This listing is for a Made-in-California Ernie Ball Musicman Sterling Bass. This bass just had a professional tune-up and setup by Maple Street Guitar Reapir in Burlington, Vermont. They cleaned and oiled the fretboard, polished the frets, and did a full setup for action and intonation. The 1/4" jack was cleaned, two saddle screws were replaced, and the whole bass was cleaned. It plays and sounds great! We believe it was made in the mid to late 1990s. This bass has been played a lot and shows the scars to prove it. It has lots of character. There is one spot where the pick guard is slightly warped and has a hairline crack near one of the screws. The Musicman hardshell case, and strap and strap locks, were recently purchased and are in very good condition. Please see the detailed photos below and contact us with any questions before bidding. We have a low opening bid, so don't miss your chance to add this beauty to your collection!
From Wikipedia:
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 around nine pounds, sporting a solid body made from selected hardwoods (generally Ash) 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 pickup 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 and a selector switch for parallel, single coil, and series pickup coil configurations, uses the "phantom coil" pickup technology and features a thinner neck with 22 frets rather 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, H'Edin Duranovic of Fall of Reach, Diego D'Agata of splatterpink and Jennifer Young of the Travis Larson Band.
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.