I have a few Sterlings (about 8). They're all very well built and I even upgraded a few because the feel of the necks in my hands are hard to beat. The pickups are also decent and don't need to be changed. The tremolo systems are better than those of most Squires and some Fenders. I also own a ton of other guitars, and I can safely say that Sterlings punch way above their weight.
Thanks for watching, strong disagree. Sterlings are laughably bad in build quality and I've got a Squire Strat and Player series mexican strat in for review and both guitars are much better than what sterling is offering. Sterlings do not even come close to punching above their weight, especially with the stainless steel fret models, those are a total rip off.
@@aminorerroras another really happy unmodded CT50 owner, we’ll respectfully agree to disagree. Love the guitar, plays great, sounds great. I have no tuning or intonation problems at all. Glad I didn’t see your review before I went shopping. Would’ve missed out on a really sweet piece.
I've played many of these in the stores, mostly stinkers, the bridge and pickups left a lot to be desired, however, recently I've played a handful of st. Vincent and Mariposa models that were stellar, I was so impressed with the Mariposa model in particular that I bought one, I've had it for about a year and a half I think and it has been excellent in every way! I will say I have never played one of the evh looking ones that was redeemable in any way. Those suck fr.
I agree, 100%. ESP/LTD’s 1000 series is always top notch quality with high end components, even rivaling their own E-II guitars (some even call them better). I can’t speak for Schecter, as I’ve never played one, but I hear good things about them aswell.
Hahah well I'm shocked back atcha! Every Sterling I've seen or played has been horrible. Thanks for watching and glad to hear you've had a better experience.
It's actually the NUT for me, I had a proper luthier sand and install a nice graphite nut and it gave the tuning stability a huge plus, down the line you could always upgrade the bridge but again this guitar is like 330 bucks used so it's still worth it for me. i like the ergonomics so much and i find that i nail leadwork alot more often on this guitar than i do my Schecter KM7 MKIII artist which is a phenomenal guitar
Thanks for watching and commenting, appreciate hearing your experience. I didn't upgrade the nut on any of the guitars that I reviewed because I didn't buy them to keep but review and sell immediately, but IMO those bridges sound so crappy and don't flutter at all either to a degree IMO Sterling needs to do a complete overhaul. I really think they're selling a defective product that doesn't perform at a reasonable level to make the case their straight defective but that's just IMO. Interesting you nail leadwork more on the Sterling than the Schecter, I really liked the MK7 MKII I reviewed a few years back.
I also went for the hype on the Sterling's, picking up two Cutlass CT-50's. The first one wasn't too bad, but it was heavy and had play in the tremolo that made it feel cheap. The pots and switch were also cheap, but worked OK. The second one I bought for the color; Toluca Lake Blue. Like the first one, it had a dark rosewood slab fretboard, and looked great with the blue. I did notice a bad saw line on the rear cutout when I was trying it out, but bought it because it was only 7.2 lbs. Later, I took the neck off only to discover two cracks at the heel of the neck. These were covered by the neck pocket, so totally hidden. Then I realized that the tuners were out of alignment, something I totally missed when I bought it. I cut my losses and traded one in toward a Player Plus Tele, and the other towards an AV ll Strat. Much happier now.
Have you checked out the JP160? It has a Floyd style bridge. After a string change, once it settles down, it stays in tune very well. The only issue I have with mine is the high E string sliding off the neck problem that many Sterlings seem to have. I'm still not sure what the issue is exactly.
Thanks for the tip, I hadn't seen that one actually! That will def stay in tune, although from what I saw online it looks like a pretty low end Floyd bridge so while it'll def stay in tune better I'm willing to bet the tone is pretty bad. All budget Floyd's I've reviewed here on the channel has at least been usable but sounded pretty crappy. Sounds like your neck might be slightly crooked, if the high E is fretting out easily. Unfortunately I doubt there's much you can do about it, you'd have to take it to a luthier to try and get the neck mounted straighter.
@@aminorerror I have been considering replacing it when it gets higher on the priority list. But is does a decent job as is. What I really like about the guitar is the neck. It is super comfortable. I have moved away from really thin necks as they cause my hand to cramp. Finally figured that out. lol I have tried moving the neck and will again. It may have moved back. Others have complained about this problem. It's not severe and only happens sometimes. I may have to try to shim in on one side. As for tone, the black and white models have Mahogany bodies. The blue ones are Basswood. I replaced the pickups and ditched the preamp.
You’re the only one honest about these guitars man every review I see is all sunshine and flowers and then you look in the description and of course, affiliate links for sterling and music man. Thanks for keeping it real with us and not giving in to brand deals 🎸
I feel like the only explanation for bridges this bad is that it's intentional. They want to keep them a definite step down from the real deal. I mean, it doesn't cost THAT much more to put a decent bridge on a guitar, even if it's not the same exact bridge that the real JP models have. It's a shame that they'd put out something this bad though.
haha dude you're spot on! There's no reason they have to still be equipping these shitty bridges on the guitars, they should def upgrade them. Especially on the stainless steel/dimarzio model guitars. Those are so overpriced, and still have the same crap hardware, what a total ripoff. Thanks for watching!
All the big brands are great at this tiering. No one wants to settle; when you do there’s nothing but regrets. It’s best to save up and get the real deal.
@@aminorerror They ALL do this. Fender does it with Squier, Gibson does it with Epiphone, Paul Reed Smith does it with his SE series, Washburn does it with their Lyon line, and honestly, I don't have a damn bit of problem with the bridge on my Sterling Mariposa. And it stays in tune like a champ.
@@aminorerror It's all about profits. As long as John Petrucci has his name on it they have to pay royalties and make a profit on top of paying for the licensed manufacturers to make these over in Indonesia. This is why they don't want to spend any real money.
That's a great idea, idk it might! It might make it to hard to adjust up and down though or get worn out and have to be reapplied kinda often when setting up the guitar. Thanks for the suggestion.
As a side note, it is not only Sterling, but Ernie Ball MusicMan itself, I had to return Limited Edition Majesty for 7000 Euros, it had absurd stability issues, intonation on the second octave was almost a note higher, they did not even included a Certificate in the case-in my country we say-it was a Friday afternoon shift work. Nevertheless, I replaced it with a regular Majesty for half of the LE price and it is as perfect as it can get-but still, my advice is using lubrication like nut sauce everywhere the strings touch the guitar - nut, saddles, inside the bridge and even bridge blades. It is a bit of alchemy with this system, everything has to be just right, strings, proper locking on the head, lubrication, bridge leveling, neck set up. Then I can do whatever I want with the tremolo and get almost perfect tuning stability. On the contrary, any guitar with Floyd Rose will get you much better results-yes it is pain setting it up, but once done it stays in tune for days or even weeks-at least for me.
Wow that's really bad to hear, I've mostly heard great things about the legit EBMM guitars but it's possible for a bad one to slip through. Thanks for watching!
Tried the Jason Richardson model today at GC. I really liked the look, jumbo frets and price, but the action was a bit high and the neck a bit bowed. I asked the tech to straighten the neck before buying... but the truss rod was bricked. If I would have purchased it, then realized the truss rod was broken, I would have lost my mind. Kudos to the GC folks for being honest with me.
Thanks for the heads up. I was on the verge of buying one. I ordered a Strat Pro II with the Dark Knight finish instead. You saved me a lot of headache. I appreciate you man
Thanks for watching, and thanks for the kind words! I think you'll be way happier with the guitar you decided to go with, these Sterling guitars are truly terrible!
I'm late to your channel, but I appreciate your review. What I'd like is a review of PRS.s SE issue of their guitars, specially the DGT model. At Sweetwater this model sells for $4310 for the original and $849 for the SE. What gives a $3461 difference. Your opinion. Thanks
Thanks for watching, you're not late to the channel...you're right on time! Appreciate the comment, I've got a new video coming out tomorrow talking about tone woods, cost ect, and IMO PRS's are overpriced for what they're offering. Not having stainless steel frets and asking over $4000 is straight up offensive IMO. The SE line of PRS guitars are great though for the price. I recently reviewed a PRS SE Custom 24 and it was great. That said, there's no comparison between the SE and the legit DGT though, the legit DGT will sound, and play a lot better, it is a professional instrument, vs the SE that's an intermediate instrument. IMO the legit one is just overpriced by at the least $1000. The SE is a great beginner to intermediate level instrument though and its def superior in tone and playability to anything that Sterling is offering. Here's a link to my PRS SE Custom 24 review if you're interested, thanks again for watching and good luck! ua-cam.com/video/wd8j9WCgQSA/v-deo.html
Thank you! I think you're spot on. Kept me from making a big mistake, one I can't really afford to make. Money is tight and I'd rather not throw it away on a frustration inducing ax.
I play 9's but I don't see any reason why string gauge could make a difference and if it did that's actually just another reason to hate on these bridges. IMO most budget trem's are pretty bad and the Sterling ones are among the worst I've ever reviewed. Thanks for watching!
@@aminorerror the extra tension pulls the trem back into place better on cheap trems. I rarely use trem bars anymore though, so I use lock offs to keep the bridges stable
I've got the Stsrling Musicman Sub. EVH copy. Problem I had, the trem block rubbed against the body when divebombing, or least trying to divebomb. I put a Floyd Rose on, 11 years later it still kicks ass
I don't have experience with that specific model unfortunately so I don't have any opinion other than all of my experiences with Sterling have been bad. IMO, I'd only buy one if you could test it ahead of time or be able to return it after the fact if you don't like it. Hopefully Sterling is upping their QC but all the ones I've played or seen students use have been bad. Hope that helps, good luck!
Buy it. It's better than the Fender Player Series. The neck is amazing and the pickups are better than most Fenders that you may have played. I am not an agent for Sterling... just a wild guitar collector and musician.
Why is there always polarizing reviews on every single guitar I buy 😂 one claims it’s the best thing ever. The next claims it’s complete garbage. I proceed to order them nervous af because of the reviews and they turn out just fine. I don’t get it.
I’ve owned about a dozen different Sterlings over the years, but never one with a floating trem because I play guitar like a Neanderthal. All the Stingray and Cutlass models I’ve had, I’ve always just locked the bridge down and thrown on some cheap locking tuners if they didn’t have any and they’ve been solid as a rock with their tuning stability. I will say though, the pickups do sound quite sterile, so I usually switch those out with something else and have had great results.
So do the studs of the Gotoh bridge have threads that better match the original inserts or were those replaced also? I have a Sterling SUB Stingray in mint green with a maple neck that I have pretty much all the same opinions about. I think I got it for $250 used though and It looks really cool from across the room.
That's a solid deal, for $250 it's hard to complain lol The Gotoh bridge has it's own anchors, so you've gotta pull the old Sterling ones out and then put in the Gotoh anchors and those threads fit very tightly but also feature locking posts so there's absolutely no play in the thread to posts at all. It's a rock solid piece of kit, and it wasn't hard to do at all. I wish I had taken some pics of the install I did on my students guitar, we had the tremolo's totally swapped in about 10 minutes and it was a MASSIVE improvement in tone and tuning stability. I don't think that'll work in your guitar, as far as I know the Gotoh 510 bridge only fits in the Petrucci models but you might be able to do it, I'd suggest giving it a google search. Thanks for watching, rock on!
@@aminorerror thanks for the detailed response. I neglected to mention my instrument is a bass. I did actually acquire a proper MM style Korean after market bridge that requires posts which I never got around to installing because I enjoy playing all my other instruments more 🤘
yeah.... I own both a Cutlass CT50 and JR6 - They sound different for sure, but not in a bad way!! Stainless steel frets will ping a bit but I think it depends more what I play through. The JR6 has nickel frets with a 16" radius and it's just made for sweep picking and fkn Rocks! The high E string can be a bit too close to the bottom of the neck but other than that the bridge flutters wonderfully, the middle position gives me that Polyphia tone and it Djents very well. I love my sterling guitars!
Thanks for watching! If you can return it through mail order it might be worth a shot, IMO there's def better brands to look to at this price point though. Good luck!
i got the sterling music man 7 string for like 500$msrp. one day it randomly wouldnt hold tuing for even 10 seconds. i wiggled the tremolo bar lightly and BAM the wood snapped between the bridge and pickup. major bullsheit. it has a good feel for me but sheesh I'm never using the floating tremolo again.
Good to know. The CT50 doesn't have a fully floating bridge and that's the model I'm specifically criticizing in this video so I'm skeptical that the bone nut would fix the tuning stability issues but I'm glad to hear it's helped your guitar. Thanks for watching!
I don’t have experience with that specific model, but Assuming I’m looking at the same one you are, looks like they list for $1300 new and come with stainless steel frets so that’s pretty hard to hate on at a $600 price tag. That said, I’d only suggest pulling the trigger if you’ve got the budget to upgrade the bridge to a Gotoh 510, the stock one just is junk objectively. Def one pretty guitar though, thanks for watching and good luck!
I've never tested any of the yamaha stuff but I've heard many good things about them. Once of my students also has one (it was his first guitar a billion years ago) and he really likes it too so I have a feeling if you go with the Yamaha you'll be getting a much better quality intermediate level instrument. They're on my list to check out some time soon! Thanks for watching, hope that helps.
My Sterling Jp60 has excellent tuning stability. Truly perfect in that regard. But the nut and bridge width is to big for the neck so the high e slips of the fretboard. Also the overal fit&finish is way to bad for the pricetag.
If you want better QC, nicer electronics, nicer fretwork and a better trem then don't hate on sterling and spend 500-2000 or more than you might. But if you want something you'll only find on 1800+ dollar guitars for less than half the price, then you'll find nothing better. Squier can't even compete with Sterling, particularly the CT50. Locking tuners, a roasted neck, sculpted heel joint, alnico pickups, even the fretwork is subpar in comparison, and a poorer head stock design, and a cheaper thinner tremolo block than Sterlings offering. Now a Squier affinity vs a CT30, now you get ceramic pickups and a poor head stock design and no sculpted joint, otherwise comparable in regards to value of the build but still comes in on the cheaper end by about 100 dollars, and the fretwork is probably not quite as nice, but these are both considered more or less entry level good quality guitars, the CT50 is starting to push into mid range with maybe used MIM Strats, Epiphones, Ibanez, Schecter etc. for the price range Beyond this we're starting to get picky about particulars in regards to the build, whether its the tone, trem, frets, necks, colors, electronics etc. So what would you do: *low quality Anything under 400? (questionable components exist and QC is anywhere from surprisingly good to garbage for the price) * Standard quality - (reasonable quality and components across the board, some surprisingly high end offerings in the price range) Buy a 400 dollar Squier Affinity? (no roasted neck, no name tuners, thin trem block, ceramic pickups, cheap electronics, old school design and string trees, decent fretwork, lots of colors) Buy a 750 Sterling CT50? (Roasted maple neck, locking tuners, thicker trem, sculpted heel joint, nice fretwork, stronger head stock and better design, fit and finish, alnico pickups, less colors) Buy an 900 dollar Schecter? (Features are hit and miss compared to Sterling, overall, better QC and electronics) * High quality - Buy apx 900-1800 (hit or miss with features for the price you pay, QC is generally very good as is the fretwork, woods, and paint) *Professional quality - Buy over 1800 (get more or less whatever you want) *Exceptional quality - 2500+ (custom made to your own liking, you should have no complaints at all) Really all this said and done, a guitar should come to personal preference. If you are complaining about a guitar that costs over 1200 dollars then you'll still find something you're going to complain about that isn't as nice, or as good as another available model around the same or higher price. Some players love the tone they g0t with their garage sale unbranded stratocaster than their fenders and Gibsons. Others drop over 2500 to get something custom built and still chase tone around like an elusive golden egg. Or its about the amps, the pedals, etc. People spend over 1000 dollars for pickups made for 40bucks to get a tone they want, or drop thousands on an amp to try and get the sound a 300 dollar amp might provide. If you're spending over a thousand on a guitar, you want exceptional quality, but you don't need it and you probably wont get it. Appreciate the effort someone went through to create something and make something beautiful out of it. Hendrix didn't have a left handed guitar, and Angus Young started on a home altered banjo. Both of these are basically household names across Europe and NA, but you and me could probably walk 1 block and knock on a door and they will have no clue who we are.
I looked at the bridge on my Squire bass, it's almost nothing but a couple of screws that arent secure, it pisses me off cuz the rest of the instrument is beautiful.
I have the sterling valentine with the bigsby style trem, I cant get it to go badly out of tune no matter how wild I go. Pickups sound good and the boost circuit is cool. The neck is a great fit for me. No real defects. Resale value is ass though
I just bought the sterling by musicman JP 150fm and i couldn’t agree more about the ponts you made on this guitar i also don’t like that they use naytoh wood for most of their guitars even the high end ones they suck for doing that i’m changing the brisge to a gotoh 510T if that will fit and i’m getting better locking tuners for it i’m planning on getting the JP 70 too and changing the the bridge and tuners too my JP150fm is from 2009 according to the serial number so it’s an older one thank you for this awesome review you rock
Thanks for watching! I'm pretty sure the 510 bridge will fit but a quick search on any Sterling Facebook or Reddit group would help just to be sure. Good luck!
I haven’t owned any of these, but I’ve always been impressed by the Sterling guitars I’ve tried in stores. But I’ve never gone to town on the trem either?
Fooling around in a music shop isn't nearly enough time on an instrument to get to know it. I usually spend around 3 - 6 months on all the guitars I review, recording and teaching on them so I get to know them and how well they do in a variety of situations. Thanks for watching.
This video focuses on the Petrucci and Richardson models with the fully floating bridges and those guitars (like the one in the thumbnail) are def trash. Thanks for watching.
To my hands, there are problems in the set up; the necks themselves are usually good, but the nuts are cut wrong and the bridges aren't great.I will say that the James Valentine model, out of 3 I've come across, is one of the worst functioning guitars I've come across. These aren't insurmoutable issues, but they do invole some serious mods ; I really wanted to like the St.Vincent model, and doing my own work, maybe someday I'll get a used model to work on.Can't argue with these criticisms.
I know its probably too late, but you can wrap the shi-t out of the studs with plumber's Teflon tape and it would fix the give they have. I wrap the studs on non-locking TOM bridges with teflon tape. once the action is set you smush the bridge back down over the teflon taped little metal pieces and it never moves or falls off if you take all your strings off.
That's def a solid tip, I'm sure that would help. IMO, you shouldn't need to McGiver up a solution to make the guitar playable, it just should be from the factory. I don't have any sterling guitars in right now to give that a try, thanks for the suggestion though! If I decide to review any more Sterling guitars I might do that while I'm tracking to try and help with tuning stability. Both the Richardson and last JP I reviewed were a freaking mess. Thanks for watching!
That's a pretty solid deal...but it'll still be an unusable mess tuning wise. Maybe for that cheap upgrading the bridge to a Gotoh unit would make sense. Thanks for watching!
@@aminorerror I guess I got a good one stays in tune has locking tuners. Not the cheap ones the nylon ones that Gibson used to use sorta. It's a fine guitar for the price I never tried another Sterling before though. I think there's two jp60 models The majestic dreams a little bit more dressed up. Not to mention that it has Seymour Duncan liquefier pickups which are amazing in the bridge position.
JP60 owner here and you are not wrong... The bridge sucks. out of tune all the time. the 1st string keeps broken even after the Music Man tech team fixed the bridge. I have play this guitar for years.
'd sell it and get something else. The overall quality of that model isn't worth upgrading IMO, only higher end Sterling stuff if you can get it for pretty cheap. Thanks for watching!
A tremolo( reality vibrato) is not rocket science, it’s just a hinged balanced between strings and springs. I have to check one out but mechanically should be no different than any other unit. The studs are not the Vibrato it is the mounting platform, A does not equal B just like a door is not the hinge it is mounted on.
That's very true, it's not rocket science and that's what makes it all the more disappointing that the floating bridge is so subpar of Sterling guitars. Poorly made threading with that much play, a pathetic tone block and bad nut and locking tuners all add up to one terrible system. Thanks for watching.
I have a 2015 jp70 , honestly pickups changing was mandatory, the stock ones are basically bullsh....but overall the guitar is not that bad, I never had a problem with the tunning stability.
I've got a Stirling CT50 have had it over a year, gig it, play it daily and it is as good as my G&L, it stays in tune, it sounds great, plays well. my bridge is stable and awesome.
The bridge on that guitar is not a floating system like the Petrucci and Richardson ones I'm talking about in this video, so your comment is irrelevant. Thanks for watching though.
Finally someone had the balls to say it how it is! I had TWO Sterling JPs sent back due to stability issues, the worst guitars for the price I've ever played in my life. Guitars are waaaaaay over priced these days and even if they were cheap, they should still work as advertised, period. And to make matters worse, fanboys are in denial or too afraid to voice their opinions, not to mention dishonest content creators that receive gear for free and never point the real issues.
Preach! Honestly IMO most of the comments claiming the guitars are rock solid with tuning stability are players who aren't good enough to use the bar at all or don't have good enough ears to realize they're going out of tune as badly as these guitars do. Thanks for watching!
@@todds5956 Which specific model Sterling do you have? I changed out a Petrucci to a Gotoh 510, that bridge looks great but idk anything about it or which models it might fit in. I only know the Gotoh 510 fits into Petrucci models for sure, you might want to try Sterling groups on Facebook or Reddit, that's where I heard about replacing the bridge in the first place. g-gotoh.com/product/ns510ts-fe7/?lang=en
tone wood is not real and the bridge does not effect tone. the only thing that effects tone is the type of pickup and how far away it is from the string
Thank you for laying it out there, A.M.E.! It is great to finally find someone on UA-cam who is not sucking up to a guitar manufacturer to get a free guitar and then lies about the guitar when they review it.
I couldn't disagree more with pretty much everything you said in this video. My Sterling JP60 beats most of my Fender guitars (and theyre between 1000 and 2500 bucks)...
@@aminorerror it’s funny you ask- I went with a Gibson LP Standard 60s neck- it was between a LP and a 7 string and I had to strike while the wife said OK to the LP!! Love her so much-
You'll want to check with some forums online, but just looking at the model visually I think a Gotoh 510 would fit. For the price they charge for that model....it's honestly should from the factory. Thanks for watching!
@@aminorerrorI’ve been playing on it for months now… I’ve had no issues… I can do divebombs and other garbage and it stays mostly in tune. So no complaints there. I’ve played a marching band season with it outside in different fluctuating temperatures, I’m about to finish a High School musical season on it, we’re doing Shrek. It’s playing great. So I might have gotten lucky. I’m still looking into the trek upgrade and adding a push push tone for a coil split.
Ironic as the thedoo got successful through being a bedroom guitarist. While he's an amazing player and a great musician...tone is def not a strength of his so that's also kinda ironic. Thanks for watching!
I kinda didn't want to click this video but I'm glad I did, I thought locking tuners were too good to be true on this cheap of a guitar. I really wanted a jp60 Mystic Dream but I dunno anymore (I subscribed 😃)
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but hopefully saved you some cash! I really want the Sterling guitars to be solid, they're cosmetically identical to the EBMM guitars that are outstanding (but overpriced IMO). I really hope they up their game and come out with a total redesign of at the the floating tremolo system, cause that shit is JUNK lol Thanks for watching, lemme know what you wind up buying!
Na, legit EBMM's stay in tune great and so do Gotoh 510 bridges, hipshot hardware on Kiesels and Strandberg trems. I agree Floyd's, specifically the Gotoh produced Ibanez Edge is unbeatable but there's completely reliable systems out there from other companies too.
IMO, cause they're cosmetically identical to EBMM guitars and they trick you into thinking they're a better product than they actually are. At least that's what happened to me until I got my hands on a few of em. Thanks for watching, rock on!
Damn really?! I've never played the hipshot tremolo's, I love the hipshot hardware I've got on my Jericho baritone and Vader 7, but both of those are fixed bridge, string through body.
I even wrote a detailed review about this bridge on the Hipshot website but they didnt wanted to put it online. They have to keep selling ofcourse and negative reviews could potentially cut down the sales. However, in this case the truth must be told. We guitarists want good products and manufacturers should listen to us and try to improve their products where needed. That being said, I think personally that Jeff Kiesel is not a tremolo player. I think he hasn’t played the Hipshot trem often not on 6-strings and not on the 7-‘s. He is more like a marketing guy. Hipshot salesman makes a deal with Jeff, Jeff buys it and sells it to his customers telling them the classic sales rap how great the product is. We should not fool ourselves and just focus on the product itself and not on beautiful words or famous guitar players who endorse the product. I really believe many of these players not like the trem anymore or not as much as they expected in the beginning. They were just being naive falling into the marketing trics. They tried the trem and in the beginning it may look fine but when time goes on and you start really digging in and you know other trem systems you will see the differences
Here is my review about the hipshot trem. Maybe in the future I make a review video about my Kiesel including the trem: I have a 7-string trem bridge from Hipshot on my Kiesel DC700 and I don’t like it. Here’s why: 1. The trem is HEAVY 2. The trem arm is too high of the body 3. The trem arm contact joint gets in the way when you put your wrist on the bridge or when you want to reach the volume/tone knobs. 4. I cannot find the right adjustment for the trem arm. It is either too tight or too lose 5. The screws to lower or highten the bridge are right under the outer strings. So you have to push the string a bit to the side to make an adjustment with the key. The Edge trem of Ibanez has this solved by putting the screws outside the strings. 6. The trem is less expressive than an Edge or Floyd Rose trem. It is not as smooth. It is hard to get good control over it. Also too sensitive the moment you grab the arm. And it definitelly is not a flutter machine. 7. It doesn’t stay in tune that well. I didnt lubricated the nut though for those who believe that makes a difference. I also tried different tuner peg string installment i.e. cutting the string short or with 1cm string length to turn around the leg. I can notice that in the latter the strings stay in tune better. 8. Last, and this one I definitely cannot understand the logic of it, is that there is room for 5 springs but there are 6 holes to put the spring ends in! So if I want to balance the trem and have the springs straight I can only use 2 or 4 springs. If I use 3 springs then 1 of the 3 would be positioned in an angle. Maybe this design has to do with the trem block that is wider on one side than the other side. But why would they want to do that? I dont see that on other trems. Nothing about this trem makes sense to me.
lol another 'player' and 'expert' with no experience telling the 20 year vet what's up. Dunning-Kruger for days, but it's cool the internet is undefeated.
Unfortunately not only is QC absolute shit, so is the design of the fully floating system equipped on the Petrucci and Richardson models. Don't matter what QC is like if it's a flawed design from the jump. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for watching, they're far from flawless and are basically trash. ESP LTD, Schecter or even the cheapo Chinese brand Donner makes a better product than Sterling.
Well at least I know if I ever start a career in music and it starts to tank I can just shit all over a brand that people love like I'm the Gordon Ramsay of guitars and I'll find some degree of success no matter what I say
Pfffft legit what? 'm not screaming at the camera Ramsay or Glenn from SMG style and if I'm so off base how will this video help me be successful? Oh that's right, cause Sterling guitars suck and you should run in the other direction.
I just watched two reviews of the Sterling (the CT50) and the CT50 plus. In both cases the reviewer played the guitar, tremolo string bending and all...guess what, they stayed in tune. Perfectly in tune. Maybe you're right and the guitar bridge is garbage. Or maybe you take sponsorship money from certain famous brands to keep down newer rival brands. I remember how people gave Tesla cars a bad rap for years. I also remember that in the sixties when Toyota, Yamaha and other big Japanese brands were emerging, people sneered at them. I've just ordered one of these guitars on the back of an enthusiastic review which was 180° in the opposite direction to this. If the instrument is shit when it arrives, I'll admit my error. But if it stays in tune as I saw on the other reviews. Then fuck you for spreading negativity. And I'll be coming back to diss your diss.
Come on back homie, or honestly don't, I don't give a fuck. You're kinda a dumb ass too, I'm not talking about the bridge on the CT50, I'm talking about the floating ones on the Petrucci's and Richardson models. I also find it extremely hard to believe a more vintage style bridge is all of a sudden gold. It'll prob be junk just like the Petrucci's and Richardson's and you might just not be a good enough of a player to notice. My stuff is always clearly stated up front when it's a sponsored post and this isn't one of em. These guitars suck, bottom line and I don't really care what your opinion is.
I have a Sterling Majesty seven string. Plays great, sounds great, gives me no problems. If it's not for you, that's fine. Everyone has their own taste. But to say they "suck" is just nonsense.
@@aminorerror As I said, it gives me no problems. This includes staying in tune. The Majesty has locking tuners. If you can't keep that in tune, you're doing something wrong.
No, locking tuners won't matter if the nut is poorly cut or made of a crap material. The bridges are poorly made as well, as shown with all of the play in the posts of the bridge. It's not a double locking system so all of those other elements are the problem. How many records have you made with your guitar?
So you're an amateur who's never done any professional level work with your instrument telling a Berklee grad with 25 years experience who literally reviews guitars as a job that he's wrong. The internet is undefeated though so that makes sense.
If you bought a guitar or amp that was a very popular model during the Covid Pandemic over the past 2 years or so, don't expect too much. All the big major Guitar manufacturers have had a lot of returns the past 2 years. They're making them as fast as possible to keep up with the huge demand they've had. So there are bound to be bad choices made by QC. A couple of months ago I bought an Sterling Albert Lee model that was ergonomically right for me. The balance, fit and finish was perfect. Even though it's a solid body it resonates louder acoustically than my semi hollow body guitars. The neck profile and fret board radius as well as the fretwork was great also. The pickups and controls are all fine too. It wasn't the most in demand model from Sterling, so I think they had more time to spend on it. I turned out to be my favorite guitar out of the last 4 I've purchased over the past 2 1/2 years. I've had a lot of time to compare it with my other guitars. It gets played far more than the others. I have a Tremelo bridge on mine too, but I didn't have any intension to use it anyway. It's not that important for me to get upset about. The tuning machines on mine work fine they stay in tune and I play the guitar from 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours nearly every night.
Hi Brian, glad to hear you've had a better experience! IMO, I'm not sure it has anything to do with COVID...the full floating bridge that they use on a bunch of the Sterling guitars was bad before COVID (my first review was on an older pre COVID era axe and it was just as crappy). I've also played around ten other brands during the COVID era of things and other brands don't have the same problems (ESP/LTD, and Schecter jump to mind). Beyond that, IMO that's no excuse to be putting out bad instruments, especially being as they equip the high end Sterling guitars (the ones with stainless steel frets and Dimarzio pickups) with the same shitty hardware...that's straight unacceptable. I don't have any experience with the Albert Lee models though so I'm glad to hear that you like yours! I appreciate you watching and commenting, got new videos coming out every Monday at 9am EST, hope you'll stop on back. Rock on!
Thanks man. All the reviews for this are really glowing and I was excited to see them used for really cheap. There's no debating the problems you demonstrated. I can clearly see the loose tolerances. That would be very disappointing to discover after buying it.
The reasons here are exactly why I sold mine, didn't hold up a single bit to my other guitars with Gotohs, Floyd 1000s and even some self installed Wilkinsons. It's a shame because I love the designs so much yet I'll never get one again unless I find an insane deal on one
You can use thin teflon tape on your trem post screws to remove that wobble. It's frictionless not to make the screw turn easily but to jam itself in between threads and then also be extractable. I think a six-screw strat trem would drive you crazy. Unless you are using Kahlers or Bigsbys for your comparison, which I strongly doubt-- you also maybe don't seem to realize that a Floyd or Edge takes away all ability for individual string height adjustment, and you can't adjust or control your string curvature at the picking surface or lift your heavy strings a bit for clearer ringing or droning or lower chords. A lot of players turn straight to the Sterlings for sub-$1500 7-strings that don't have a playschool "adjust your string height by raising or lowering your bridge" tremolos. What you are raving about is a great modern two-point floating trem with string height adjustment. Yeah sure I can get around a Floyd-equipped 'lexi pink sawtooth or whatever but that doesn't mean that some people would NOT rather have a truly adjustable trem where you take a string out of pitch and then put it back, rather than a throw-or-pull-and-ignore bridge that has a monolithic non-adjustable string height and action curvature declaration. Imagine being a traditional martial artist and saying, "After two years of [doing anything]..." and in this case I have rarely seen any guitarist get so bent out of shape by a height-adjusting trem so obviously that context applies for me personally. Thank you for the content tho.
JP60 user here. Actually selling it atm.I have all the issues you mentioned and I might add the following: The rosewood fingerboard is as dry as a mummy's spit; I have an ibanez RG1570 with the same wood fingerboard and both color and feel make you feel like you got a 400 grit sandpaper fingerboard on the sterling. Also, the bridge studs are missaligned, so the first string slips away everytime. At the price point I started looking at schecter and Ibanez, at least for my taste. But LTD is also another solid option IMO (I have one too). After all this issues with the guitar (and other units Ive seen and played too) I feel so dissapointed that sending it to a luthier to fix the issuea is not worth the time. Somehow I feel it doesnt deserve it! Even after all I wrote I have to say that the ergonomics of this guitar is the best I have ever experienced. Sad to see so much potential wasted.
Ugh that sucks, but doesn't surprise me at all. Completely agree, ESP LTD and Schecter especially make a great instrument that is remarkably consistent and the ergonomics of the original designs are totally wasted potential. Hope they up their game soon, thanks for watching and good luck!
I have a Sterling Luke I got as a backup to my Musicman Cutlass. Regarding the trem system, I swapped out the saddles and glued in the stud bushings. Set the trem to float a little and cut the nut slots properly. Polished the frets and tweaked the action. Actually it's a lovely playing and sounding guitar. Stands up well to any other proper musicman I've had ( I've had 4 ). Sounds and plays better than my USA PRS Custom 24, USA Custom shop Jeff Beck strat, Any Gibson LP studio I've ever owned ( All 3 ). My only beef with my Sterling is that it says it's made in indonesia. I often pick it up in favour of my USA Cutlass. So my point is that with a little setting up, it can be made to play and sound as good as any other guitar can be.
Ill take the base model Kiesel all effin day, i have 4 of them and my favorite ended up being the cheap base model Vader i orderd off the "In Stock" page, their low end stuff plays and sounds just as good as their high end stuff imo.
my jp157 feels so good and stays in tune really well. It feels so good I preferred it over my Made In Japan ibanez s7420fm and even sold it and my schecter hellraiser c-7 FRS which I also sold. Yeah its a floating non locking trem so its not meant to do divebombs like a floyd that pops back into tune. With the right setup it flutters and feels nice, but just like literally any non locking trem don't expect to even slightly abuse it and the tuning staying solid thats just not possible. The sterlings I've played have been amazing, I'm just saying this so that people don't sway from buying a sterling just because some people experience QC issues or maybe just don't find them to be enjoyable and share all the negatives they had in their experiences. Solar had problems with fretboards cracking and all kinds of other issues but they're still great, it happens to any brand even Schecter I've seen brand new high end $1600USD Schecter guitars come in with cracked fretboards before, how it slipped past so many people before it got into the customers hands who knows, but bottom line is try it out and if it feels good to you, sounds good to you, and inspires you, then go with it. I've played hours of band practice and full sets of songs with only my Sterling and its been reliable and great. Don't listen to this guy, play and try them yourself first before judging and remember its not a floyd meant for crazy abuse or divebombs if you wouldn't do it on a strat don't do it on a sterling.
Everything you described the polar opposite of all of my experiences. All the Schecters have been absolutely mint, easily out performing anything I've ever seen from Sterling. Nothing I'm describing is from a divebomb, and didn't say or show that in any of my examples so you obviously didn't bother to actually watch my video. Don't listen to this fool, he clearly doesn't have the chops or ear to hear when a guitar is in or out of tune.
My JP 6 string guitar has dimarzio pickups that sound great. I don't ever use the whammy so won't comment on that. However, i hate that i can't see the fret dots in a club , and even more annoying the first sting keeps slipping off the edge of the neck. I also own the cheaper version of the Albert Lee, love the tone of the pickups and the cool design. The neck, not so much. God bless all.
That's a bummer you're having a fretting out issue, I've def seen that in a bunch of the cheaper guitars I've reviewed. Thanks for watching, good luck!
I had sterling axis ax3s that considered basic model? Sound and tune fine.. even the pickup was better compare to tone zone dimarzio that i also had.. so no matter the guitar is.. you DEFINITELY need the SETUP PROPERLY.. so i guess this just dude opinion..
I got a JP150 for $400 used. For that price, having locking tuners, roasted maple, great looks, nice low action/flat neck...definitely happy with it. But if I had paid anywhere close to MSRP for it I would think I had overpaid. Pickups are kinda meh. Also helps that I don't use the tremolo arm.
I really wanted to like the Cutlass but the one I received was a total trash fire. It couldn't intonate properly or stay in tune for longer than a few seconds. They installed the trem posts crooked and drilled the rear plate holes well through the front. The bridge was the lowest quality metal I've ever dealt with. I'm upset because, on paper, it was the perfect guitar. But even the Squier Sonic guitars are higher quality.
Bought my Cutlass CT-30 off Reverb for $250. Best buy ever because if had been upgraded. Came with Ratio tuners and a Babicz trem unit. $300 minimum just for those 2 items.
Musicman is notorious for having crooked tuners. I have seen a EB Majesty with crooked tuners. Jesus, a 5k guitar! You would never have those crooked tuners on a Harley Benton or Schecter. Shame!
I own several guitars, ranging from Cutlass CT50SSS/HSS (both models) through PRS SE models, and Music Man Majesties and JP's. I have a Sterling JP100D with CL/LF pickups in it and it sounds fantastic and the tremolo performs extremely well, not to mention I have a Koa top on it. I have a new JP157 Blood Orange Burst with active Dimarzio's in it, and the same for this guitar. They perform phenomenally. The only issues with Sterling guitars I've had were on their JP60/70 models. Too much work to "make it right." I tried a JR Cutlass too, and it was good, but not my cup of tea. I think you have been unlucky with your acquisitions of their guitars, or perhaps I am very lucky. They are great to me, and I am picky.
Thanks for watching, I def don't think it's that I've been unlucky. After seeing 5 instruments and reviewing 3 that's a large enough sample size to know the floating bridges are trash.
@@aminorerror To each their own I guess. Stability hasn't been an issue in fact, I got a JP150 with the stock bridge, nut, etc., and the tuning is grade and sound is good (with upgraded pickups of course).
I have a few Sterlings (about 8). They're all very well built and I even upgraded a few because the feel of the necks in my hands are hard to beat. The pickups are also decent and don't need to be changed. The tremolo systems are better than those of most Squires and some Fenders. I also own a ton of other guitars, and I can safely say that Sterlings punch way above their weight.
Thanks for watching, strong disagree. Sterlings are laughably bad in build quality and I've got a Squire Strat and Player series mexican strat in for review and both guitars are much better than what sterling is offering. Sterlings do not even come close to punching above their weight, especially with the stainless steel fret models, those are a total rip off.
You work for Sterling. Bullshit!
@@aminorerroras another really happy unmodded CT50 owner, we’ll respectfully agree to disagree. Love the guitar, plays great, sounds great. I have no tuning or intonation problems at all. Glad I didn’t see your review before I went shopping. Would’ve missed out on a really sweet piece.
@@aminorerrorThey're not that bad in build quality take a break my guy.
I've played many of these in the stores, mostly stinkers, the bridge and pickups left a lot to be desired, however, recently I've played a handful of st. Vincent and Mariposa models that were stellar, I was so impressed with the Mariposa model in particular that I bought one, I've had it for about a year and a half I think and it has been excellent in every way! I will say I have never played one of the evh looking ones that was redeemable in any way. Those suck fr.
At the $800-$1500 price points, it’s hard to beat LTD and Schecter. Their quality control is insane and their guitars have amazing features.
Agreed! The QC really is insane, IDK how they're able to offer the prices they can.
Idk I think every company has good bad and the ugly
I agree, 100%. ESP/LTD’s 1000 series is always top notch quality with high end components, even rivaling their own E-II guitars (some even call them better). I can’t speak for Schecter, as I’ve never played one, but I hear good things about them aswell.
Oh, and Solar is an excellent bang-for-buck option aswell, but they’re (obviously) unapologetically metal looking, so not for everyone.
The necks though? Looking for a nice thin neck for smaller hands. Anything in LTD and Schecter similar to Music Man necks?
I'm really shocked. I just bought a jp150 with Dimarzio pickups and it plays beautifully. Best one I've owned in 30 years of playing
Hahah well I'm shocked back atcha! Every Sterling I've seen or played has been horrible. Thanks for watching and glad to hear you've had a better experience.
It's actually the NUT for me, I had a proper luthier sand and install a nice graphite nut and it gave the tuning stability a huge plus, down the line you could always upgrade the bridge but again this guitar is like 330 bucks used so it's still worth it for me. i like the ergonomics so much and i find that i nail leadwork alot more often on this guitar than i do my Schecter KM7 MKIII artist which is a phenomenal guitar
Thanks for watching and commenting, appreciate hearing your experience. I didn't upgrade the nut on any of the guitars that I reviewed because I didn't buy them to keep but review and sell immediately, but IMO those bridges sound so crappy and don't flutter at all either to a degree IMO Sterling needs to do a complete overhaul. I really think they're selling a defective product that doesn't perform at a reasonable level to make the case their straight defective but that's just IMO. Interesting you nail leadwork more on the Sterling than the Schecter, I really liked the MK7 MKII I reviewed a few years back.
Everytime I've picked one up the neck profile and body curves feel excellent
I also went for the hype on the Sterling's, picking up two Cutlass CT-50's. The first one wasn't too bad, but it was heavy and had play in the tremolo that made it feel cheap. The pots and switch were also cheap, but worked OK. The second one I bought for the color; Toluca Lake Blue. Like the first one, it had a dark rosewood slab fretboard, and looked great with the blue. I did notice a bad saw line on the rear cutout when I was trying it out, but bought it because it was only 7.2 lbs. Later, I took the neck off only to discover two cracks at the heel of the neck. These were covered by the neck pocket, so totally hidden. Then I realized that the tuners were out of alignment, something I totally missed when I bought it. I cut my losses and traded one in toward a Player Plus Tele, and the other towards an AV ll Strat. Much happier now.
Have you checked out the JP160? It has a Floyd style bridge. After a string change, once it settles down, it stays in tune very well. The only issue I have with mine is the high E string sliding off the neck problem that many Sterlings seem to have. I'm still not sure what the issue is exactly.
Thanks for the tip, I hadn't seen that one actually! That will def stay in tune, although from what I saw online it looks like a pretty low end Floyd bridge so while it'll def stay in tune better I'm willing to bet the tone is pretty bad. All budget Floyd's I've reviewed here on the channel has at least been usable but sounded pretty crappy. Sounds like your neck might be slightly crooked, if the high E is fretting out easily. Unfortunately I doubt there's much you can do about it, you'd have to take it to a luthier to try and get the neck mounted straighter.
@@aminorerror I have been considering replacing it when it gets higher on the priority list. But is does a decent job as is.
What I really like about the guitar is the neck. It is super comfortable. I have moved away from really thin necks as they cause my hand to cramp. Finally figured that out. lol
I have tried moving the neck and will again. It may have moved back. Others have complained about this problem. It's not severe and only happens sometimes. I may have to try to shim in on one side.
As for tone, the black and white models have Mahogany bodies. The blue ones are Basswood. I replaced the pickups and ditched the preamp.
You’re the only one honest about these guitars man every review I see is all sunshine and flowers and then you look in the description and of course, affiliate links for sterling and music man. Thanks for keeping it real with us and not giving in to brand deals 🎸
This was a really good and detailed review. Thanks.
Thanks for watching!
I feel like the only explanation for bridges this bad is that it's intentional. They want to keep them a definite step down from the real deal. I mean, it doesn't cost THAT much more to put a decent bridge on a guitar, even if it's not the same exact bridge that the real JP models have. It's a shame that they'd put out something this bad though.
haha dude you're spot on! There's no reason they have to still be equipping these shitty bridges on the guitars, they should def upgrade them. Especially on the stainless steel/dimarzio model guitars. Those are so overpriced, and still have the same crap hardware, what a total ripoff. Thanks for watching!
You keep believing on that authority.😂
All the big brands are great at this tiering. No one wants to settle; when you do there’s nothing but regrets. It’s best to save up and get the real deal.
@@aminorerror They ALL do this. Fender does it with Squier, Gibson does it with Epiphone, Paul Reed Smith does it with his SE series, Washburn does it with their Lyon line, and honestly, I don't have a damn bit of problem with the bridge on my Sterling Mariposa. And it stays in tune like a champ.
@@aminorerror It's all about profits. As long as John Petrucci has his name on it they have to pay royalties and make a profit on top of paying for the licensed manufacturers to make these over in Indonesia. This is why they don't want to spend any real money.
Couldn't you put plumbers tape on those thread/posts to take to take out the wobble?
That's a great idea, idk it might! It might make it to hard to adjust up and down though or get worn out and have to be reapplied kinda often when setting up the guitar. Thanks for the suggestion.
As a side note, it is not only Sterling, but Ernie Ball MusicMan itself, I had to return Limited Edition Majesty for 7000 Euros, it had absurd stability issues, intonation on the second octave was almost a note higher, they did not even included a Certificate in the case-in my country we say-it was a Friday afternoon shift work. Nevertheless, I replaced it with a regular Majesty for half of the LE price and it is as perfect as it can get-but still, my advice is using lubrication like nut sauce everywhere the strings touch the guitar - nut, saddles, inside the bridge and even bridge blades. It is a bit of alchemy with this system, everything has to be just right, strings, proper locking on the head, lubrication, bridge leveling, neck set up. Then I can do whatever I want with the tremolo and get almost perfect tuning stability. On the contrary, any guitar with Floyd Rose will get you much better results-yes it is pain setting it up, but once done it stays in tune for days or even weeks-at least for me.
Wow that's really bad to hear, I've mostly heard great things about the legit EBMM guitars but it's possible for a bad one to slip through. Thanks for watching!
Tried the Jason Richardson model today at GC. I really liked the look, jumbo frets and price, but the action was a bit high and the neck a bit bowed. I asked the tech to straighten the neck before buying... but the truss rod was bricked. If I would have purchased it, then realized the truss rod was broken, I would have lost my mind. Kudos to the GC folks for being honest with me.
Thanks for the heads up. I was on the verge of buying one. I ordered a Strat Pro II with the Dark Knight finish instead. You saved me a lot of headache. I appreciate you man
Thanks for watching, and thanks for the kind words! I think you'll be way happier with the guitar you decided to go with, these Sterling guitars are truly terrible!
Oh yeah so you spent 800 more on a guitar nice headache medicine
I'm late to your channel, but I appreciate your review. What I'd like is a review of PRS.s SE issue of their guitars, specially the DGT model. At Sweetwater this model sells for $4310 for the original and $849 for the SE. What gives a $3461 difference. Your opinion. Thanks
Thanks for watching, you're not late to the channel...you're right on time! Appreciate the comment, I've got a new video coming out tomorrow talking about tone woods, cost ect, and IMO PRS's are overpriced for what they're offering. Not having stainless steel frets and asking over $4000 is straight up offensive IMO. The SE line of PRS guitars are great though for the price. I recently reviewed a PRS SE Custom 24 and it was great. That said, there's no comparison between the SE and the legit DGT though, the legit DGT will sound, and play a lot better, it is a professional instrument, vs the SE that's an intermediate instrument. IMO the legit one is just overpriced by at the least $1000. The SE is a great beginner to intermediate level instrument though and its def superior in tone and playability to anything that Sterling is offering. Here's a link to my PRS SE Custom 24 review if you're interested, thanks again for watching and good luck!
ua-cam.com/video/wd8j9WCgQSA/v-deo.html
Thank you! I think you're spot on. Kept me from making a big mistake, one I can't really afford to make. Money is tight and I'd rather not throw it away on a frustration inducing ax.
What gauge strings are you playing? I’ve found budget tremolos need at least 10s. Which sucks cuz I play 8s and 9s
I play 9's but I don't see any reason why string gauge could make a difference and if it did that's actually just another reason to hate on these bridges. IMO most budget trem's are pretty bad and the Sterling ones are among the worst I've ever reviewed. Thanks for watching!
@@aminorerror the extra tension pulls the trem back into place better on cheap trems. I rarely use trem bars anymore though, so I use lock offs to keep the bridges stable
I've got the Stsrling Musicman Sub. EVH copy. Problem I had, the trem block rubbed against the body when divebombing, or least trying to divebomb. I put a Floyd Rose on, 11 years later it still kicks ass
I've been looking at a whole lot of positive reviews of the CT50 models lately...do you not recommend them as well?
I don't have experience with that specific model unfortunately so I don't have any opinion other than all of my experiences with Sterling have been bad. IMO, I'd only buy one if you could test it ahead of time or be able to return it after the fact if you don't like it. Hopefully Sterling is upping their QC but all the ones I've played or seen students use have been bad. Hope that helps, good luck!
Buy it. It's better than the Fender Player Series. The neck is amazing and the pickups are better than most Fenders that you may have played. I am not an agent for Sterling... just a wild guitar collector and musician.
Why is there always polarizing reviews on every single guitar I buy 😂 one claims it’s the best thing ever. The next claims it’s complete garbage.
I proceed to order them nervous af because of the reviews and they turn out just fine. I don’t get it.
I’ve owned about a dozen different Sterlings over the years, but never one with a floating trem because I play guitar like a Neanderthal. All the Stingray and Cutlass models I’ve had, I’ve always just locked the bridge down and thrown on some cheap locking tuners if they didn’t have any and they’ve been solid as a rock with their tuning stability. I will say though, the pickups do sound quite sterile, so I usually switch those out with something else and have had great results.
You should try Schecter MV6. I’ve never seen a comparison between the MV6 vs the Charvel Dinky DK22/24, King Kong vs Godzilla.
Exactly what I was looking for! Every other review of these guitars is some sweetwater sponsered shill video! Thanks for being real brother!
Glad you enjoyed the video, I try to be honest and no BS in my content. Hope you'll stop back again soon!
So do the studs of the Gotoh bridge have threads that better match the original inserts or were those replaced also? I have a Sterling SUB Stingray in mint green with a maple neck that I have pretty much all the same opinions about. I think I got it for $250 used though and It looks really cool from across the room.
That's a solid deal, for $250 it's hard to complain lol The Gotoh bridge has it's own anchors, so you've gotta pull the old Sterling ones out and then put in the Gotoh anchors and those threads fit very tightly but also feature locking posts so there's absolutely no play in the thread to posts at all. It's a rock solid piece of kit, and it wasn't hard to do at all. I wish I had taken some pics of the install I did on my students guitar, we had the tremolo's totally swapped in about 10 minutes and it was a MASSIVE improvement in tone and tuning stability. I don't think that'll work in your guitar, as far as I know the Gotoh 510 bridge only fits in the Petrucci models but you might be able to do it, I'd suggest giving it a google search. Thanks for watching, rock on!
@@aminorerror thanks for the detailed response. I neglected to mention my instrument is a bass. I did actually acquire a proper MM style Korean after market bridge that requires posts which I never got around to installing because I enjoy playing all my other instruments more 🤘
yeah.... I own both a Cutlass CT50 and JR6 - They sound different for sure, but not in a bad way!! Stainless steel frets will ping a bit but I think it depends more what I play through. The JR6 has nickel frets with a 16" radius and it's just made for sweep picking and fkn Rocks! The high E string can be a bit too close to the bottom of the neck but other than that the bridge flutters wonderfully, the middle position gives me that Polyphia tone and it Djents very well. I love my sterling guitars!
Glad to hear you've had a better experience with your Sterling's. Thanks for watching!
Appreciate the honest review. I've been looking at these but I haven't seen one in stores to try.
Thanks for watching! If you can return it through mail order it might be worth a shot, IMO there's def better brands to look to at this price point though. Good luck!
i got the sterling music man 7 string for like 500$msrp. one day it randomly wouldnt hold tuing for even 10 seconds. i wiggled the tremolo bar lightly and BAM the wood snapped between the bridge and pickup. major bullsheit. it has a good feel for me but sheesh I'm never using the floating tremolo again.
DAMN that's wild! Not surprised unfortunately though but thanks for watching and commenting.
I got a bone nut installed on mine and it stays in tune, I have the CT 50
Good to know. The CT50 doesn't have a fully floating bridge and that's the model I'm specifically criticizing in this video so I'm skeptical that the bone nut would fix the tuning stability issues but I'm glad to hear it's helped your guitar. Thanks for watching!
it is worth buying a jp150d model in 600usd?
I don’t have experience with that specific model, but Assuming I’m looking at the same one you are, looks like they list for $1300 new and come with stainless steel frets so that’s pretty hard to hate on at a $600 price tag. That said, I’d only suggest pulling the trigger if you’ve got the budget to upgrade the bridge to a Gotoh 510, the stock one just is junk objectively. Def one pretty guitar though, thanks for watching and good luck!
Would you say the Yamaha 612 is better?
I've never tested any of the yamaha stuff but I've heard many good things about them. Once of my students also has one (it was his first guitar a billion years ago) and he really likes it too so I have a feeling if you go with the Yamaha you'll be getting a much better quality intermediate level instrument. They're on my list to check out some time soon! Thanks for watching, hope that helps.
@@aminorerror thanks
I had Sterling jp70 and wasn't really good.. I agree ... . Now I have a Strandberg Boden prog nx7 and its another reality.. SO MUCH better
My Sterling Jp60 has excellent tuning stability. Truly perfect in that regard.
But the nut and bridge width is to big for the neck so the high e slips of the fretboard. Also the overal fit&finish is way to bad for the pricetag.
If you want better QC, nicer electronics, nicer fretwork and a better trem then don't hate on sterling and spend 500-2000 or more than you might. But if you want something you'll only find on 1800+ dollar guitars for less than half the price, then you'll find nothing better. Squier can't even compete with Sterling, particularly the CT50. Locking tuners, a roasted neck, sculpted heel joint, alnico pickups, even the fretwork is subpar in comparison, and a poorer head stock design, and a cheaper thinner tremolo block than Sterlings offering. Now a Squier affinity vs a CT30, now you get ceramic pickups and a poor head stock design and no sculpted joint, otherwise comparable in regards to value of the build but still comes in on the cheaper end by about 100 dollars, and the fretwork is probably not quite as nice, but these are both considered more or less entry level good quality guitars, the CT50 is starting to push into mid range with maybe used MIM Strats, Epiphones, Ibanez, Schecter etc. for the price range Beyond this we're starting to get picky about particulars in regards to the build, whether its the tone, trem, frets, necks, colors, electronics etc.
So what would you do:
*low quality
Anything under 400? (questionable components exist and QC is anywhere from surprisingly good to garbage for the price)
* Standard quality - (reasonable quality and components across the board, some surprisingly high end offerings in the price range)
Buy a 400 dollar Squier Affinity? (no roasted neck, no name tuners, thin trem block, ceramic pickups, cheap electronics, old school design and string trees, decent fretwork, lots of colors)
Buy a 750 Sterling CT50? (Roasted maple neck, locking tuners, thicker trem, sculpted heel joint, nice fretwork, stronger head stock and better design, fit and finish, alnico pickups, less colors)
Buy an 900 dollar Schecter? (Features are hit and miss compared to Sterling, overall, better QC and electronics)
* High quality -
Buy apx 900-1800 (hit or miss with features for the price you pay, QC is generally very good as is the fretwork, woods, and paint)
*Professional quality -
Buy over 1800 (get more or less whatever you want)
*Exceptional quality -
2500+ (custom made to your own liking, you should have no complaints at all)
Really all this said and done, a guitar should come to personal preference. If you are complaining about a guitar that costs over 1200 dollars then you'll still find something you're going to complain about that isn't as nice, or as good as another available model around the same or higher price. Some players love the tone they g0t with their garage sale unbranded stratocaster than their fenders and Gibsons. Others drop over 2500 to get something custom built and still chase tone around like an elusive golden egg. Or its about the amps, the pedals, etc. People spend over 1000 dollars for pickups made for 40bucks to get a tone they want, or drop thousands on an amp to try and get the sound a 300 dollar amp might provide. If you're spending over a thousand on a guitar, you want exceptional quality, but you don't need it and you probably wont get it.
Appreciate the effort someone went through to create something and make something beautiful out of it. Hendrix didn't have a left handed guitar, and Angus Young started on a home altered banjo. Both of these are basically household names across Europe and NA, but you and me could probably walk 1 block and knock on a door and they will have no clue who we are.
I looked at the bridge on my Squire bass, it's almost nothing but a couple of screws that arent secure, it pisses me off cuz the rest of the instrument is beautiful.
These things are like crappy quality control from the 90s on guitars at the mid-range
This why i bought the actual Ernie Ball JP signature models and not the Sterling. The Sterlings are just a facade guitar.
Nothin better then a passionate guitarist....because when they're sweet,they almost sing on their own...and when they're not ,well he said it best
I have the sterling valentine with the bigsby style trem, I cant get it to go badly out of tune no matter how wild I go. Pickups sound good and the boost circuit is cool. The neck is a great fit for me. No real defects. Resale value is ass though
I just bought the sterling by musicman JP 150fm and i couldn’t agree more about the ponts you made on this guitar i also don’t like that they use naytoh wood for most of their guitars even the high end ones they suck for doing that i’m changing the brisge to a gotoh 510T if that will fit and i’m getting better locking tuners for it i’m planning on getting the JP 70 too and changing the the bridge and tuners too my JP150fm is from 2009 according to the serial number so it’s an older one thank you for this awesome review you rock
Thanks for watching! I'm pretty sure the 510 bridge will fit but a quick search on any Sterling Facebook or Reddit group would help just to be sure. Good luck!
I haven’t owned any of these, but I’ve always been impressed by the Sterling guitars I’ve tried in stores. But I’ve never gone to town on the trem either?
Fooling around in a music shop isn't nearly enough time on an instrument to get to know it. I usually spend around 3 - 6 months on all the guitars I review, recording and teaching on them so I get to know them and how well they do in a variety of situations. Thanks for watching.
RUBBISH... have two ..Cutlass and Albert Lee Sterling and they are two AWESOME guitars..
Hold their own against my PRS and Gibson...
This video focuses on the Petrucci and Richardson models with the fully floating bridges and those guitars (like the one in the thumbnail) are def trash. Thanks for watching.
Ct30.... Are somehow for the price even in that state good cheap guitars... But ct50 are the best bang for bucks
To my hands, there are problems in the set up; the necks themselves are usually good, but the nuts are cut wrong and the bridges aren't great.I will say that the James Valentine model, out of 3 I've come across, is one of the worst functioning guitars I've come across.
These aren't insurmoutable issues, but they do invole some serious mods ; I really wanted to like the St.Vincent model, and doing my own work, maybe someday I'll get a used model to work on.Can't argue with these criticisms.
I know its probably too late, but you can wrap the shi-t out of the studs with plumber's Teflon tape and it would fix the give they have. I wrap the studs on non-locking TOM bridges with teflon tape. once the action is set you smush the bridge back down over the teflon taped little metal pieces and it never moves or falls off if you take all your strings off.
That's def a solid tip, I'm sure that would help. IMO, you shouldn't need to McGiver up a solution to make the guitar playable, it just should be from the factory. I don't have any sterling guitars in right now to give that a try, thanks for the suggestion though! If I decide to review any more Sterling guitars I might do that while I'm tracking to try and help with tuning stability. Both the Richardson and last JP I reviewed were a freaking mess. Thanks for watching!
Yes I figured the same but I couldn't resist getting the jp60 majestic dream it was only a $400 deal
That's a pretty solid deal...but it'll still be an unusable mess tuning wise. Maybe for that cheap upgrading the bridge to a Gotoh unit would make sense. Thanks for watching!
@@aminorerror I guess I got a good one stays in tune has locking tuners. Not the cheap ones the nylon ones that Gibson used to use sorta. It's a fine guitar for the price I never tried another Sterling before though. I think there's two jp60 models The majestic dreams a little bit more dressed up. Not to mention that it has Seymour Duncan liquefier pickups which are amazing in the bridge position.
JP60 owner here and you are not wrong... The bridge sucks. out of tune all the time. the 1st string keeps broken even after the Music Man tech team fixed the bridge. I have play this guitar for years.
Sucks you've had a shitty experience too. Hopefully Sterling ups their game and overhauls that tremolo system! Thanks for watching and commenting.
I also am a JP60 owner and I’m contemplating whether to sell the guitar or mod it.. is it worthy of mods? Or should i just give up on it
'd sell it and get something else. The overall quality of that model isn't worth upgrading IMO, only higher end Sterling stuff if you can get it for pretty cheap. Thanks for watching!
A tremolo( reality vibrato) is not rocket science, it’s just a hinged balanced between strings and springs. I have to check one out but mechanically should be no different than any other unit. The studs are not the Vibrato it is the mounting platform, A does not equal B just like a door is not the hinge it is mounted on.
That's very true, it's not rocket science and that's what makes it all the more disappointing that the floating bridge is so subpar of Sterling guitars. Poorly made threading with that much play, a pathetic tone block and bad nut and locking tuners all add up to one terrible system. Thanks for watching.
I have a 2015 jp70 , honestly pickups changing was mandatory, the stock ones are basically bullsh....but overall the guitar is not that bad, I never had a problem with the tunning stability.
Glad to hear you've had better experience with the tuning stability...sadly I have not! Appreciate you watching, rock on!
I've got a Stirling CT50 have had it over a year, gig it, play it daily and it is as good as my G&L, it stays in tune, it sounds great, plays well. my bridge is stable and awesome.
The bridge on that guitar is not a floating system like the Petrucci and Richardson ones I'm talking about in this video, so your comment is irrelevant. Thanks for watching though.
Finally someone had the balls to say it how it is! I had TWO Sterling JPs sent back due to stability issues, the worst guitars for the price I've ever played in my life. Guitars are waaaaaay over priced these days and even if they were cheap, they should still work as advertised, period. And to make matters worse, fanboys are in denial or too afraid to voice their opinions, not to mention dishonest content creators that receive gear for free and never point the real issues.
Preach! Honestly IMO most of the comments claiming the guitars are rock solid with tuning stability are players who aren't good enough to use the bar at all or don't have good enough ears to realize they're going out of tune as badly as these guitars do. Thanks for watching!
How did you convert to a fixed bridge? Thanks.
I didn't, I changed it to a floating version Gotoh, the 510
@@todds5956 Which specific model Sterling do you have? I changed out a Petrucci to a Gotoh 510, that bridge looks great but idk anything about it or which models it might fit in. I only know the Gotoh 510 fits into Petrucci models for sure, you might want to try Sterling groups on Facebook or Reddit, that's where I heard about replacing the bridge in the first place. g-gotoh.com/product/ns510ts-fe7/?lang=en
@@aminorerror JP150. I’ll check out those groups. Thanks!
tone wood is not real and the bridge does not effect tone. the only thing that effects tone is the type of pickup and how far away it is from the string
Thanks for watching, but no they def do make a difference and Sterling is offering a subpar instrument you should avoid at all costs.
Sounds like a nightmare horrible Guitar, and so contradictory about possible all the opinions I found in UA-cam...
Not big fan of sterling. The neck profile is like classical guitar neck😂. Still the Ibanez or Fender fan🤘.
Thank you for laying it out there, A.M.E.! It is great to finally find someone on UA-cam who is not sucking up to a guitar manufacturer to get a free guitar and then lies about the guitar when they review it.
After all of the videos people have done about "tone wood" especially for metal you still are going on about it?
Great review, thanks for your honesty it’s much appreciated.
Thanks for watching!
I couldn't disagree more with pretty much everything you said in this video. My Sterling JP60 beats most of my Fender guitars (and theyre between 1000 and 2500 bucks)...
I straight up don't believe you, sorry. Thanks for watching.
@@aminorerror okay bye
Thanks for sharing this- i was about to order one of these and now im not 🤘🏻
Thanks for watching! What did you wind up going with?
@@aminorerror it’s funny you ask- I went with a Gibson LP Standard 60s neck- it was between a LP and a 7 string and I had to strike while the wife said OK to the LP!! Love her so much-
Nice choice! Hahaha yea if you've gotten the blessing from the mrs can't pass up on that lol
Exactly- I just unboxed it today- and now I know why the prices are so high on these things- couldn’t be happier🤘🏻
Tengo Sterling sr50, no tengo queja alguna.
I just got an Maj200 used reverb… I’ll look into changing the bridge
You'll want to check with some forums online, but just looking at the model visually I think a Gotoh 510 would fit. For the price they charge for that model....it's honestly should from the factory. Thanks for watching!
@@aminorerrorI’ve been playing on it for months now… I’ve had no issues… I can do divebombs and other garbage and it stays mostly in tune. So no complaints there. I’ve played a marching band season with it outside in different fluctuating temperatures, I’m about to finish a High School musical season on it, we’re doing Shrek. It’s playing great. So I might have gotten lucky. I’m still looking into the trek upgrade and adding a push push tone for a coil split.
Evidence that anyone can spread the word on you tube, even if it’s crap
And evidence that anyone without a clue can comment on a video ;-)
It’s crazy how someone like TheDooo can play it and it’s great but bedroom rockstars like all these comments all say it sucks
Ironic as the thedoo got successful through being a bedroom guitarist. While he's an amazing player and a great musician...tone is def not a strength of his so that's also kinda ironic. Thanks for watching!
I kinda didn't want to click this video but I'm glad I did, I thought locking tuners were too good to be true on this cheap of a guitar. I really wanted a jp60 Mystic Dream but I dunno anymore
(I subscribed 😃)
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but hopefully saved you some cash! I really want the Sterling guitars to be solid, they're cosmetically identical to the EBMM guitars that are outstanding (but overpriced IMO). I really hope they up their game and come out with a total redesign of at the the floating tremolo system, cause that shit is JUNK lol Thanks for watching, lemme know what you wind up buying!
No non floyd rose guitar is going to stay in tune if you use the bar .....common sense .
Na, legit EBMM's stay in tune great and so do Gotoh 510 bridges, hipshot hardware on Kiesels and Strandberg trems. I agree Floyd's, specifically the Gotoh produced Ibanez Edge is unbeatable but there's completely reliable systems out there from other companies too.
Nightmare for a beginner guitarist, can literally make you switch to drums.
PREACH! These guitars suck.
Why are they so damn expensive for what they are?
IMO, cause they're cosmetically identical to EBMM guitars and they trick you into thinking they're a better product than they actually are. At least that's what happened to me until I got my hands on a few of em. Thanks for watching, rock on!
The 7-string Hipshot tremolo that Kiesel uses standard on their guitars also suck
Really? They're like $500
Damn really?! I've never played the hipshot tremolo's, I love the hipshot hardware I've got on my Jericho baritone and Vader 7, but both of those are fixed bridge, string through body.
I even wrote a detailed review about this bridge on the Hipshot website but they didnt wanted to put it online. They have to keep selling ofcourse and negative reviews could potentially cut down the sales. However, in this case the truth must be told. We guitarists want good products and manufacturers should listen to us and try to improve their products where needed. That being said, I think personally that Jeff Kiesel is not a tremolo player. I think he hasn’t played the Hipshot trem often not on 6-strings and not on the 7-‘s. He is more like a marketing guy. Hipshot salesman makes a deal with Jeff, Jeff buys it and sells it to his customers telling them the classic sales rap how great the product is. We should not fool ourselves and just focus on the product itself and not on beautiful words or famous guitar players who endorse the product. I really believe many of these players not like the trem anymore or not as much as they expected in the beginning. They were just being naive falling into the marketing trics. They tried the trem and in the beginning it may look fine but when time goes on and you start really digging in and you know other trem systems you will see the differences
Here is my review about the hipshot trem. Maybe in the future I make a review video about my Kiesel including the trem:
I have a 7-string trem bridge from Hipshot on my Kiesel DC700 and I don’t like it. Here’s why:
1. The trem is HEAVY
2. The trem arm is too high of the body
3. The trem arm contact joint gets in the way when you put your wrist on the bridge or when you want to reach the volume/tone knobs.
4. I cannot find the right adjustment for the trem arm. It is either too tight or too lose
5. The screws to lower or highten the bridge are right under the outer strings. So you have to push the string a bit to the side to make an adjustment with the key. The Edge trem of Ibanez has this solved by putting the screws outside the strings.
6. The trem is less expressive than an Edge or Floyd Rose trem. It is not as smooth. It is hard to get good control over it. Also too sensitive the moment you grab the arm. And it definitelly is not a flutter machine.
7. It doesn’t stay in tune that well. I didnt lubricated the nut though for those who believe that makes a difference. I also tried different tuner peg string installment i.e. cutting the string short or with 1cm string length to turn around the leg. I can notice that in the latter the strings stay in tune better.
8. Last, and this one I definitely cannot understand the logic of it, is that there is room for 5 springs but there are 6 holes to put the spring ends in! So if I want to balance the trem and have the springs straight I can only use 2 or 4 springs. If I use 3 springs then 1 of the 3 would be positioned in an angle. Maybe this design has to do with the trem block that is wider on one side than the other side. But why would they want to do that? I dont see that on other trems. Nothing about this trem makes sense to me.
That sux. Scott carstairs has them on his signature and he uses it well. Made me think they were pretty good.
Buy a reliable Fender strat
lol tone wood isn’t real. An “expert” such as yourself should know this by now…
lol another 'player' and 'expert' with no experience telling the 20 year vet what's up. Dunning-Kruger for days, but it's cool the internet is undefeated.
Don't believe this. QC is better than this. Has to be.
Unfortunately not only is QC absolute shit, so is the design of the fully floating system equipped on the Petrucci and Richardson models. Don't matter what QC is like if it's a flawed design from the jump. Thanks for watching.
I like idiots! You got my follow 😂
The Sterling guitars are flawless and are great value for the money.
Thanks for watching, they're far from flawless and are basically trash. ESP LTD, Schecter or even the cheapo Chinese brand Donner makes a better product than Sterling.
No :)
Well at least I know if I ever start a career in music and it starts to tank I can just shit all over a brand that people love like I'm the Gordon Ramsay of guitars and I'll find some degree of success no matter what I say
Pfffft legit what? 'm not screaming at the camera Ramsay or Glenn from SMG style and if I'm so off base how will this video help me be successful? Oh that's right, cause Sterling guitars suck and you should run in the other direction.
I just watched two reviews of the Sterling (the CT50) and the CT50 plus. In both cases the reviewer played the guitar, tremolo string bending and all...guess what, they stayed in tune. Perfectly in tune. Maybe you're right and the guitar bridge is garbage. Or maybe you take sponsorship money from certain famous brands to keep down newer rival brands. I remember how people gave Tesla cars a bad rap for years. I also remember that in the sixties when Toyota, Yamaha and other big Japanese brands were emerging, people sneered at them. I've just ordered one of these guitars on the back of an enthusiastic review which was 180° in the opposite direction to this.
If the instrument is shit when it arrives, I'll admit my error. But if it stays in tune as I saw on the other reviews. Then fuck you for spreading negativity. And I'll be coming back to diss your diss.
Come on back homie, or honestly don't, I don't give a fuck. You're kinda a dumb ass too, I'm not talking about the bridge on the CT50, I'm talking about the floating ones on the Petrucci's and Richardson models. I also find it extremely hard to believe a more vintage style bridge is all of a sudden gold. It'll prob be junk just like the Petrucci's and Richardson's and you might just not be a good enough of a player to notice. My stuff is always clearly stated up front when it's a sponsored post and this isn't one of em. These guitars suck, bottom line and I don't really care what your opinion is.
I have a Sterling Majesty seven string. Plays great, sounds great, gives me no problems. If it's not for you, that's fine. Everyone has their own taste. But to say they "suck" is just nonsense.
A guitar that doesn't stay in tune isn't taste. That's just a bad instrument.
@@aminorerror As I said, it gives me no problems. This includes staying in tune. The Majesty has locking tuners. If you can't keep that in tune, you're doing something wrong.
No, locking tuners won't matter if the nut is poorly cut or made of a crap material. The bridges are poorly made as well, as shown with all of the play in the posts of the bridge. It's not a double locking system so all of those other elements are the problem. How many records have you made with your guitar?
@@aminorerror I don't know what else to tell you. The guitar gives me no trouble in any way. If you choose to believe otherwise, that's on you.
So you're an amateur who's never done any professional level work with your instrument telling a Berklee grad with 25 years experience who literally reviews guitars as a job that he's wrong. The internet is undefeated though so that makes sense.
If you bought a guitar or amp that was a very popular model during the Covid Pandemic over the past 2 years or so, don't expect too much. All the big major Guitar manufacturers have had a lot of returns the past 2 years. They're making them as fast as possible to keep up with the huge demand they've had. So there are bound to be bad choices made by QC. A couple of months ago I bought an Sterling Albert Lee model that was ergonomically right for me. The balance, fit and finish was perfect. Even though it's a solid body it resonates louder acoustically than my semi hollow body guitars. The neck profile and fret board radius as well as the fretwork was great also. The pickups and controls are all fine too. It wasn't the most in demand model from Sterling, so I think they had more time to spend on it. I turned out to be my favorite guitar out of the last 4 I've purchased over the past 2 1/2 years. I've had a lot of time to compare it with my other guitars. It gets played far more than the others. I have a Tremelo bridge on mine too, but I didn't have any intension to use it anyway. It's not that important for me to get upset about. The tuning machines on mine work fine they stay in tune and I play the guitar from 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours nearly every night.
Hi Brian, glad to hear you've had a better experience! IMO, I'm not sure it has anything to do with COVID...the full floating bridge that they use on a bunch of the Sterling guitars was bad before COVID (my first review was on an older pre COVID era axe and it was just as crappy). I've also played around ten other brands during the COVID era of things and other brands don't have the same problems (ESP/LTD, and Schecter jump to mind). Beyond that, IMO that's no excuse to be putting out bad instruments, especially being as they equip the high end Sterling guitars (the ones with stainless steel frets and Dimarzio pickups) with the same shitty hardware...that's straight unacceptable. I don't have any experience with the Albert Lee models though so I'm glad to hear that you like yours! I appreciate you watching and commenting, got new videos coming out every Monday at 9am EST, hope you'll stop on back. Rock on!
The Sterling Albert Lee is one of the most comfortable guitars I've played ... hands down !!!
I own a Cutlass, and love it. Your review is straight garbage.
Na you just don't know a bad instrument even when it's sitting on your lap. Not my issue your opinion is straight garbage
Thanks man. All the reviews for this are really glowing and I was excited to see them used for really cheap. There's no debating the problems you demonstrated. I can clearly see the loose tolerances. That would be very disappointing to discover after buying it.
The reasons here are exactly why I sold mine, didn't hold up a single bit to my other guitars with Gotohs, Floyd 1000s and even some self installed Wilkinsons.
It's a shame because I love the designs so much yet I'll never get one again unless I find an insane deal on one
You can use thin teflon tape on your trem post screws to remove that wobble. It's frictionless not to make the screw turn easily but to jam itself in between threads and then also be extractable.
I think a six-screw strat trem would drive you crazy. Unless you are using Kahlers or Bigsbys for your comparison, which I strongly doubt-- you also maybe don't seem to realize that a Floyd or Edge takes away all ability for individual string height adjustment, and you can't adjust or control your string curvature at the picking surface or lift your heavy strings a bit for clearer ringing or droning or lower chords. A lot of players turn straight to the Sterlings for sub-$1500 7-strings that don't have a playschool "adjust your string height by raising or lowering your bridge" tremolos. What you are raving about is a great modern two-point floating trem with string height adjustment. Yeah sure I can get around a Floyd-equipped 'lexi pink sawtooth or whatever but that doesn't mean that some people would NOT rather have a truly adjustable trem where you take a string out of pitch and then put it back, rather than a throw-or-pull-and-ignore bridge that has a monolithic non-adjustable string height and action curvature declaration.
Imagine being a traditional martial artist and saying, "After two years of [doing anything]..." and in this case I have rarely seen any guitarist get so bent out of shape by a height-adjusting trem so obviously that context applies for me personally. Thank you for the content tho.
JP60 user here. Actually selling it atm.I have all the issues you mentioned and I might add the following:
The rosewood fingerboard is as dry as a mummy's spit; I have an ibanez RG1570 with the same wood fingerboard and both color and feel make you feel like you got a 400 grit sandpaper fingerboard on the sterling.
Also, the bridge studs are missaligned, so the first string slips away everytime.
At the price point I started looking at schecter and Ibanez, at least for my taste. But LTD is also another solid option IMO (I have one too).
After all this issues with the guitar (and other units Ive seen and played too) I feel so dissapointed that sending it to a luthier to fix the issuea is not worth the time. Somehow I feel it doesnt deserve it!
Even after all I wrote I have to say that the ergonomics of this guitar is the best I have ever experienced. Sad to see so much potential wasted.
Ugh that sucks, but doesn't surprise me at all. Completely agree, ESP LTD and Schecter especially make a great instrument that is remarkably consistent and the ergonomics of the original designs are totally wasted potential. Hope they up their game soon, thanks for watching and good luck!
I hate how expensive these are too. I spent over 800 for a Majesty, and my Yamaha Pacifica 612 absolutely demolished it.
I have a Sterling Luke I got as a backup to my Musicman Cutlass. Regarding the trem system, I swapped out the saddles and glued in the stud bushings. Set the trem to float a little and cut the nut slots properly. Polished the frets and tweaked the action. Actually it's a lovely playing and sounding guitar. Stands up well to any other proper musicman I've had ( I've had 4 ). Sounds and plays better than my USA PRS Custom 24, USA Custom shop Jeff Beck strat, Any Gibson LP studio I've ever owned ( All 3 ). My only beef with my Sterling is that it says it's made in indonesia. I often pick it up in favour of my USA Cutlass. So my point is that with a little setting up, it can be made to play and sound as good as any other guitar can be.
When I was thinking to bought a Sterling... Thanks for the review!!!
Glad this helped, good luck and rock on!
Ill take the base model Kiesel all effin day, i have 4 of them and my favorite ended up being the cheap base model Vader i orderd off the "In Stock" page, their low end stuff plays and sounds just as good as their high end stuff imo.
Preach! Thanks for watching.
my jp157 feels so good and stays in tune really well. It feels so good I preferred it over my Made In Japan ibanez s7420fm and even sold it and my schecter hellraiser c-7 FRS which I also sold. Yeah its a floating non locking trem so its not meant to do divebombs like a floyd that pops back into tune. With the right setup it flutters and feels nice, but just like literally any non locking trem don't expect to even slightly abuse it and the tuning staying solid thats just not possible. The sterlings I've played have been amazing, I'm just saying this so that people don't sway from buying a sterling just because some people experience QC issues or maybe just don't find them to be enjoyable and share all the negatives they had in their experiences. Solar had problems with fretboards cracking and all kinds of other issues but they're still great, it happens to any brand even Schecter I've seen brand new high end $1600USD Schecter guitars come in with cracked fretboards before, how it slipped past so many people before it got into the customers hands who knows, but bottom line is try it out and if it feels good to you, sounds good to you, and inspires you, then go with it. I've played hours of band practice and full sets of songs with only my Sterling and its been reliable and great. Don't listen to this guy, play and try them yourself first before judging and remember its not a floyd meant for crazy abuse or divebombs if you wouldn't do it on a strat don't do it on a sterling.
Everything you described the polar opposite of all of my experiences. All the Schecters have been absolutely mint, easily out performing anything I've ever seen from Sterling. Nothing I'm describing is from a divebomb, and didn't say or show that in any of my examples so you obviously didn't bother to actually watch my video. Don't listen to this fool, he clearly doesn't have the chops or ear to hear when a guitar is in or out of tune.
My JP 6 string guitar has dimarzio pickups that sound great. I don't ever use the whammy so won't comment on that. However, i hate that i can't see the fret dots in a club , and even more annoying the first sting keeps slipping off the edge of the neck. I also own the cheaper version of the Albert Lee, love the tone of the pickups and the cool design. The neck, not so much. God bless all.
That's a bummer you're having a fretting out issue, I've def seen that in a bunch of the cheaper guitars I've reviewed. Thanks for watching, good luck!
I had sterling axis ax3s that considered basic model? Sound and tune fine.. even the pickup was better compare to tone zone dimarzio that i also had.. so no matter the guitar is.. you DEFINITELY need the SETUP PROPERLY.. so i guess this just dude opinion..
I really like my music man, sounds great, looks great, feels great
I got a JP150 for $400 used. For that price, having locking tuners, roasted maple, great looks, nice low action/flat neck...definitely happy with it. But if I had paid anywhere close to MSRP for it I would think I had overpaid. Pickups are kinda meh. Also helps that I don't use the tremolo arm.
It was going great until the word tone wood was spoken lol
almost every opther review I've seen of sterling guitars, they NEVER touch the trem. Most of them don't even have the bar in, and now we know why.
Hahaha YUP! That's how I got tricked on the first one I reviewed here on the channel. Thanks for watching!
I really wanted to like the Cutlass but the one I received was a total trash fire. It couldn't intonate properly or stay in tune for longer than a few seconds. They installed the trem posts crooked and drilled the rear plate holes well through the front. The bridge was the lowest quality metal I've ever dealt with. I'm upset because, on paper, it was the perfect guitar. But even the Squier Sonic guitars are higher quality.
@@purrpocalypse preach! I guess the fan bois just are in denial or just don’t know quality from trash
Bought my Cutlass CT-30 off Reverb for $250. Best buy ever because if had been upgraded. Came with Ratio tuners and a Babicz trem unit. $300 minimum just for those 2 items.
Nicely done! Sounds like you got a pretty solid deal, congrats!
So if I don't agree with your flaming I would be a troll? Nice!! You lost me at "Tone Wood"
Musicman is notorious for having crooked tuners. I have seen a EB Majesty with crooked tuners. Jesus, a 5k guitar! You would never have those crooked tuners on a Harley Benton or Schecter. Shame!
Wow didn't know that! EBMM is already overpriced, that's so dumb they've got that problem. Thanks for watching.
I own several guitars, ranging from Cutlass CT50SSS/HSS (both models) through PRS SE models, and Music Man Majesties and JP's. I have a Sterling JP100D with CL/LF pickups in it and it sounds fantastic and the tremolo performs extremely well, not to mention I have a Koa top on it. I have a new JP157 Blood Orange Burst with active Dimarzio's in it, and the same for this guitar. They perform phenomenally. The only issues with Sterling guitars I've had were on their JP60/70 models. Too much work to "make it right." I tried a JR Cutlass too, and it was good, but not my cup of tea.
I think you have been unlucky with your acquisitions of their guitars, or perhaps I am very lucky. They are great to me, and I am picky.
Thanks for watching, I def don't think it's that I've been unlucky. After seeing 5 instruments and reviewing 3 that's a large enough sample size to know the floating bridges are trash.
@@aminorerror To each their own I guess. Stability hasn't been an issue in fact, I got a JP150 with the stock bridge, nut, etc., and the tuning is grade and sound is good (with upgraded pickups of course).
That trem block looks rough, like 3,000 year old rough !!
I like the honesty. There are too many shills out there.