What is it?
The Cutlass has got to be one of the most perennially underrated electric guitars on the market but this new entry-level version from Sterling By Music Man’s Intro Series is as good a reason as any to change the narrative. This could be the beginner-friendly unit shifter of the year.
And okay, you could argue that, technically speaking, the Cutlass is not underrated. It’s hard to find someone who has a bad word to say about them, and for good reason.
The primo USA-made Ernie Ball Music Man variants are top-tier high-end electric guitars. The design principals behind the bolt-on doublecut are solid. All things considered, the Cutlass is held in high esteem. But the point is: nobody ever talks about them.
Although we are not privy to guitar sales data – there are no charts to see which six-string is up, which is down, and who’s going to be Number One at Christmas – whenever Reverb publishes its year-end sales figures the Cutlass is nowhere to be seen.
Reverb’s top-selling electric – new or pre-loved – in 2024 was the Fender Player Telecaster, from a Top 10 populated solely by PRS, Fender and Gibson guitars. Wait, make that Top 15. No, there were no Cutlasses.
Maybe it lacks the imprimatur of the artist. Even before the influencer era, it was ever thus; seeing players with a certain model made others want to play them. Over the years you might have seen a Cutlass in the hands of Mick Mars or Cory Wong (who has just teamed up Ernie Ball Music Man, alas, for a signature StingRay), and it is most famously by Jason Richardson, who has his own signature line of Cutlasses, including 7-string variants.
This Intro Series Cutlass is more demure than Richardson’s models. It’s a vintage-looking double-cut – vintage in the sense that it looks very much of a piece with ‘60s American electric guitar design. Can the Intro Series shift the dial? Is this going to be the year of the Cutlass? Well, let’s see what we’ve got.
Priced as a beginner guitar, and yet this entry-level model looks and feels like anything but. You’ve got the super-versatile HSS pickup configuration, with the ceramic bridge humbucker accompanied by two ceramic single-coils and controlled by a five-way blade-style selector switch, volume and tone.
It definitely has the DNA of a Ball family design, with that sweet double-cutaway body shape and the edge radius that makes it feel so well-rounded and, for the lack of a better word, designed.
There are sweet finish options – particularly the Electric Blue and Sunrise Orange models which come with amaranth (aka purple heart) fingerboards – and there is a Vintage Fulcrum tremolo. And, holy moly, it’s just $199 street. Put all that together and it is definitely worth a closer look to see what everybody seems to be missing.
Specs
Launch price: $199/£279/€349
Made: China
Type: Solid-body electric guitar
Body: Poplar
Neck: Hard maple, bolt-on
Fingerboard: Hard maple, 12″ radius
Scale length: 648mm (25.5″)
Nut/width: Plastic / 42mm
Frets: 22, narrow
Hardware: Vintage Fulcrum tremolo, sealed die-cast tuners, chrome, 3-ply white pickguard
String spacing at bridge: 60mm
Electrics: 1x Ceramic humbucker, 2x ceramic single-coils
Weight: 6.6lb/3kg
Options: Amaranth fingerboard on Electric Blue and Sunrise Orange models
Left-handed options No
Finishes: Black (as reviewed), Canvas White, Electric Blue, Sunrise Orange
Case: No
Contact: Sterling By Music Man
Build quality
Build quality rating: ★★★★☆
This is a tidy guitar. There’s a little smudge of glue up at the top end of the ‘board that could have been cleaned off better before leaving the factory but otherwise this is spic and span. The factory setup is bang-on for beginner players, which shows that people are paying attention – they know who this guitar is for.
The Intro Series Cutlasses with maple fingerboard models such as our review model in Black with the white three-ply pickguard and its Canvas White sibling are a little on the austere side as far as the aesthetics go.
But that’s okay. It feels like a blank page, an invitation for players to impress their own identity on it, or more importantly, as a beginner guitar, a vehicle for a young player to develop their own identity and playing style.
The vital statistics are very much a la mode for beginner electric guitars. We have a solid poplar body and a pale hard maple neck that’s shaped into a C profile and bolted to the body.
At this price we don’t have the premium Ernie Ball Music Man touches, the gunstock oil and the hand-rubbed wax to make your hand glide up and down the fingerboard almost by the mere power of suggestion, but it is satin-smooth, with the emphasis on smooth.
Beginners might pick this up might have some difficulty parting with it, choosing instead to upgrade the parts, mod it to their liking. I’d swap out the tuners first
Unlike, say, Fender, we have a five-bolt joint, and it is nicely sculpted to make some extra room at the top end of the fingerboard. That fingerboard is a separate piece of maple and has a Gibson-esque 12” radius, but scale length (25.5”) and the EBMM/SBMM bolt-on vibe is a little more from the Fender school of thought. This has that modular quality.
Beginners might pick this up might have some difficulty parting with it, choosing instead to upgrade the parts, mod it to their liking. I’d swap out the tuners first. Nobody is going to mistake the sealed no-brand die-cast tuners on this for the Schaller locking units of the EBMM US-made Cutlass. There’s some slackness when turning them but, all things considered, this guitar holds its tune nicely.
SBMM has minimized the headstock break angle so the strings run flush off the nut and straight onto the machineheads. That nut is nicely cut. Tweaks to the truss rod can be made via a spoke wheel at the top of the fingerboard, just like Charvel et cetera.
There is no case or a gig bag included but at this price we wouldn’t expect one, and a little sweet-talk with your local guitar store can often get you a good deal on one.
Playability
Playability rating: ★★★★★
The fret wire is described as narrow, which is to say it feels old-school, pre the big ‘80s high-performance takeover
As someone who made his bones with a Tanglewood Strat rip-off, this Cutlass is a revelation. Forget the price tag and the fact that it is, of course, primarily aimed at guitarists just starting out on the instrument, by any metric this is a supremely playable and super-fun guitar to play.
It is light. It is balanced. The body, ever so slightly offset, subtle carvings to augment both cutaways and clear more room for the fretting hand, is right out of guitar ergonomics 101.
The fret wire is described as narrow, which is to say it feels old-school, pre the big ‘80s high-performance takeover. These frets are well-installed. You can see the tangs in the fingerboard. You can’t feel any roughness from them whatsoever.
Again, the going is smooth. Clear skies and flat seas. The neck profile is not listed but it feels much like C with a sensible amount of timber on the shoulders making it more comfortable and less cookie-cutter than the genero-C necks you typically find on today’s market. Those thinner profiles can flatter to deceive, growing less comfortable over time.
That Vintage Fulcrum tremolo unit is adjustable but, as shipped, it is set up with its three springs tightened and downward movements only. The neck, however, is pulling all the focus here. It hard to overstate just how easy this is to play.
Sounds
Sounds rating: ★★★★1/2
Ceramic pickups tend to run hot and so it’s no surprise that when plugging into an a tube combo that was otherwise set up clean, ever so slightly at the edge of breakup, that a big open chord from that big, brash sounding humbucker yielded a sharp, assertive grit. This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There’s a lot of bite on these pickups.
Some might find it too much but oftentimes it’s harder to brighten a dull guitar than it is to take some of the treble off a bright one. The neck single-coil has got a real Stratocaster spank to it.
It’s bright, articulate, and like the bridge humbucker, can benefit from rolling off a bit of the treble. Unlike beginner models of yore, you turn the tone pot down here and the tone darkens, and in gradations, too. There are a lot of tones to explore.
When the feel is as slinky as it is the difficulty for experienced players is not to overplay, to over-bend their notes. For beginners? This is perfect
That Strat bounciness can be explored further in the mix positions, with the middle and neck single-coils combined you have all the incentive you need to work on your triads and get to work on that Jimi Hendrix chord book.
When the feel is as slinky as it is, the Cutlass fitted with a set of 9s as standard, the difficulty for experienced players is not to overplay, to over-bend their notes. For beginners? This is perfect.
It takes gain well too. That trebly assertiveness reveals an abundance of harmonic content with an overdrive pedal in the equation. I had a DOD Overdrive Preamp 250 maxed out, with a little compression in front, and that bridge humbucker sounded pretty damn serious.
Verdict
The Intro Series Cutlass is a triumph on two fronts. Firstly, it is everything a great beginner guitar should be. It is affordable and player-friendly, sounds impressive, and perhaps most importantly it is versatile.
Beginners often start out with the burning ambition to become the next Randy Rhoads, Yvette Young, Joe Bonamassa, or Tim Henson, whoever, but as they develop more influences are brought to bear on their playing. Our styles evolve as our tastes do. A great beginner guitar like this keeps all the routes open, encouraging musical curiosity.
That neck profile is superb
It’s a rock guitar. Those pickups are gnarly. But it’s also a funk guitar. Slap on some compression, give it some auto-wah, and is a fine-sounding funk guitar. It can do the country twang. Blues guitar? Absolutely, and playing some blues licks on this I was reminded of B.B. King’s wise words for Billy Gibbons, “Why are you working so hard?”
Gibbons might have subsequently scaled down his electric guitar string gauge to ultra-light 7s on the King of the Blues’ say so, but this Cutlass feels similarly naughty. Like, ‘Isn’t guitar playing meant to be, y’know, tough?’ This Cutlass makes it effortless. That neck profile is superb.
Secondly, the Intro Series Cutlass is a welcome reminder that – hello! – the Cutlass deserves to be in the conversation. It’s time to give the Cutlass its due. More importantly, give this Cutlass a spin.
Guitar World verdict: A fun guitar to play, well built, versatile, and a great option for beginners – and for budding modders too – the Intro Series Cutlass doesn’t call attention to itself until you pick it up and plug it in. Then it all makes perfect sense.
| Test | Results | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Build quality | We’d swap out the tuners over time but SBMM has got the fundamentals bang on for a electric at this price. | ★★★★☆ |
| Playability | The neck profile has a little more meat on it than your usual C but is so quick and comfortable, and upper-fret access is great, too. | ★★★★★ |
| Sounds | Bright, pugnacious ceramic HSS pickups and 5-way switching gives beginners plenty of options to find their style. | ★★★★1/2 |
| Overall | Players of any level would have some fun with this but for a beginner electric, at this price, it’s absolutely worth checking out. | ★★★★1/2 |
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