The Music Man Sterling is a model of bass guitar designed by the Music Man company. It was named after Sterling Ball, son of Ernie Ball, the founder of the parent company.
This bass weighs nine pounds, sporting a solid body made from selected hardwoods and finished in high-gloss polyester. The bridge is the traditional Music Man chrome plated, hardened steel bridge plate with stainless steel saddles and an optional piezo feature for acoustic upright-like tones. The standard pickguard colour is either black or white. The Sterling uses a long, 34"-scale length with a maple neck featuring rosewood or maple fingerboard (pau ferro for the fretless variant). Like the other Music Man basses, the Sterling comes with Schaller tuners. The truss rod is adjustable and the neck is bolt-on type with an asymmetrical five-bolt neck plate. The electronics are magnetically shielded and a three-way switch is used for coil selection as well as a three-band active EQ with separate tone controls for treble, middle, and bass.
The Sterling differs from the famous Music Man StingRay 4-string bass in that it is lighter, smaller, has a different preamp, uses the "phantom coil" pickup technology and features a thinner neck with 22 frets than 21 actually found on the StingRay. It won 'Most Innovative Bass of 1993" in Musician Magazine. Notable users are Colin Greenwood of Radiohead, Dave LaRue (of the Steve Morse Band, The Dixie Dregs, and Bruce Hornsby), Johnny Christ of Avenged Sevenfold, Dougie Poynter of McFly, which has light up led inlays, Andy Stickel of 7 Blue Skies and Roger Manganelli of Less Than Jake, Ado Flowers of Ebony Brown and H'Edin Duranovic of Fall of Reach.
The Sterling was created as a four-string version of the highly popular StingRay 5, which also uses ceramic magnet pickups and a different preamp than the StingRay's alnico magnet pickups. New pickup configurations and five-way pickup switching debuted in 2005. Music Man has introduced a five-string version using the same body and pickguard styling as the original four-string since January 22, 2008.
Famous quotes containing the words music, man and/or sterling:
“Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,—to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)