Is Sterling Guitars a good guitar brand? Where are Sterling guitars made? What is the difference between Sterling and Musicman? Are Sterling pickups good? Who owns Sterling by Music Man? For a guitar brand like Sterling, these questions are really normal, so let us check out this guitar brand to see what is the truth about this specific guitar brand.
Introduced in 2008, the Sterling by Music Man brand is a sub-brand belonging to the Ernie Ball Music Man family, specifically designed to be a guitar brand for musicians with a limited budget but would love to get an Ernie Ball quality product at a very affordable price. All of its guitars are manufactured in Indonesia with the guidance of the best guitar engineers from Ernie Ball.
Top Sterling Electric Guitars
Sterling JP150 DiMarzio
One of the best Sterling guitars in the market, the JP150 DiMarzio is a signature guitar from John Petrucci’s collection made by Music Man. The guitar’s body is made of either Mahogany or Nyatoh and with a spalted maple top option. It also has a double cutaway design.
The JP150 DiMarzio comes with an ebony fingerboard, perfect for the playing style of John Petrucci. It also comes with a roasted maple neck and stainless-steel frets for a better playing experience in the long term. All JP150 DiMarzio guitars are equipped with the signature John Petrucci DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab humbuckers, giving the guitar the legendary John Petrucci guitar tone it is known for.
The guitar has a modern tremolo and a set of locking tuning machines for better tonal stability. It comes with custom JP inlays for its position markers. It also comes with a set of Ernie Ball 2221 Regular Slinky strings, giving the guitar a balanced tone.
Sterling Majesty MAJ200
Another signature guitar on the list, the Sterling Majesty MAJ2000, is a guitar that shows John Petrucci’s prints on it. The guitar comes in either a Nyatoh or Mahogany body and a choice of cerulean paradise, royal red, or majestic purple for its body color.
Just like other John Petrucci signature guitars, it also has a combination of DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab for its humbucker pickup configuration. It has a 3-way toggle switch for voicing options and a volume boost and tone controls.
The guitar comes with a 3-piece Mahogany neck with a set-in design. It also has an Ebony fretboard, which is perfect for playing the metal genre, and 24 stainless steel frets, which allows you to play more notes. For its position markers, it comes with custom JP inlays, which is a regular for all John Petrucci signature guitars.
It has a modern tremolo bridge and locking tuning machines, so the guitar won’t get out of tune easily. It also has a dual-action truss rod, allowing the guitar’s neck to be adjusted in two ways for the best possible playing experience.
Sterling Sabre
One of the latest electric guitar series from Sterling Guitars, the Sabre comes with the latest features with still the excellent sound and build quality you get from all Sterling guitars. The Sabre has a Nyatoh guitar body and a flamed maple top with a double cutaway design.
It has a roasted hard Maple neck, but you can have roasted Maple or Rosewood for its fingerboard options, both perfect if you are looking for a very comfortable guitar to play with. It comes with 22 stainless frets and dot markers for its position markers.
The Sabre guitar is equipped with a pair of Fishman Fluence Modern Alnico Humbucker pickups, designed to give the guitar an explosive and hum-free sound. It also has a push-pull control for additional voicing options aside from its three-way switching, so you do not have to worry about finding the perfect tone for your guitar.
Like other Sterling guitars, the Sabre comes with a modern tremolo bridge and a set of locking tuning machines to ensure tonal stability, which is needed for a better playing experience.
Richardson7
Another signature guitar series from Sterling Guitars, the Richardson7, is the perfect representation of what the famous guitarist Jason Richardson does like with his guitar. The guitar has a double cutaway design and a 7-string setup with a custom contoured lower horn for better fret access.
The Richardson7 has an Alder guitar body with a Poplar burl top, and it is available in two colors: dark scarlet burst satin and natural poplar burl burst. It comes with a roasted Maple neck with a 5-bolt pattern design and a Rosewood fingerboard, giving the guitar an excellent tone for any genre.
The guitar is equipped with a pair of Sterling by Music Man humbuckers, a coil tap push-push tone control, a volume boost, and a three-way toggle switch, giving the guitar a wide array of options you can have when playing different genres.
It also has a dual-action truss rod, a modern tremolo bridge, and a set of locking machine tuners, which are all designed to give the guitar a very comfortable playing experience with excellent tonal stability.
Sterling Majesty MAJ100
One of the more affordable John Petrucci signature guitars from Sterling, the Majesty MAJ100 comes in a special double cutaway design with an impressive sound for playing different genres. It comes with a Mahogany body and a 3-piece Mahogany neck with a set-in design. It also has a Rosewood fingerboard for an additional warm guitar tone.
The guitar comes with 24 stainless steel frets with a medium-jumbo profile, perfect for speedy playing, just like Mr. John Petrucci. It is equipped with a pair of Sterling by Music Man pickups, a three-way pickup switch, and an active push-push boost, which will really help you to get the guitar tone you want to hear from the guitar.
Like other John Petrucci signature guitars, it comes with custom JP inlays for its position markers, a dual-action truss rod, and locking tuning machines for additional top-notch guitar features
Sterling Luke LK100
Last but not least in our list, the Steve Lukather signature guitar from Sterling Guitars has one of the best values in the market, designed to be a versatile guitar from Steve’s established reputation to being one of the best session guitar players of all time. The guitar is built with Steve’s guidance, which ensures that it is of high quality.
The guitar comes with a Basswood guitar body with a flamed Maple veneer top and is available in two different colors: blueberry burst and hazel burst. It also has a roasted Maple neck and a Rosewood fingerboard, which are great for their versatility.
The Luke is equipped with a pair of custom Sterling by Music Man humbucker pickups, a five-way selector switch, and an active push-push boost, giving the guitar a lot of options for guitar tones for different genres you may have to play with.
Unlike other signature guitars, the Luke comes with a vintage-style tremolo bridge. Its similarities with Sterling signature guitars are that it has a set of locking tuning machines and a dual-action truss rod.
So, is Sterling a good guitar brand? For what it is designed for, the Sterling guitar brand is an excellent choice to check if you are looking for a top-quality guitar at a very affordable price. Made by Ernie Ball, you can be confident that their guitars are of high quality.
