string guitar. And it is not a one-off. EBMM is making 66 of the six-strings, 33 of the sevens. Maybe they’ll make more; they will certainly sell out of these in no time.

For the progressive metal guitar player – for any metal player who wants a high-performance electric with a super gnarly profile and finish – this is a no-brainer.

We’ll remind you of the Kaizen’s vital statistics in a moment – the Heat Treated humbuckers, Infinity Radius neck, that body shape! – but first that finish. Just what goes into it? Silver, is the answer. But it is how the silver is applied that makes the difference.

“This finish uses real silver in the paint, giving it a shiny, metallic appearance that reflects light and stands out onstage,” says EBMM. “What sets this process apart is that before the final clear coat is applied, the silver oxidises naturally, allowing the finish to change over time and develop a distinct pattern unique to each guitar”

Those guitars have a solid alder body, multi-scale necks that run from 24.75” to 25.5” on the six-strings, 24.75” to 25.65” on the seven-strings. Necks are bolted to the body, carved from roasted figured maple and given the customary high-end gunstock oil and hand-rubbed special wax TLC from EBMM. The necks on this guitar will feel out of this world.

The multi-scale tremolo has string-dampeners to put the squeeze on unwanted noise. Similarly, you’ve got graphite acrylic resin coated body cavities and aluminium control covers to keep hum at a minimum even when using unearthly amounts of gain.

Abasi has gone for a future-forward set of Steinberger tuners, which are locking and have a neat gearless. design. And we should have a final word about this Infinity Radius on the neck.

This, says EBMM, involves a fingerboard radius that “peaks along the treble-side edge of the fretboard and folds towards the player” making for a fully unobstructed view of the entire fretboard as you are playing. Neat. And there are dot markers on the ebony ‘board to further aid navigation.

The Kaizen Gallium is available now and, as unlikely as it seemed at the time, it has eclipsed the Kryptonite green as a our favourite colour. For more details, head over to Ernie Ball Music Man.

Sterling By Music Man has doubled down on its affordability bona fides with the unveiling of an all-new entry level series of electric guitars and bass guitars. The aptly named Intro Series is just that, an introduction to the Music Man brand, and offers two beginner-friendly versions of its iconic Cutlass and StingRay.

The Intro Series Cutlass and StingRay each arrive with the choice of four solid colour finishes and they are eminently affordable instruments, with the four-string full-scale StingRay nailing the look and vibe of its high-priced siblings at just $249.

Ditto, the Cutlass. But it is even cheaper, retailing for a very accessible $199. Sterling By Music Man says this underscores the brand’s commitment to offering instruments to players of all abilities and budgets. 

“Whether you’re a beginner looking for your first high-quality instrument or a seasoned musician seeking an affordable yet high-performing addition to your collection, the Intro Series provides the perfect solution.”

It is then no surprise that the Cutlass would be the first guitar in the series. This is a guitar for all seasons, with its HSS pickup configuration, 5-way pickup selector, and vintage Fulcrum vibrato making for a super-versatile platform.

This Intro Series Cutlass is offered in Sunrise Orange, Electric Blue, Canvas White and Black, all with a white pickguard to contrast.

You get a maple fingerboard with the black and white models, amaranth (aka Purple Heart) with the Electric Blue and Sunrise Orange. All have a solid poplar body and a hard maple neck that joins the body with a five-bolt joint.

The design DNA of its higher-priced USA-made siblings is writ large in that 4x2 headstock. The Cutlass measures up similarly, too, with a 12” fingerboard radius and a 25.5” scale length.

There is no mistaking the provenance of the StingRay either. You’ve got the shape, that double-cutaway body with the oval pickguard. Again, like the Cutlass, this pickguard is white – and, again, the finish options are very sweet. There’s Misty Green, Electric Blue, Black and Sunrise Orange, with the latter two options coming with the amaranth fingerboards, hard maple on the former.

The build is similar. SBMM has used poplar for the body, hard maple for the next, with the big difference being that there is a six-bolt join. 

This is a simple single-pickup bass, featuring a large ceramic humbucker at the bridge position, with a single volume and tone to dial in your tone. That bridge is tidy four-saddle affair, and as for your essential stats, this measures up at a 34” scale, and it has a 9.5” radius on that 21-fret fingerboard.

The Intro Series models are available now. See Sterling By Music Man for more details.

Ernie Ball Music Man and Jason Richardson have unveiled the latest state-of-the-art signature Cutlass for the All That Remains guitarist, with the new for 2024 models offered in Kokiri Forest and limited edition Venetian Red finishes that highlight all the details in their highly figured buckeye burl maple tops.

You can get these as a regular six-string electric guitar or, if extended range is your jam, a 7-string guitar, but if that Venetian Red is speaking to you our advice would be to act fast; Ernie Ball Music Man is only making 25 of them in each configuration.

These signature Cutlasses have everything Richardson could need in an instrument, and as contemporary metal guitars come they do not get more feature-stacked than this. 

We’ve got a pair of EBMM’s much vaunted Heat Treated humbucking electric guitar pickups, custom wound for Richardson for more output and dynamic range. 

Of course, if you want more output, you’ve got it via a push-push volume knob that, out of the box, can apply 12dB of boost. Adjust the trimmer inside the control cavity and you can dial up a whopping 20dB to smash the front end of your guitar amp and get it singing.

If you want single -coil tones, you’ve got them, too, with a coil-tap on the neck humbucker promising “rich, authentic” single-coil tones. In other words, not that sort of thin, weedy sound that you get with some tapped humbuckers.

The double cutaway design of the Cutlass is familiar but it has been modified to Richardson’s liking, with an extended lower cutaway exposing more of that ebony fretboard. The frets, incidentally, are stainless steel, fat, and there are 24 of them.

As ever, the Ernie Ball Music Man attention to detail is where your money is going. Few other makers apply such luxurious touches as applying gunstock oil and hand-rubbed wax to a neck’s finish, and lining the electronics with shielding – look under the hood and you’ll find graphite acrylic resin coating the body cavity and aluminium control covers to make for a low-noise instrument. It’s all very nice.

As to the fundamentals, we’ve got the aforementioned buckeye burl maple top sitting on a solid alder body, while the neck is roasted figure maple, joining the body with a super-secure five-bolt joint on a guitar with a 25.5” scale. Hardware is tip-top. You’ve got Schaller M6-IND locking tuners on the headstock and one of EBMM’s Custom Music Man floating tremolos.

The Jason Richardson Cutlass is priced from $3,599 street. See Ernie Ball Music Man for more details.

Rabea Massaad says that he is working with Sterling By Music Man on a more affordable version of his Ernie Ball Music Man Sabre signature guitar. 

Massaad revealed the news on his YouTube channel in a to-camera video that had the vibe of fireside chat from the studio. He discussed Neural DSP’s long-awaited and potentially game-changing CorOS 3.0.0 update for the Quad Cortex amp modeller – an update that means it is now plugin compatible, with the Gojira and Plini signature guitar plugins the first to be available on the hardware. 

He also shared his experience of having guitar’s lost in transit, talked in-ear monitors, and offered an update to his studio development. But the prospect of a Sabre that might well retail for a quarter of the price of his EBMM model was the big news. 

The EBMM Sabre Rabea is one of the coolest high-end artist models we have seen in recent years, a bona-fide high-performance S-style, loaded with top-tier Bare Knuckle pickups. At around £3,999 street, however, it’ll remain a dream purchase for many players.

How soon will we see it? Massaad does not know, but floated NAMM 2025, 21 to 25 January, as possible, and said the wheels were already in motion.

“Just want to let you know that I have submitted some colours for a Sterling version,” says Massaad. “We are looking at getting this up and running as soon as possible. Hopefully, I will receive some prototypes or some examples of what the guitar is gonna be. But there are going to be Sterling models available of my Sabre, so I am very, very excited. With any luck we’ll be able to launch these at NAMM but I can’t promise anything yet. I actually don’t know if that’s possible.”

What he does know is that it won’t come loaded with his signature Silo humbucker pickups but EBMM/SBMM is working on a specific custom electric guitar pickup design that will work for Massaad’s new Sabre, and by the sounds of it they will be voiced similarly to the Bare Knuckle originals.

“We are actually going to spec some pickups that work really well, that complement the guitar in the same way that my Bare Knuckle Silos do,” says Massaad. “As much as I’d love to put Bare Knuckle Silos in the Sterling models, that would just throw the price right up and most of you would probably complain that, for a Sterling, it’s too expensive.”

Judging by the Sterling By Music Man signature models for St Vincent and Omar Rodríguez-López, we’d expect Massaad’s SBMM Sabre to retail between £799 and £1,099 but time will tell. And you could always buy a set of Bare Knuckle silos for £376. That still presents a much cheaper option than the Ernie Ball Music Man version.

“Having the Sterling stuff means that is going to be a more affordable option for you out there [if] you want to grab one of those guitars and use it,” says Massaad. “There are some very cool things going on with it.”

For more on the Rabea Massaad Sabre, see Ernie Ball Music Man. 

Jason Newsted is selling over 60 rare electric guitars and basses via internet gear retail giant Reverb, many of which have been played onstage with Metallica or used in the studio, some of which really are wholly unique.

Take his 1992 Alembic Europa Custom 10-string bass guitar. There is only one of these in the world. While it did make it out on the road with Metallica, Newsted admits that he never quite got the best out of it, and he would like to see it to go to someone who can put it to good use. 

Whoever that might be, they’d best be strong, and will preferably have a thick, padded guitar strap in their inventory.

“This thing is a beast, an absolute beast,” says Newsted. “The weight of it itself, you have to be a straight-up badass just to carry it let alone play it. Somebody who could really make this thing happen, I want to get it in their hands. I want to see what this thing could actually do. 

“I was never able to give this thing enough time but I did take it on tour, Black Album tour… even some studio stuff I think. But there you go, really, really special piece of history, piece of metal history. That’s a one-of-one right there.”

If 10 bass strings seems like six too many, how about three? That’s another bona fide unicorn from Newsted’s collection, a Tony Levin Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay with just three-strings, extra spacing between the strings to accommodate Levin’s percussive “funk fingers” approach that he developed with his tech, Andy Moore. If you’re the sort of player who likes the idea of drumstick fingers, this is the instrument for you. Again, they did not make many of these.

“They wound the pickup custom and everything,” says Newsted. “There’s only maybe a half dozen of those on the planet, if that. I couldn’t figure out what to do with it so I am hoping that someone who is inventive [will] maybe do slide bass or something crazy.”

There’s pretty much something for everyone in Newsted’s Reverb shop. You don’t have to play bass with a pick in the world’s biggest metal band to find something that might fit your style. Indeed, first instrument he shows us in the launch video is a Gibson Barney Kessel, which is top-tier jazz guitar for comping and throwing around your best chord shapes. It might struggle with Rhythm Figure 1 of Blackened. We like the looks of that ‘70s ES-335 12-string too.

One of the weirdest guitars in Newsted’s big ol’ sale is a weird V-style that has been custom finished by Newsted himself. Newsted says there will be “one little handful” of these available, each assembled from a kit, hand-finished with his own custom artwork. 

If you’re looking for something that looks less radical but has a sound that you don’t hear everyday, maybe the Hofner 459 VTZ ‘Beatle’ guitar is more your speed. It's a very rare piece, but be warned; Newsted says it takes a “delicate touch”. 

Jason Newsted's official Reverb store goes live on 24 July. To find out more and sign up for an alert when it's online, head over to Reverb.

Joe Dart and Sterling By Music Man have teamed up for a very special signature bass guitar that shares all the look and vibe of the Vulpeck bassist’s Ernie Ball Music Man high-end four-strings and yet arrives with a ridiculously affordable $399 price tag.

Just look the Sterling By Music Man Joe Dart Artist Series model, resplendent in its natural finish, revealing all the patterned grain of its lightweight soft maple body. It couldn’t look cleaner. This minimalist funk machine is a chip off the old EBMM block. At this price, it seems to good to be true, and yet it isn’t. It’s here.

But there is a catch. A fun catch, but a catch nonetheless; this is what Sterling By Music Man calls a “Timed Edition” release, which means players have a limited time to grab one. It is available until the end of the month, so set calendar alerts to 31 May 2024, because thereafter it’s gone. 

It is not a limited edition. Sterling By Music Man will make them to order, and ship ‘em all out in November 2024. But it is a one-time deal. 

Each bass comes stamped with “Crop 2024” to mark the release. So it’s not only a very nice option for beginner and intermediate players, or anyone looking for a budget bass, it’s collectible too. Dart describes it “as a dream come true,”with the model some time in coming. 

“Building a signature bass with Sterling by Music Man is the culmination of the original dream that Jack Stratton and I had years ago,” he says. “Namely, to build a funk bass stripped down to its essence – beautiful, minimal, well-crafted – and available to the world in a way that’s true to Vulfpeck's ethos: affordable, direct-to-fan, and simple in every way possible. I’m so proud of this collaboration. It really is a dream come true.”

Besides the soft maple body, this Joe Dart model has a bolt-on hard maple neck with a 9.5” radius maple fingerboard. That neck profile is described as “slightly smaller” so it sounds like it could be a good fit for younger players, and anyone who likes a slinkier feel. Other vital statistics include a 34” scale and the a 38mm nut width. There are 22 medium-gauge frets and black dot markers.

The drive is totally straightforward. Entirely passive, with just one toaster-style volume knob controlling a single ceramic humbucker, mounted by the bridge. Both pickup and dial are white. Another cool signature detail is that this ships from the factory in a set of flatwound Ernie Ball bass strings.

At the time of publishing, Sterling By Music Man has sold 1358 of these (five of which were sold in the time it took to write this article). To grab yours, head over to Sterling By Music Man. Don't delay. The clock is ticking. You have until 31 May 2024. It is priced £325 / $399.

Ernie Ball Music Man has launched a new collection of limited edition Short Scale StingRay bass guitars featuring five new finishes.

Appearing in Burnt Ends, Candy Man, Vincent Blue, Silver Shadow and Plum Crazy, the new four-strings have a street price of $2,399 and are limited to just 25 guitars in each shade.

Though smaller in scale these StingRay basses are big on sound, providing a solid low-end tone along with a super playable action due to shorter fret spacing.

Loaded with an Ernie Ball Music Man passive humbucker featuring powerful neodymium magnets, the instrument’s voice has been carefully dialled in while focusing on the natural warmth and thump of a short-scale bass.

This high output, bespoke-designed pickup is augmented with a 3-way rotary switch, allowing effortless selection of parallel, true single-coil, and series modes.

As per its larger sibling, the Stingray Special, the Ernie Ball Music Man Short Scale StingRay comes fitted with a modern classic bridge, roasted maple neck, 22 stainless steel frets, and new lightweight Music Man tuners as standard.

While all of the Short Scale StingRays feature roasted maple necks, fretboard material is dependent upon choice of finish and includes ebony, rosewood and maple (see above).

Specifications

Here's a quick rundown of the Music Man Ernie Ball Short Scale StingRay specs...

• Ash body with high gloss poly finish
• 30" scale length
• Music Man chrome-plated, steel bridge plate with nickel-plated steel saddles
• Music Man lightweight tuners
• 3-position rotary switch (parallel, single coil and series mode selection)
• Neodymium pickup magnets (for higher output)
• Passive push/push volume pot (gain boost)
• 5-bolt contoured neck joint
• 22 high profile, wide stainless steel frets

Visit the Music Man website for more info.