Sterling by Music Man Owners!

[SBMM]

Brian,

Are you guys also responsible for the new SUB series that has been re-released?

Yes - SUB Series is our new under $300 price point instruments that we just released in August of this year.

 

[peterd79]

Yes - SUB Series is our new under $300 price point instruments that we just released in August of this year.

Let me tell you...

The new SUB seriers is absolutely incredible. While on my honeymooon i got to stop in at a guitar center that had quite the selection of both EBMM and Sterling by Musicman guitars and the quality you get for the price is unbelievable. I've had many lower priced guitars and the quality reflected it... HOWEVER, the quality in the Sterling guitars is far superior. My wife was even blown away when she saw the top on one of the SUB AX-3s she could hardly believe it when she saw the price tag too...
It's an across the board success if you ask me

 

[SBMM]

Let me tell you...

The new SUB seriers is absolutely incredible.

We are really happy with the positive response to the new SUB Series! Lots of work went into the 'reverse engineering' to achieve the price point while still maintaining the high quality level and playability that is to be expected of a Music Man related product.

Keep an eye out soon - we are releasing some pretty amazing new products at NAMM in January and we'll be giving some sneak peeks. Also, be sure to like our Facebook page, Sterling By Music Man, where we do some giveaways, tech advice, and some sneak peeks as well!

 

[peterd79]

We are really happy with the positive response to the new SUB Series! Lots of work went into the 'reverse engineering' to achieve the price point while still maintaining the high quality level and playability that is to be expected of a Music Man related product.

Keep an eye out soon - we are releasing some pretty amazing new products at NAMM in January and we'll be giving some sneak peeks. Also, be sure to like our Facebook page, Sterling By Music Man, where we do some giveaways, tech advice, and some sneak peeks as well!

Already a fan on Facebook and love the products you're putting out there... top notch all the way

 

[therealjoeblow]

Hello members!
My name is Brian, and I am the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Praxis Musical, as well as the Product Specialist. We are the manufacturer of Sterling By Music Man.

I'm stoked to see that you guys have an owners club here for the Sterling By Music Man guitars!

Time to get some activity on here!

Brian,

I would like to point out a fairly major marketing flaw, at least with my experience. My new AX40 arrived yesterday (last year's red model, fortunately my local dealer was able to source one out for me brand new).

The marketing literature and also the sticker on the back says something like "assembled, setup and tested in USA". I found the latter 2 points to be utterly and disappointingly false...

There is *no way* my guitar was setup and tested. Someone appears to have just slapped the parts together and stuck it in the box...

As I understand it, the tremolo is a dive-bomb version only, not full floating, and the base plate is supposed to be parallel with the body and seated down flush with the body for lowest action possible. Mine had the following obvious and major setup flaws:

1) the front of the tremolo (where it pivots on the pins) was over 1/4" in the air, making the action almost unusably high. Also, being this high up in the air, there was such a huge gap between the strings and the bridge pickup that it sounded like a cheap single coil instead of a humbucker.

2) the tremolo springs adjustment screws in the back cavity were screwed so far into the body with only about 1/4" sticking out, making the tension on the tremolo so strong it was almost unusable, you could just barely move it without using unreasonable force

3) this all caused the base plate and the tremolo arm to be at an angle of over 30 degrees to the body, not anywhere near parallel, and pretty much unusable, the end of the bar was over 6" up in the air from the body, certainly not practical to grab while you are playing.

4) the guitar was tuned so that 2 of the fine tuners had to be completely bottomed out to get the strings in proper tune (Low E and A), and the high E wouldn't even be in tune (it was still way too sharp) when the fine tuner was totally backed out and no longer in contact with the lever below it. These should have been setup to be roughly 1/2 of the way screwed down when the guitar was in perfect tune. As it is, they were used for coarse tuning in the factory and you certainly can't fine-tune with them without readjusting properly as I noted.

So I had to personally spend over 2 hours farting around with the tremolo now, and I've managed to get it about 3/32" still above the body at the front pivots, and now it gets a lot of fret buzz. There's no way I can go much lower without have the strings totally bottom out on the frets. And I'm not sure I'll even be able to get rid of the fret buzz the way it is, I have to spend some time tonight screwing around with the truss rod adjustment. In any case, the action is not as low as I'd like it, an I might already be at the limit. At least I did manage to back-out the tremolo spring screws to about 1" and now I don't almost have to use 2 hands to push it down...

IMO, there's *no way* this was setup and tested at the factory and no way it should have ever left the factory like this.

You should take those stickers off the guitar and that literature off your web site if this is the way you intend to ship these.

I'm certainly not impressed so far.

Just my $0.02
The REAL Joe

 

[RJKANEAO]

Brian,

I would like to point out a fairly major marketing flaw, at least with my experience. My new AX40 arrived yesterday (last year's red model, fortunately my local dealer was able to source one out for me brand new).

The marketing literature and also the sticker on the back says something like "assembled, setup and tested in USA". I found the latter 2 points to be utterly and disappointingly false...

There is *no way* my guitar was setup and tested. Someone appears to have just slapped the parts together and stuck it in the box...

As I understand it, the tremolo is a dive-bomb version only, not full floating, and the base plate is supposed to be parallel with the body and seated down flush with the body for lowest action possible. Mine had the following obvious and major setup flaws:

1) the front of the tremolo (where it pivots on the pins) was over 1/4" in the air, making the action almost unusably high. Also, being this high up in the air, there was such a huge gap between the strings and the bridge pickup that it sounded like a cheap single coil instead of a humbucker.

2) the tremolo springs adjustment screws in the back cavity were screwed so far into the body with only about 1/4" sticking out, making the tension on the tremolo so strong it was almost unusable, you could just barely move it without using unreasonable force

3) this all caused the base plate and the tremolo arm to be at an angle of over 30 degrees to the body, not anywhere near parallel, and pretty much unusable, the end of the bar was over 6" up in the air from the body, certainly not practical to grab while you are playing.

4) the guitar was tuned so that 2 of the fine tuners had to be completely bottomed out to get the strings in proper tune (Low E and A), and the high E wouldn't even be in tune (it was still way too sharp) when the fine tuner was totally backed out and no longer in contact with the lever below it. These should have been setup to be roughly 1/2 of the way screwed down when the guitar was in perfect tune. As it is, they were used for coarse tuning in the factory and you certainly can't fine-tune with them without readjusting properly as I noted.

So I had to personally spend over 2 hours farting around with the tremolo now, and I've managed to get it about 3/32" still above the body at the front pivots, and now it gets a lot of fret buzz. There's no way I can go much lower without have the strings totally bottom out on the frets. And I'm not sure I'll even be able to get rid of the fret buzz the way it is, I have to spend some time tonight screwing around with the truss rod adjustment. In any case, the action is not as low as I'd like it, an I might already be at the limit. At least I did manage to back-out the tremolo spring screws to about 1" and now I don't almost have to use 2 hands to push it down...

IMO, there's *no way* this was setup and tested at the factory and no way it should have ever left the factory like this.

You should take those stickers off the guitar and that literature off your web site if this is the way you intend to ship these.

I'm certainly not impressed so far.

Just my $0.02
The REAL Joe

No disrespect but I'm thinking this is a issue better to be addressed personally.. Ie: private message! As far as my experience, anything I've owned from SBMM were inspected and set-up by a qualified technician at their facility in Orange County.. I own three SBMM pieces that are set up perfectly and two SUB series basses that are equally impressive.. Aloha

 

[Toddzilla67]

Agreed. This should have been addressed privately.

 

[SBMM]

Brian,

I would like to point out a fairly major marketing flaw, at least with my experience. My new AX40 arrived yesterday (last year's red model, fortunately my local dealer was able to source one out for me brand new).

I don't mind addressing this issue or any other issues whether or not they are comfortable publicly, but thanks RJ and Toddzilla67 for pointing out the Private Messaging feature!

Joe, a couple of things to help get to the bottom of this:

You point out that the dealer had to "Source it out"??? Can you tell me the name of the dealer please?

I am surprised that it left here in that manner of setup and apologize. I'd like to know the dealer name to confirm that they indeed are one of our dealers, and, if so, I don't understand the "sourcing out" part. They are always an email or phone call away. I want to be sure you didn't get one sideways, as in a dealer bartering our instruments in trade for other brands items (it's pretty common in the industry).

At any rate, if you will send the instrument in to us, I will personally go through your AX40 and make it as it should be, or just replace it if there are deeper issues with it. We did have a part-time technician who was let go several months ago and this could have been one of his victims of laziness. While I am the VP of Sales & Marketing, I also head up our shop as the master tech, and I and the other technicians take great pride in our setup and quality assurance standards.

Please send me a Private Message and I will give you the Repair Authorization for your AX40.

Again, sorry for the issues, and I'm glad that you took the time to address them with me. If I don't have end-user customer input, whether negative or positive, I'm running blindly and have no gauge as to improvement of procedures.

 

[beej]

Wow. Now that is customer service

 

[RJKANEAO]

@sbmm awesome brian.. U da man Braddah..

 

[gerrygtr62]

include me in the club!!!

I picked this up today after checking it out last week---I traded my VOX Mini 3 modeling amp for this, original price o nthe guitar [used] was $99.00, snagged it for $78.00 [had to wait until today because it was on a hold, seeing that they just got it]--she sounds/plays great, love it--big plus: the previous owner slapped on Fender Locking Tuners, sweet!!!!

 

[mtrejo]

Wow gerrygtr62! What a smoking deal. Looks very cool and the locking tuners is definitely the cherry on the top. Welcome.

 

[gerrygtr62]

thx, bro---I just had to snag it after playing a new one long ago---not so sure if I'm gonna mod this out, I like what I'm hearing so far from this gem of a deal!

 

[therealjoeblow]

I don't mind addressing this issue or any other issues whether or not they are comfortable publicly, but thanks RJ and Toddzilla67 for pointing out the Private Messaging feature!

Joe, a couple of things to help get to the bottom of this:

You point out that the dealer had to "Source it out"??? Can you tell me the name of the dealer please?

I am surprised that it left here in that manner of setup and apologize. I'd like to know the dealer name to confirm that they indeed are one of our dealers, and, if so, I don't understand the "sourcing out" part. They are always an email or phone call away. I want to be sure you didn't get one sideways, as in a dealer bartering our instruments in trade for other brands items (it's pretty common in the industry).

At any rate, if you will send the instrument in to us, I will personally go through your AX40 and make it as it should be, or just replace it if there are deeper issues with it. We did have a part-time technician who was let go several months ago and this could have been one of his victims of laziness. While I am the VP of Sales & Marketing, I also head up our shop as the master tech, and I and the other technicians take great pride in our setup and quality assurance standards.

Please send me a Private Message and I will give you the Repair Authorization for your AX40.

Again, sorry for the issues, and I'm glad that you took the time to address them with me. If I don't have end-user customer input, whether negative or positive, I'm running blindly and have no gauge as to improvement of procedures.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone, but just as a reality check, there are both happy and unhappy customers, and forums are not meant solely for the happy ones.

Anyway, PM sent to Brian and rest of issue taken off line.

Cheers
The REAL Joe

PS. I am sure my dealer is legit, and by "sourcing out" I meant that on initial lookup of available stock, only the standard TGO and 2012-TB colors were showing. They specially checked with distributor whether the 2011-TR was still available upon my request, that's all I meant by that because I didn't want the gold or black one.

 

[RJKANEAO]

Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone, but just as a reality check, there are both happy and unhappy customers, and forums are not meant solely for the happy ones.

Anyway, PM sent to Brian and rest of issue taken off line.

Cheers
The REAL Joe

PS. I am sure my dealer is legit, and by "sourcing out" I meant that on initial lookup of available stock, only the standard TGO and 2012-TB colors were showing. They specially checked with distributor whether the 2011-TR was still available upon my request, that's all I meant by that because I didn't want the gold or black one.

None taken.. aloha & happy holidays

 

[swipesy]

And here's mine. I absolutely love the neck and the color! It's not going to remain stock for long though. When I'm finished it will have a chrome Graph Tech Ghost bridge (already ordered), an additional 3-way switch (piezo/both/magnetic) and piezo/magnetic blend control, the body under the bridge will be routed for full-floating capability, and the control cavity will be routed larger to accomodate the added controls, self-designed and built circuitry and battery box. I will also be swapping out the pups (I really dislike zebra pups) for my own favorites, and may even replace the tuners with locking tuners for easier restringing - possibly Schaller Mini locking tuners, unless someone here has a better alternative?

Man, I'm really looking forward to getting it done!

 

[SBMM]

Seven String Sterling By Music Man anybody???

http://forums.ernieball.com/music-m...signature-series-seven-string.html#post901103

 

[RJKANEAO]

Originally did this video for a socialcam post for my followed.. It's me at 2:30am and sleepless playing one if my favorite pieces the sbmm jp100.. Not my best playing by no means but just a improvisational attempt at some reggae jamtracks!

 

[Morganbucks]

Ax 3





OLP was good this is better ,better electronics and trem, Ted approved, and Strat perfected.

 

[RJKANEAO]

I just saw that the new SBMM jp100-7 string pieces will come with liquifiers n crunch lab! Oh my! This is gonna be awesome.. And the color schemes are right on mark...