First EBMM Guitar--BFR Valentine. Thoughts and Questions.

[Ted]

Hey all, this is my first post here. On Saturday I got my first Ernie Ball Music Man guitar-- I had been torn between the Albert Lee HH in Emerald City (I wish there were more pics and videos of Emerald City specimens to help me get a better idea than just the one official video-) and the Valentine BFR in Pine Green.

I decided on the Pine Green Valentine BFR-- it was from the Fall 2018 run but still brand new in a shop's inventory and I got a nice deal on it. The only EBMM guitar I'd ever played before this was a used Cutlass in a store and I really liked the feel. So I ordered the Valentine from a guitar shop in California and had it shipped to the Midwest and got it this Saturday.

My first thoughts. Man, this guitar is really beautiful. I opened the case at night and didn't really get to appeciate the depths of that metallic Pine Green finish til sunlight hit it the next morning. I like green guitars and this one does not disappoint! I mostly own and play Fenders and Kiesels and decided to give Music Man a shot. I'd heard some say that the necks are tiny and the nuts narrow. I have big hands and like thicker necks but sometimes I like thinner ones too. The feel of this neck threw me a bit at first. With the binding on the fretboard it feels a bit like some of the Gibsons I've played-- I'm not always huge fan of how Gibsons play but I was intrigued by the Gibson-like aesthetics of this BFR instrument with the rosewood board, block inlays, binding and gold hardware. At first I was not sure if I loved the feel of the neck or not but it's really growing on me the more I play it. I really like these pickups.

One issue with this guitar-- when I opened the case, the push/push tone knob/coil split knob was in the "out" position and when I would push on the knob to try to get it to go "in" and remain in humbucker mode, it wouldn't "catch" and just kept popping out into single coil mode. After about 20 tries of hitting the push/push, it stayed in and then from then on seemed to work fairly reliably except for some random instances where it would fail to catch again, and would remain out. Currrently it seems to be working as it should but I suspect that at some point the issue will return.

Should I bring that up to the guitar shop I bought it from? It's halfway across the country and I don't want to return the guitar over a push/push pot issue that might not be a hard fix. Should I send Music Man an email about the issue instead? Anybody else have similar issues with these pots?

I will say, the smoothness of the volume and tone pots on this guitar are unbelievably great. I've never felt a knob move so buttery smooth before.

OK, now for the weird question... Are the neck profiles on the BFR Pine Green Valentine and the BFR White Smoke Sting Ray guitar the exact same? The reason why I ask... as I was reveling in the beauty of my Valentine I noticed something very very subtle on the headstock when the light was hitting it. Underneath the "Valentine" sig script near the end of the headstock I noticed some subtle irregularity in the finish. As I looked and looked I could make out the texture of the shape of the letters "Sting Ray" underneath where the word "Valentine" is painted. A Sting Ray decal under the paint! I thought "No freaking way!"It's almost impossible to see unless you're really inspecting it-- but sure enough it's there... So I'm left to conclude that my Valentine's neck was originally designated for a Sting Ray. So it has a Sting Ray neck? Or are they interchangeable? I looked up the stats on the radius/frets/etc and they should be the same but are they otherwise also the same necks? Both the BFR Pine Green Valentines and the White Smoke Sting Rays from the Fall 2018 runs had the similar neck features-- bound rosewood necks with block inlays. Weird. Can anyone answer this for me?

Cheers,

Ted

 

[dibart77]

First off, welcome to the madness!

Second, photos or it didn't happen (a rule here). Post some shots of your new beauty here!

On the knob, there's a little allen set screw on the side of the knob. Loosen it ever so slightly and slide the knob a smidge away from the body (towards you) and then re-tighten the set screw. The issue is that the knob is a little too close to the body so when you push it in the shaft is not quite going in far enough before the knob bottoms out on the guitar body. If you adjust the knob like I said, it will allow the shaft to go in that extra 1/32 to 1/16 of an inch and catch the toggle.

I am very surprised about this Sting Ray thing. That doesn't sound like something EBMM would do -- if they really were interchangeable I'd expect they'd sand down the headstock before refinishing. I'd also be surprised if James Valentine's signature neck is exactly the same as the Sting Ray. I supposed it COULD be... like maybe he tried a StingRay and was like, "I love this neck, I want the same profile on my guitar." You could ask EBMM about that. Is it visible enough to photograph?

 

[racerx]

Congrats, excellent choice I love mine, show it off a bit with some pics!

I owned the Smoke White Ray and still own the Pine Green Val, they are not the same shape at all. Both are comfortable but different styles (asymmetrical rounded w/ some beef vs. a classic consistent medium). Maybe something goofy happened, but I agree with @dibart77 - that would be bizarre.

 

[Ted]

Thanks dibart77 and racerx for the welcome!



Thanks also for the tip on how to fix that push/push pot issue. To be honest I hadn't even thought of that, but it's so simple and makes sense. Today I spent several hours playing the Valentine and trying all kind of tone combos and the push/push knob didn't fail once. I'm guessing that it simply came slightly loose in shipping and then I must have tightened it back up sufficiently by playing with it.

Still looking at pics of the preamp online, it looks intimidating if something should go wrong. I hope it's durable. Like I said though about the knobs being smooth-- I'm pretty impressed with the hardware on this instrument. The output jack also has a really solid, snappy, resolute feel to it.

Yeah that Sting Ray decal issue is really confusing me. I wouldn't think on a BFR of all things, they would slap the wrong neck on a Valentine but I've seen some weird things before. Right when the BFR Ghost in the Shell Albert Lees came out this Spring, I looked at them on Sweetwater-- and Sweetwater lets you look at each specific guitar itself to select which one you want to buy-- and the Ghost in the Shell Albert Lee comes with block inlays on the rosewood neck and yet one of the three or four that they had on the Sweetwater website had little round white dots on the fretboard instead of block inlays. Crazy to see that got through. I wish I would have grabbed a pic.

Now I guess I'm gonna have to dig deeper and get some answers if the neck profiles are not the same between the Valentine and the Sting Ray guitar. I hope mine doesn't have the wrong neck on it. Maybe somebody put the wrong decal on a Valentine neck originally. I don't know if I can get a photo of the StingRay decal under the paint. I would have also thought it would have at least been sanded off. It's very hard to see and I only happened to notice it when it was right in the sun and I turned it at a specific angle. I might try to get a photo at some point, though I'm not sure if it'll be visible on my lousy phone camera. I might have to contact EBMM and ask them about it.

I am getting more used to the feel of the guitar (though I'll feel weird if it's the wrong neck). It's funny I like several of the players who have EBMM signature models and I have managed to avoid ever listening to Maroon 5 up til now-- though Mr. Valentine seems like a nice guy. It's surprising to me that for my first EBMM I picked this model. When the Valentine was first released I saw it in a catalog a few years ago, I thought it looked very fuddy-duddy and thought "who would spend that much for THAT guitar? Eventually, me, I guess...

Well, a lot of people gave the Valentine rave reviews and I can see why. Now I dig the styling of it. The design is almost bordering on Art Deco (maybe it's the Pine Green colorway in particular) with that pickguard and the staggered bridge single coil housed in a HB looking housing. I wasn't sure if I was gonna like the slab body with no contours-- but I play a Telecaster and a Kiesel Holdsworth and both of those are slab and I have no issues-- however on the Valentine I notice that the lack of an arm cut does dig into my arm a little so I have to adjust my playing posture a little. Still it would look too weird to put an arm cut on this model.

Another funny thing is I dislike rosewood fretboards-- I prefer either maple or ebony and yet when I saw the rosewood on this one I thought "hmm that actually looks good!" And it does look and feel nice in person. The nicest rosewood board I've ever seen. The flame on the back of the roasted maple neck is pretty nice too. Some of the ones I've seen are out of this world. Mine is not the craziest but it's still very beautiful with the figuring.

This really is a fun guitar to play and it looks so classy. I wish I could photograph this color better. I'll post a quick snap of my Valentine just so you can see it. Maybe when I get time I'll take some better pics of it in the daylight and try to capture the rich depth of the Pine Green with it's blue nuances.

 

[GWDavis28]

Ted, welcome man, nice snag for your first EBMM!!!!

Glenn |B)

 

[racerx]

The necks are similar in terms of depth but the shapes are unique. The White Smoke Ray has a naked head stock whereas the Pine Green Val has a painted headstock; I'm not sure how an old logo would be visible (unless applied after the finish). If legit, then I'd work the original dealer to see what they can do. If you're happy with the neck, then I'd leave well-enough alone. Everything looks right based on your photos though!

 

[msquared]

Congratulations on the new guitar!

I'd love to see some up close pics of the faded Stingray logo.

I've played a few Stingrays and I own two Valentines. The Stingray neck is awesome but quite different than the Valentine necks.

 

[Ted]

Thanks for the congrats. My main guitar up til now has been a 2000 American Nashville Tele with a b-bender and that middle pickup-- so already more versatile tonally than a typical tele (I rarely use the b-bender feature). I did go back and forth between the tele and the Val and I find the Valentine just does the Johnny Marr "jangle" sound better. My Tele still does better Strat lead sounds (I also have one of those too) but the Valentine obviously does better for those jazzy humbucker neck tones. And the tone knob really functions as a tone knob compared to most guitars I've played.

I think regarding the feel of the guitar, the binding does change the feel of the neck width a bit. Just something to get used to more and I am. The craftsmanship of the binding on this thing looks flawless. And I was finding something a bit more"fighty" about the string tension when I got it. I just saw that Valentines are set up normally for 11's. When I ordered mine from the shop they were setting it up before shipment and asked me what gauge I wanted and said that the default was 10s. I said 10's were fine-- that's what I normally use on my Tele (I use 9's on my Strats and shreddy guitars). I don't think they were BS'ing me. They definitely feel like new strings. The factory strings from 2018 would have been EB's and I can tell by looking at the multicolored ball ends on the back of the guitar that the shop put a set of D'adds on this. Perhaps they're 11's. I guess I won't know for sure til my next string change.

Again, I'm discovering a lot of small details that are well done. In addition to the smoothness of the knobs, they are placed in exactly the right spots for me. I nearly lost my mind when I got my first Strat and found that volume pot breathing down the neck of my high e string. Took me a long time to get used to that. On the Valentine, the knobs are placed perfectly-- the three way pickup selector is a bit awkward for me to get to. but I think I'll get used to it. And where it's placed it's harder for me to look down and see where it is-- but given the tonal distinctiveness of each position, I really can trust my ears to tell me where the switch and knobs are at any given time.

The pickguard on this thing is a really great feature. This guitar makes me want to play it funky and do a lot of aggressive RH rhythm and having the pickguard lets me relax about whether I'm going too hard on it and don't want to scratch up the finish.

I tried to get a pic of the Sting Ray decal this morning but my camera phone wasn't really picking it up. It's definitely there but it's hard enough to see with the eye-- and given my camera setup and amateur photog status, I don't know how I'll be able to capture it.

Cheers,

Ted

 

[NickNihil]

I’d guess that rather than it having the wrong neck (Sting Rays are asymmetrical and Valentines have more of a V carve, right?) they probably had their printer sent to the wrong decal or something of that nature.

 

[Sleeping At Sea]

Congrats on the Val! I have a BFR from 2019 (Target Burst) and absolutely love this guitar. I also own a Stringray and I can say that the Stringray has a MUCH chunkier neck than the Valentine. They couldn't be more different. As mentioned above, perhaps just wrong printing on it? Strange that got through on a BFR though.

 

[Ted]

I thinking this next week I might reach out to a EBMM dealer in my city and see if I can bring my Valentine in and compare the neck with that of their Valentines and StingRays and see what the verdict is.

Those 2019 Target Burst BFRs are really cool. I have a few sunburst guitars myself although it's not really my favorite color scheme-- but the Target Burst BFR is one of the best looking sunburst instruments I've ever seen. The list of features on that one is really nice.

 

[Ted]

Hey guys, I took some pics showing the StingRay decal on my BFR Valentine, under the paint. Here is a pic with a sample of what the Sting Ray logo looks like in comparison and you can easily see the top part of the "S" where the "V" in Valentine sits.

In the right light, it's almost hard at times NOT to see the entire StingRay decal-- but it's difficult for me to really capture in a photograph with a camera phone.

Let me know what you think.

 

[DrKev]

It's not a decal because Music Man don't use decals. They use a silkscreen paint process (see here: Screen printing - Wikipedia). In fact if it was decal you'd not see the letters, just the outline of the decal. That you do see the letters means you see where the paint went down for each letter. What happened or why that is like that, I don't know and can't say. If it's a problem for you, you should call your dealer and/or Music Man customer service directly. You may (or may not) be covered under warranty so call them right away.

 

[jayjayjay]

Hm, maybe someone accidentally put the wrong silkscreen into place and didn't catch it before being printed. I'm guessing the StingRay neck profile is different from the Valentine, so they couldn't just give the neck to a Stingray. Moreover, it looks like the printing process happens after the headstock has been partially painted, so removing the paint probably would have required completely sanding down and refinishing the headstock at minimum. Probably it was easier to just shoot paint over it and reprint. There are any number of factors that could come into play as to why they decided on a reprint rather than a complete strip and refinish.

 

[dibart77]

I'd call Customer Service and explain the issue and get their take. I'm certain they'll make you a new neck or sand down and refinish the headstock. This was clearly a mistake during the production process and the QC/assembly didn't catch that it was showing thru. But EBMM stand by their products and want to deliver the best quality, so I'm certain they'll make it right.