Axis, Cutlass, Sting Rays, oh my! There were all those and more new stylings at the Sterling by Music Man & Ernie Ball both this year as we got a tour of all their affordable options that are out or will be coming out in 2025. We saw new stylings on signature sweets for James Valentine, Steve Lukather, Ryan "Fluff" Bruce, Pete Wentz, Tosin Abasi, Jason Richardson and more!
The StingRay Plus takes the classic StingRay guitar to new heights with a roasted maple neck, versatile P90 pickups, and a built-in volume boost. A matching headstock and sleek block inlays complete the polished, old-school look. Experience the next level of tone and performance with the StingRay Plus.
Danelectro keeps bring the past to the future by recreating cult classics from their history. The masonite masters brought a pair of new electrics, their Sitar in a cracked-black finish, and some new colors on the Longhorn basses.
Xvive wants to make sure you take some time for yourself and your tone with their new More You HUB. It's the starting point to bulid out your studio or rehearsal space with an expandable audio interface and personal monitoring system for up to eight people and 24 inputs. The More You Hub (1st slide) is the heart of the system, with two combo inputs for microphones and instruments, and outs to your DAW, headphones/IEMs, and studio monitors. True gain mic preamps with 60dB of gain in 1dB steps for precise setting and recall; 48V phantom power, phase and hi-pass filter available on all inputs; each user controls Level and Reverb for themselves on their two inputs. Talkback mics on each unit allow musicians to communicate without removing headphones and all settings automatically recall after shutdown and restart. The second slide shows the additional, expandable MORE YOU 2X Expansion Unit that works with the HUB.
The latest iteration of Tsakalis' expansive envelope filter is a pure funk machine. All the classic '70s-era sounds are packed in there, but with three separate filters, you can get so much more out of it. Both the octave and filter are switchable, and with effect order switching you can really push the limits of out-of-this-world wah sounds. It will be available in March for $229.
Collings brandished a fresh offset solidbody electric. The 71 M is built with an ash body, a slab-sawn hard maple neck, rosewood fretboard (with a 10" radius), Mastery Offset bridge & vibrato, and a set of Lollar JM-Style pickups — P-90 (bridge) and Blademaster (neck). A 25 1/2" scale length, Kluson Supreme tuners, Davies Radio knobs with push-pull series/parallel on the tone, Jupiter Vintage Yellow capacitors, and narrow-tall frets round out the experience.