Guitar of the week #83 - Sterling by Music Man StingRay SR50

This is a nice blend of different guitar designs that for many is the just-right combo they've been looking for.

Combine a Strat (shape and vibrato system), Jazzmaster (offset "lean") and a Les Paul (12-inch fingerboard radius, pickups and controls), and you get something like the StingRay SR50.

The StingRay is a good guitar and always has been. It takes what is arguably the best features of guitars before it and puts it all together quite nicely. You truly do get a very good instrument that has everything where it counts.

I'd say this guitar is best for people that, said honestly, hate Strats and Les Pauls, but want something with a traditional feel so they're not forced to play Ibanez electrics with their super-thin necks.

What would have ruined this guitar is if it were the same thing the Music Man StringRay II was in the late 1970s, which is where this guitar draws its main inspiration from. That guitar, while having more switchgear and tonal options, was a design I don't believe players today would take to. The SR50 on the other hand has a much more simplified control layout and is a ready-to-go player's guitar.

In other words, this is one of those instances where modern design changes to the guitar helped it quite a bit. The SR50 is very approachable, easy to set up and easy-to-play, which is what any guitar player wants.

Published 2016 Nov 9