
A step-by-step guide to transforming a template single-coil import into a humbucker-equipped firebreather with neck-and-bridge-pickup coil-splitting.
Modding a guitar yourself doesn’t need to be scary. Even if you don’t have any experience working on your instrument, taking things step by step can yield some amazing results.
What you’ll need for this project:
Parts and Supplies
- Three Seymour Duncan JB Jr. pickups
- Pure Tone Multi-Contact Output Jack
- .022MFD orange drop capacitor
- Two 500k CTS potentiometers
- One push-pull pot DPDT on/on switch assembly
- 60/40 rosin core solder
- 22 AWG non-shielded PVC-insulated circuit wire
- Heat shrink tubing
- Small zip ties
- Guitar string set
Tools
- Soldering Station
- Small clippers
- Small round-nosed pliers
- Phillips screwdriver
- 1/2" nut driver
- Strip of painter's or masking tape
- A small jar with a lid
For example, I’m going to show you how a hardtail Squier Bullet Strat, which you can pick up for less than $200 street, can be transformed into a more versatile tone machine by non-invasively replacing its stock single-coil pickups with humbuckers and installing a push-pull pot for coil-splitting the neck and the bridge pickups—where many of the sweet sounds live. While I’m at it, I’ll explain how to install a more durable and efficient jack. Even a beginner can conceivably do all of this over a weekend, and the result will be a very playable guitar with a wide selection of sounds that you can enjoy for many years.
One thing I’ll ask you to do first is brush up on your soldering skills. Unless you’re already on top of those, you should check out “Soldering 101: A Step-by-Step Guide” at premierguitar.com. If you don’t have a good soldering iron—one that’s got controllable temperature settings and speedy thermal recovery—you should get one. I prefer to use a Hakko Soldering Station ($115 street) with digital readouts, and keep the temperature set at 750 degrees Fahrenheit. Here it is, in Photo 1.
Photo 1
Keep in mind that any iron you use should be at least 40 to 60 watts or it will not get the solder or metal points hot enough. (Twenty-five-watt irons are common, but don’t use them for this job. They are for delicate circuit-board soldering and not point-to-point work.)
I also recommend Kester 60/40 rosin core solder, which is 60 percent tin and 40 percent lead, in .062" thickness. It’s perfect for electronics. (Note: Wear a face mask, like an N95, or work in a very well-ventilated area when soldering.)From Single-Coils to Humbuckers
The first step occurs before the guitar reaches the workbench. We ordered three Seymour Duncan JB Jr. Strat pickups ($99 each), in Photo 2, which are single-coil-slot-sized humbuckers that, after being swapped in, will bump the upper mids and overall output the Squier Bullet Strat produces considerably.
Photo 2
For this mod, you’ll also need two 500k pots (we chose the CTS brand), and one 500k push-pull pot/DPDT switch—all easy to find online and displayed along with the clippers and pliers needed for this project in Photo 3.
Photo 3
Now, let’s get to started!
1) Detune the guitar to avoid flying-string accidents. Then, using a small wire cutter, clip the strings and remove them from the guitar. Remove the pickguard screws to release the pickguard. Put the screws in a small jar with a lid and put them aside, clear of the work area. You don’t want to be on your hands and knees looking for these later.
As you lift the pickguard, you’ll need to slide it slightly out from around the neck to pull it clear. Then, turn the pickguard over so you can see the wiring harness for the electronics.
2) Next, you’ll want to clip the ground wire that runs from the bridge to the volume pot (this wire looks like it’s coming out of the body of the guitar), as well as the white output-jack ground wire, which runs between the volume pot and an output-jack lug or pin—the small horn-like protrusion from the jack designed to accept wires. Then, clip the red, or “hot,” wire, which carries the signal to the output jack, from the center pin of the volume pot. Now, the pickguard is separated from the guitar and can be placed on an open, convenient spot on your workbench, for the next steps.
3) It’s time to strip the pickguard. After clipping the wires that run from the pickups to the volume pot casing switch, you’ll need to unscrew the pickups from the pickguard and pop them out.
Then, remove the screws—which go into your jar—on the 5-position pickup selector switch and gently remove its plastic top by pulling up on it. Now, you can pull the 5-way switch out of the bottom of the pickguard and save it for the rewiring process. You could leave the 5-way in place instead, but removing it gives you more space to work on the rest of the pickguard electronics assembly.
To remove the pots, gently pull up on the knobs and they will lift off the face of the pickguard. If they resist, consider using a cereal spoon to pry the dials up, and perhaps place a thin piece of cloth, like part of a t-shirt, under the spoon to keep the pickguard scratch-free. This method is less hazardous to the pickguard than using a flathead screwdriver.
Next, unscrew the nuts on the front of the pickguard that hold the pot assemblies in place. (They were revealed after you lifted the dials up.) You’ll probably need a pair of pliers to loosen them a bit, but, again, be careful not to scratch the pickguard. Turn the pickguard over again and clip the wires from the pots, which—reminder—we’re replacing, so don’t worry about saving them. (Standard CTS pots sell for about $7—cheap.) Then, the pots should pop right out. In Photo 4, from a bit later in the process, the pots, DPDT switch, and pickups have already been reinserted, but you can use this photo to view the nuts around the tone and volume control spindles.
Photo 4
4) Now, it’s easy to install the JB Jr.’s on the pickguard. Simply pop them through the pickup slots and screw them in place. Make sure the top of the letters reading “Seymour Duncan” face the neck for all three pickups, as in Photo 4. Use two small zip ties to keep all three four-conductor wires from the pickups together, and a piece of painter’s tape to temporarily hold the loose ends of those wires to the pickguard after the pickups are screwed in tight, to prevent the pickup wires from getting in your way as you work on other steps.
5) Time to install the new pots in the volume and first tone control positions, and then to install the push-pull DPDT switch in the tone control position closest to the guitar’s heel—the one farthest from the strings. While 250k pots are good for single-coil pickups, we’re using the 500k pots that are best for humbuckers here. And don’t forget the 5-way switch!
Let’s start by placing both pots and the push-pull in their places, sliding the shafts through the pickguard openings, and then screwing down the nuts to hold them in place—essentially reversing the process we used to remove the originals. (The 1/2" nut driver that you’ll use for the jack replacement we’ll do next also works for screwing down the nuts.)
Likewise, to reinstall the 5-way pickup selector, simply find your two screws and reverse how you removed it.
6) Basic Strat-style wiring—mostly—is the next step. A good standard Strat wiring guide, like the one on the Seymour Duncan website, may be a helpful visual aid. Wire the volume and tone pots to the switch exactly as on the diagram.
Duncan’s JB Jr.’s come with about 10 inches of four-conductor circuit wire already attached. Strip off about 3" of that wire’s outer casing. Then, you’ll see red, white, black, green, and ground wires. Peel about 1/2" of casing from the tips of each of those smaller, color-coded wires.
For the neck pickup, the green and bare wire are tied together and attached to ground—soldered to the top of the middle (tone) pot. You can see the secured pickup leads, ground soldering location, and overall layout in Photo 5.Photo 5
The red and white go to the center right pin (looking from the smooth rear of the push-pull pot) of the on/on DPDT switch atop the push-pull pot. The black wire goes to the corresponding pin on the 5-way switch—the third lug from the front. (Reminder: Always tin your solder points!) You can get a good look at the DPDT and push-pull pot assembly in Photo 6.
Photo 6
For the middle pickup, the red and white wire are soldered together and bent back over the lead wire. You should use a piece of heat shrink tubing to mask it off. (Heat shrink tubing for guitar and bass wiring can be purchased via a number of online sources.) The green and bare wires also go to ground atop the tone pot, and the black wire goes to the number two lug on the 5-way switch.
And finally, the bridge pickup. The green and bare are tied together and, once again, soldered to ground on the top of the tone pot, while the red and white go to the left middle pin on the DPDT switch atop the push-pull pot, and the black wire goes to the corresponding pin—the front slot—on the 5-way switch. That provides coil-splitting, activated for the neck and bridge pickups, by pulling the rearmost knob up.
7) Let’s do one more thing while we’re here to beef up the tone. Let’s put a .022MFD orange drop capacitor in the tone control’s setup, which will roll off less treble frequencies than a higher value capacitor as the tone knob is turned down. The cap can rest atop the center (tone) pot, and let’s solder one of its bare wires to the back of the same pot’s casing for grounding. We’ll take the other wire and shield it with shrink tubing, and solder it to the outside pin on the tone pot. In Photo 7, you can see the completed wiring for the control set.
Photo 7
8) There’s one more control set wiring move.
The bottom lugs of the push-pull DPDT switch are both jumped to ground. This is what makes the coil-splitting possible, by selecting the ground wire or allowing it to go to output. (Use 22 AWG non-shielded PVC-insulated circuit wire for incidental wiring work like this.)
Then, reattach the red output wire from the output jack to the center pin of the volume pot. Follow that with reattaching the bridge ground wire and output-jack ground wire to the back of the volume pot casing.
(Or, you can wait and do these steps later if you are also doing the jack replacement.) Photo 8 displays all of our handiwork!
Photo 8
9) Lastly, replace the pickguard back onto the guitar with the screws you’ve saved and plug the guitar in to test the connections before screwing it back on. Done!
DIY: Replacing Strat Single-Coils with Stacked Humbuckers
Swapping the Output Jack
Our next job is replacing the standard 1/4" jack that lives behind the chrome boat-style output receptacle with a Pure Tone Multi-Contact Output Jack. It has four points of contact, versus the OEM’s two, and dual tension grounds to hug the cable sleeve in place from both sides, providing more reliable performance and better tone.
1) Start by removing the two jack-plate screws, and then remove the output-jack nut with a 1/2" nut driver. Carefully pull out the jack and boat assembly, (Photo 9) and snip the lead wires—the red is hot output and the white is ground—close to the jack, leaving plenty of wire from the guitar’s harness to work with. Strip the leads of those protruding wires about 1/4", for soldering later.
Photo 9
2) Grab your 60/40 rosin core solder and bring your soldering iron up to 750 degrees. While the iron’s heating up, slide some heat-shrink tubing down the output and ground wires. And when the soldering iron is at temperature, tin the wire leads and pins on the Pure Tone replacement jack.
3) Next, solder the hot (red) output and ground (white) wires to the two pins on the jack, being tinned in this photo (Photo 10).
Photo 10
When you’re done, slide the heat-shrink tubing that you slid onto the wire earlier over the pins and solder points. Then, heat the tubing with either a heat gun, hair dryer, or lighter (Photo 11) to make them shrink.
Photo 11
4) Finally, reattach the new output jack to the jack plate with a locking washer underneath, tighten the output-jack nut with the 1/2" nut driver, and reattach the jack plate to the body with the original jack-plate screws, as in Photo 12.
Photo 12
And now you’re ready to plug in and play!
DIY: How to Wire a Guitar Output Jack
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Over the decades with Hüsker Dü, Sugar, and solo, Bob Mould has earned a reputation for visceral performances.
The 15th studio album from the legendary alt-rocker and former Hüsker Dü singer and 6-stringer is a rhythm-guitar record, and a play in three acts, inspired by sweaty, spilled-beer community connection.
Bob Mould wrote his last album, Blue Heart, as a protest record, ahead of the 2020 American election. As a basic rule, protest music works best when it's shared and experienced communally, where it can percolate and manifest in new, exciting disruptions. But 2020 wasn’t exactly a great year for gathering together.
Mould’s album landed in a world of cloistered listeners, so he never knew how it impacted people. For a musician from punk and hardcore scenes, it was a disquieting experience. So when he got back out on the road in 2023 and 2024, playing solo electric sets, the former Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman was determined to reconnect with his listeners. After each show, he’d hang out at the merch table and talk. Some people wanted their records or shirts signed, some wanted a picture. Others shared dark stories and secret experiences connected to Mould’s work. It humbled and moved him. “I’m grateful for all of it,” he says.
These are the in-person viscera of a group of people connecting on shared interests, versus, says Mould, “‘I gotta clean the house today, so I’m going to put on my clean the house playlist that a computer designed for me.” “Everything has become so digitized,” he laments. “I grew up where music was religion, it was life, it was essential. When people come to shows, and there’s an atmosphere, there’s volume, there’s spilled drinks and sweat–that’s what music ritual is supposed to be.”
His experiences on tour after the pandemic heartened Mould, but they also gave him traction on new ideas and direction for a new record. He returned to the simple, dirty guitar-pop music that spiked his heart rate when he was young: the Ramones’ stupid-simple pop-punk ecstasy, New York Dolls’ sharp-edged playfulness, Pete Townshend’s epic, chest-rattling guitar theatrics. In other words, the sort of snotty, poppy, wide-open rock we heard and loved on Hüsker Dü’s Flip Your Wig and Candy Apple Grey.
Mould’s time on the road playing solo in 2023 sparked the idea for Here We Go Crazy.
Photo by Ryan Bakerink
Mould started writing new songs in the vein of his original childhood heroes, working them into those electric solo sets in 2023 and 2024. Working with those restraints—guitar chords and vocal melodies—put Mould on track to make Here We Go Crazy, his new, 15th solo record.
Lead single and opener “Here We Go Crazy” is a scene-setting piece of fuzzy ’90s alt-rock, bookended by the fierce pounding of “Neanderthal.” “When Your Heart is Broken” is a standout, with its bubblegum chorus melody and rumbling, tense, Who-style holding pattern before one of the album’s only solos. Ditto “Sharp Little Pieces,” with perhaps the record’s chewiest, darkest guitar sounds.
“It’s a very familiar-sounding record,” he continues. “I think when people hear it, they will go, ‘Oh my god, this is so Bob Mould,’ and a lot of that was [influenced by] spending time with the audience again, putting new stuff into the set alongside the songbook material, going out to the table after the show and getting reactions from people. That sort of steered me towards a very simple, energetic, guitar-driven pop record.”
Of his new album, Mould says, “I think when people hear it, they will go, ‘Oh my god, this is so Bob Mould.’”
Mould recorded the LP in Chicago with longtime bandmates Jason Narducy and Jon Wurster at the late, great Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio. Then Mould retreated to San Francisco to finish the record, chipping away at vocals and extra guitar pieces. He mostly resisted the pull of “non-guitar ornamentation”: “It’s a rhythm guitar record with a couple leads and a Minimoog,” he says. “It’s sort of cool to not have a 64-crayon set every time.”
Mould relied on his favorite, now-signature late-’80s Fender Strat Plus, which sat out on a runway at O’Hare in 20-below cold for three hours and needed a few days to get back in fighting shape. In the studio, he ran the Strat into his signature Tym Guitars Sky Patch, a take on the MXR Distortion+, then onto a Radial JD7. The Radial split his signal and sent it to three combo amps: a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, a Fender ’68 Custom Deluxe Reverb reissue, and a Blackstar Artisan 30, each with a mic on it. The result is a brighter record that Mould says leaves more room for the bass and kick drum. “If you listen to this record against Patch the Sky, for instance, it’s night and day,” he says. “It’s snug.”
Mould explains that the record unfolds over three acts. Tracks one through five comprise the first episode, crackling with uncertainty and conflict. The second, spread over songs six to eight, contrasts feelings of openness with tight, claustrophobic tension. Here, there are dead ends, addictions, and frigid realities. But after “Sharp Little Pieces,” the album turns its corner, barreling toward the home stretch in a fury of optimism and determination. “These last three [songs] should give us more hope,” says Mould. “They should talk about unconditional love.”
The record closes on the ballad “Your Side,” which starts gentle and ends in a rush of smashed chords and cymbals, undoubtedly one of the most invigorating segments. “The world is going down in flames, I wanna be by your side/We can find a quiet place, it doesn’t need to be the Albert Hall,” Mould starts. It’s a beautiful portrait of love, aging, and the passage of time.
Bob Mould's Gear
Mould paired his trusty Fender Strat Plus with a trio of smaller combo amps to carve out a more mid-focused rhythm-guitar sound in the studio.
Photo by Mike White
Guitars
- Late 1980s Fender American Standard Strat Plus (multiple)
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod DeVille
- Blackstar Artisan Series amps
- Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb
Effects
- Tym Guitars Sky Patch
- TC Electronic Flashback
- Electro-Harmonix Freeze
- Wampler Ego
- Universal Audio 1176
- Radial JD7
Strings, Picks, & Power Supply
- D'Addario NYXLs (.011-.046)
- Dunlop .46 mm and .60 mm picks
- Voodoo Labs power supply
And though the record ends on this palette of tenderness and connection, the cycle is likely to start all over again. Mould understands this; even though he knows he’s basking in act three at the moment, acts one and two will come along again, and again. Thankfully, he’s figured out how to weather the changes.
“When things are good, enjoy them,” he says. “When things are tough, do the work and get out of it, somehow.”
- YouTube
Many of the tracks on Here We Go Crazy were road-tested by Mould during solo sets. Here, accompanied only by his trusty Fender Strat, he belts “Breathing Room.”
Seven previously-unheard Bruce Springsteen records will be released for the first time this summer with “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” coming June 27.
A set spanning 83 songs, "The Lost Albums" fill in rich chapters of Springsteen’s expansive career timeline — while offering invaluable insight into his life and work as an artist. “'The Lost Albums' were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” said Springsteen. “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.”
From the lo-fi exploration of “LA Garage Sessions ’83” — serving as a crucial link between “Nebraska” and “Born in the U.S.A.” — to the drum loop and synthesizer sounds of “Streets of Philadelphia Sessions,” “The Lost Albums” offer unprecedented context into 35 prolific years (1983-2018) of Springsteen’s songwriting and home recording. “The ability to record at home whenever I wanted allowed me to go into a wide variety of different musical directions,” Springsteen explained. Throughout the set, that sonic experimentation takes the form of film soundtrack work (for a movie that was never made) on “Faithless,” country combos with pedal steel on “Somewhere North of Nashville,” richly-woven border tales on “Inyo” and orchestra-driven, mid-century noir on “Twilight Hours.” Alongside the announcement of “The Lost Albums,” a first look at the collection also arrives today with “Rain In The River” — which comes from the lost album “Perfect World,” and encapsulates that project’s arena-ready E Street flavor.
“The Lost Albums”will arrive in limited-edition nine LP, seven CD and digital formats — including distinctive packaging for each previously-unreleased record, with a 100-page cloth-bound, hardcover book featuring rare archival photos, liner notes on each lost album from essayist Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction on the project from Springsteen himself. A companion set — “Lost And Found: Selections from The Lost Albums” — will feature 20 highlights from across the collection, also arriving June 27 on two LPs or one CD. “The Lost Albums” were compiled by Springsteen with producer Ron Aniello, engineer Rob Lebret and supervising producer Jon Landau at Thrill Hill Recording in New Jersey.
For more information, please visit brucespringsteen.net.
Tracks II: The Lost Albums
LA Garage Sessions ’83
1. Follow That Dream
2. Don’t Back Down On Our Love
3. Little Girl Like You
4. Johnny Bye Bye
5. Sugarland
6. Seven Tears
7. Fugitive’s Dream
8. Black Mountain Ballad
9. Jim Deer
10. County Fair
11. My Hometown
12. One Love
13. Don’t Back Down
14. Richfield Whistle
15. The Klansman
16. Unsatisfied Heart
17. Shut Out The Light
18. Fugitive’s Dream (Ballad)
Streets of Philadelphia Sessions
1. Blind Spot
2. Maybe I Don’t Know You
3. Something In The Well
4. Waiting On The End Of The World
5. The Little Things
6. We Fell Down
7. One Beautiful Morning
8. Between Heaven and Earth
9. Secret Garden
10. The Farewell Party
Faithless
1. The Desert (Instrumental)
2. Where You Goin’, Where You From
3. Faithless
4. All God’s Children
5. A Prayer By The River (Instrumental)
6. God Sent You
7. Goin’ To California
8. The Western Sea (Instrumental)
9. My Master’s Hand
10. Let Me Ride
11. My Master’s Hand (Theme)
Somewhere North of Nashville
1. Repo Man
2. Tiger Rose
3. Poor Side of Town
4. Delivery Man
5. Under A Big Sky
6. Detail Man
7. Silver Mountain
8. Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
9. You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
10. Stand On It
11. Blue Highway
12. Somewhere North of Nashville
Inyo
1. Inyo
2. Indian Town
3. Adelita
4. The Aztec Dance
5. The Lost Charro
6. Our Lady of Monroe
7. El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
8. One False Move
9. Ciudad Juarez
10. When I Build My Beautiful House
Twilight Hours
1. Sunday Love
2. Late in the Evening
3. Two of Us
4. Lonely Town
5. September Kisses
6. Twilight Hours
7. I’ll Stand By You
8. High Sierra
9. Sunliner
10. Another You
11. Dinner at Eight
12. Follow The Sun
Perfect World
1. I’m Not Sleeping
2. Idiot’s Delight
3. Another Thin Line
4. The Great Depression
5. Blind Man
6. Rain In The River
7. If I Could Only Be Your Lover
8. Cutting Knife
9. You Lifted Me Up
10. Perfect World
Bruce Springsteen - Tracks II: The Lost Albums Trailer - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.The guitarist-of-all-trades runs us through his formidable live rig.
Rhett Schull’s a busy guy. Between being one of the most prolific YouTubers in the guitar sphere, working as a trusted hired gun, and creating his own original music, including last year’s EP The Early Days, he’s an avid cyclist. Just a week before we met up with Rhett at Eastside Bowl in Madison, Tennessee, for this Rig Rundown, he was slated to ride a 100-mile race in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Those plans were dashed when 70-mile-an-hour winds stoked a wildfire near town and burned just over 26,000 acres. But the show must go on: The next night, Schull played a gig in town, a special release for people reeling from a brutal natural disaster.
Schull’s a certified gear aficionado and tone wizard, so PG’s Chris Kies headed to Eastside Bowl to have him walk us through his current live rig. Check out the Rundown here, and stay tuned; Schull’s got more music coming later this year.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Special Serus
Schull’s wife pointed out this Novo Serus J hanging on the wall of a guitar shop back in 2017, and it was love at first strum. Made from tempered pine and loaded with Amalfitano P-90 pickups, plus sporting an unmissable pink sparkle polyurethane finish, it’s a real looker, and one of Schull’s favorite guitars.
Third Man Thumper
After Schull did a video on the Fender Jack White Pano Verb amplifier, Fender sent him a Jack White Triplecaster Telecaster, part of his signature series of gear with Fender launched last year. Schull calls it one of the most versatile guitars he owns, with each of the three pickup options virtually splitting it into three separate guitars.
Firebird-Watching
This beauty from Gibson’s Custom Shop came to Schull following NAMM in 2020. On tour, he needs something with humbuckers and something with single-coils. Then, he thinks of what’s exciting him. These days, it’s this Firebird V, which doesn’t have a typical Firebird tone, but cuts closer to something like a Telecaster at times.
Rockin' Two With a Two-Rock
Schull runs two amps onstage, but he doesn’t run them in stereo; he believes the stereo image doesn’t translate as well in a live situation where listeners are spread across the speaker system’s field. With this Two-Rock Classic Reverb Signature and an AC15-ish David Edwards Apollo, Schull gets a “broadband” sound set for big, fat clean tones, like one giant amp on the edge of breakup.
Fun fact: Edwards surprised Schull with the Apollo when Rhett went to Florida to work on some videos.
Rhett Schull's Pedalboard
Schull’s 2024 EP is very effects-heavy, so he commissioned the pedalboard-whisperers at XAct Tone Solutions to build him this double-decker station based around an RJM Mastermind PBC/6X switcher. Some of the stomps, like the Chase Bliss Mood, are activated by MIDI, and all the different sounds from each song—from intro to chorus to bridge to finish—is set up in the RJM. If Rhett wants to go off script, he can hit the function button, which lets him engage pedals on a one-by-one basis. A Line 6 HX One is a “wildcard” pedal in this rig, filling in gaps as needed.
In addition to those machines, the rig includes a Chase Bliss Dark World, GFI System Synesthesia, Hologram Electronics Chroma Console, Boss Space Echo RE-202, GFI System Duophony (which mixes the Dark World and Synesthesia), Chase Bliss Automatone Preamp MkII (used for boost, EQ, fuzz, or overdrive depending on the song), Old Blood Noise Endeavors Beam Splitter, Source Audio ZIO, Memory Lane Electronics Tone Bender clone, and a Mythos Argonaut. A mysterious Japan-made Noel dirt pedal, finished in striking red and gifted to Shull by JHS Pedals’ Josh Scott, rounds out the collection. Utility boxes include a TC Electronic PolyTune3 Noir, Lehle Little Dual, a pair of Strymon Ojai power supplies, and a bigger Strymon Zuma supply.
Sterling by Music Man introduces the Joe Dart Artist Series Collection, featuring the Dart I, II, and III basses.
The original Dart I features the Sterling-shaped body with a single humbucker and volume knob. The Dart II, featuring the beloved Ernie Ball Music Man Caprice body, swaps the humbucker fortwo single-coil pickups, each with its own volume knob for precise, hum-free control. Completing the trilogy, the Dart III is a short-scale StingRay bass with a split single-coil pickup and single volume knob.
A blank canvas, the bass collection embodies the no-frills philosophy of the original Ernie BallMusic Man design—everything you need and nothing you don’t. All three basses are equipped with passive electronics, Ernie Ball flatwound strings, and are available in Natural or Black finishes. No tone knobs here.
“Jack Stratton and I are thrilled to team up once again with Sterling by Music Man to build affordable versions of the three best basses I've ever held in my hands. The JoeDart I, II, and III represent three different sounds and feels, three different eras of bass,and three different shades of my own work as a bassist,” said Dart. “The feel of these instruments is incredible, and the quality would be remarkable at any price point.”
This is a special “Timed Edition” release, only available for pre-order on the Sterling by MusicMan website for two months. Each bass is made to order, with the window closing on May 31st and shipping starting in September. The back of the headstock will be marked with a “2025Crop” stamp to commemorate the harvest year for this special, one-of-a-kind release. A gig bag will be included with each purchase.
All basses are priced at $499.00
For more information, please visit sterlingbymusicman.com.