Sterling by Music Man Cutlass HSS Electric Guitar Firemist Silver

Love the body and the mechanics. The guitar is a joy to play. Unfortunately this guitar has a serious problem with single coil pickups. They are staggered. This leads to noticeable imbalance between the volume of the strings. The staggering layout was designed in the fifties for a wound third string and fret board radius of 7.25 inches. However installed third string is not wound and the radius is 12 inches. I was "surprised" by that and wrote a couple of messages to the tech support. Their reply is that they were after the vintage sound with this guitar. Well, definitely this is not possible with the unwound third string and flatter fret board. After some hesitation I decided to keep the guitar and do the upgrades to fix this problem myself. And by the way: this is the second C50 guitar I've ordered. The first one I got from another vendor and it had a broken switch or wiring so I had to return it. #sweepstakes

I usually enjoy playing this guitar along side my Tiger's Eye Ultra Strat just to compare tone and playability. For the money the Cutlass is a great buy! The roasted maple neck is comfy to play and the locking tuners make the Cutlass a keeper. The Cutlass body is a bit thinner than my Ultra Strat and the guitar is lighter weight. This is my second Sterling model along with my Albert Lee equipped with P90's. Both of these guitars are made very well and they are quite adequate in the tone department:)

Play at home. (Not an on stage performer.). Light. Good scale.

I use this guitar mainly for practice and jamming but I am sure it would be great on a gig

It's really surprised me to see this guitar and MusicMan in general get so overlooked in the guitar market. Now, I didn't snag one until the Toluca Blue came out in the HSS setup. The Good - Comfortable neck. All of my guitars have different neck shapes. This one's fat, but doesn't have the high shoulders so can still get thumb over. - Perfect knob placement. It's out of the way, but reachable. - Trem system. Stable and nice pop in bar. If floating I suggest 4 springs. - Locking tuners. Just makes life easier. - Rosewood fretboard. It will feel dry when you get it, but keep playing and it'll get a satin feel to it. The roasted maple one is great as well. Improvements? - The pickups are a bit trebly and brittle. Lacks the balls of my Ultra Tele or the snap or my Nashville Tele w/ Tex Mex pups. The Humbucker helps a lot! I'll likely replace the single coils. - Trem screws strip easily. - Fret buzz on low E, but that seems to have gone away as I've set it up. This or a used Silver Sky SE for double the price? For originality, this wins. Has a unique look, feels similar and no one's gonna ask you to play Slow Dancing In a Burning Room everywhere you go. Can't go wrong, but this is the steal of the century.

Excellent quality for the price. Only complaint did not come with a tremolo bar and I cannot get GC to provie one.