Ernie Ball Sterling H/SC Reviews 
4 / 5 based on 1 reviewsI'm old school about bass tone, usually prefer FL. Only been playing out for about 5 yrs, mainly in a duo with singer on KB.
This is a used bass from GC. It was $950, played and sounded great, so I bought myself a xmas gift.
It plays so easy, I felt like I had played it for years even before I bought it. The sound is very versatile, from classic Motown, to stringy, to StingRay, and some other harder to describe voices. The controls are fairly simple to use, considering there's 4 knobs and a 5-way switch. The neck adjuster is very conveneint. I also like that it looks great but not weird or flashy. Build quality seems to be flawless. Mostly, it's the sound.
Sometimes I wish it had more sound option, espeically if it could switch the PU cicuit to a series circuit. It's not super heavy, but less weight would still be a good thing. It would also be good if the E-string tuning peg was further from the nut. I do appreciate neck binding, but MM doesn't offer that.
Quality is as good as you can find on a production line, and better than some handbuilt stuff I've seen [and own]. It's a typical StingRay-type bass except that it's rear-routed, and is the newer dual PU version, H/SC with the single coil at the neck and MM humbucker right where it's always been. It has a knife switch similar to the one on a StingRay 5, and this provides PU selection and coil selection.
The electronics have plenty of output, even from a single battery. Action can be adjusted rather low with no problem. This particular bass is swamp ash with a maple FB, and I think this is part of its sound quality.
For me it's all about the neck PU. I believe I'd be just as happy with a Sterling H/H as this H/SC, but I never wanted a [fretted] Sterling or StingRay before they added the neck PU. I tried them now and then but never wanted to buy one. The neck PU very much transforms a MusicMan. I bought this one in about 10 minutes.
In rating it a 4, I'm only comparing it to other basses of this style, meaning solid body, fretted, Fender-type basses. I figure that in that group, the 5 rating is reserved for the Sadowski and such.
Golem rated this unit
on
2007-01-29.
