If you’re familiar with Jared Dines, then you won’t be at all surprised that he has a signature guitar these days. The Sterling by Music Man Jared Dines Artist Edition StingRay guitar is a lot less metal than I expected, but just like Jared, is full of surprises.
The guitar has some features that I wouldn’t have personally chosen, but since my name isn’t Jared Dines, that’s not really all that important. I always say that a guitar is more than the sum of its specs – when you pick it up and play it, it either works or it doesn’t and sometimes you can spec out what you think will be the perfect axe and when it arrives, the things you chose don’t all work together. So even though this guitar has a considerably thicker neck and rounder fretboard radius than I’m used to playing, it didn’t feel unwelcome or unwieldy. It felt like a complete thought.
Gold hardware – also not my jam. But it does seem to accent the black guitar pretty well, and at least there aren’t any goddamn pickup rings on the thing. It’s a pretty classy affair overall, with some seriously vintage appeal. The pickups are surprisingly low output, although I liked the way they sounded – just don’t expect that they’re gonna be any kind of firebreathing without a little boost.
The things that caught my attention the most on this axe are the fact that it’s the only StingRay guitar with 24 frets, it has locking tuners, and it has a killswitch. These are all pretty unique features in their own ways, and add to the guitar’s singular appeal.
For $699, the Jared guitar is a pretty good deal on an import guitar with a lot of great features that you could play at just about any gig and won’t get you any funny looks, but as I proved in the demo video above, has no problem dishing out the metal.
You can only get the Sterling by Musicman Jared Dines Artist Edition StingRay guitar direct from Sterling – it’s not for sale in any stores or online anywhere else, so head over there to order it.
Until yours comes in, here’s what happened the last time me and Jared jammed:
