Sterling by Music Man John Petrucci MAJ170X ADR

Desde que cayó en mis manos la Sterling de 6 cuerdas tenía ganas de adquirir esta de 7 y no me arrepiento en absoluto. La guitarra es comodísima tanto para hacer riffs como para solear, los acabados son de un gusto exquisito y la pintura hace que dependiendo de cómo incida la luz la veas de un color u otro, lo que en directo siempre da mucho juego. Le he puesto 4 estrellas al sonido porque las pastillas que trae de casa potencian demasiado el ruido y se oyen mucho los chirridos típicos de cambiar de acorde o desplazarse por una cuerda. No es algo muy perceptible pero sí ocurre más que en otras guitarras de gama similar.

- First, it came perfectly set.
- Playability is great, even action is pretty low there is no fret buzz whatsoever. Neck is thin and comfy,
- Pickups are a bit dark, but overall they sound good. Zero hum. They have both low end for punchy sound and high end for nice pinch harmonics. Match perfecty the music and sound John Petrucci is playing.
- Build quality is very good. Had no issues with any components or even tuning stability
- It is a great axe

A little bit about me as a musician, I used to be in a band, recorded two albums with a 7 string Ibanez doing all the rhythms and solos and I considered myself at the time a middle-range musician as far as my skill and knowledge is concerned. The band broke up and I've not picked up a guitar in ages. I decided that a new guitar would be the thing to take me out of rut I was in.
I am a big DT/John Petrucci Fan and ever since I started playing with 7 string guitars I've always wanted one of JP's signature guitars but of course money in the bank was always an issue.

Now unto the guitar:

Unboxing:
Although this guitar is NOT inexpensive, it's an incredible instrument.
One thing that did concern me when the guitar arrived was that there was this rattling sound inside of it which I found extremely strange. After closer inspection I found a screw loose inside the guitar which I haven't been able to locate where it's supposed to come from.

Road Value:
I've not been touring/playing live in forever (almost 8 years now) so I can't speak of it's road-ready value.
I did however find that the floating bridge of this guitar is not as stable as potentially it's bigger brother equivalent (Ernie Ball's Majesty) as it seems to drop tuning fairly easily with just a couple of uses of the trem bar (not talking about full dive bombs).
Since I am still using it with the stock strings and didn't do any adjustments yet, I may want to look into that which might influence these aspects. I might need to update this review accordingly.

Tone-wise:
the guitar sounds heavenly it does seem to do everything I throw at it with it's stock pick-ups and I don't see myself changing them anytime soon. I do wish however that a coil split was available but I guess that's a minor thing.

The feel:
The guitar neck's smoothness neck is incredible and it's a very comfortable guitar to play. The access to the higher frets is as advertised. As comfortable as if my hands were in the middle of the neck if that makes sense.
The body is super light and it feels balanced and I am actually considering doing some better health choices because the way the guitar sits on top of my belly make me think that I may want to get into JP's cardio routine as well!

Controls wise:
the guitar is super accessible to adjust, volume, tone , push-push pot however I do have one problem with the pick up selector. it seems to move to it's sides in the middle position as if it were about to snap away from the guitar. Don't know if this is an issue with my instrument or if this is just a characteristic of it, but I do feel some trepidation about it. Only time will tell if this is an issue.

I've had this guitar for about 3 months now and it's inching closer to it's very first string change and I can't wait to see what happens from here on out.
All in all I'm happy with this instrument, it's reinvigorated me as a person and as a musician and I can't wait to see what my evolution as a "bed room rock star" will bring with this in my arsenal.

First, this guitar's sound depends on the strings - be prepared for it. The clean tone isn't incredible, this guitar needs a single-coil button, but it still sounds lovely, especially with a proper amp.

The neck is incredible. Playing is much easier than Fender Strat or Gibson LP. The pickups are also great, especially for heavy and crunch tones.

This guitar is very light and compact, it's much lighter and smaller than Fender Strat, but it still has the same scale length.

I bought it to close most of my requirements for studio sessions, and this guitar does it as I expected.