This new model in the James Valentine line-up seduces us with its chambered ash body, cool Bigsby vibrato and a range of inspiring tones
We loved the all-American version of the Maroon 5 guitarist’s signature model on first meeting it back in 2016. The more affordable Indonesian-built Sterling By Music Man JV60 followed two years later and was pretty much a Southeast Asian take on that guitar but with a tweak or two here and there. Then for 2023 we heard about Sterling’s brand-new Chambered models –with and without Bigsby –and it’s the former version we finally got our hands on.
That original Music Man Valentine featured a solid ash, double-cutaway body with roasted maple, 648mm (25.5-inch) scale neck with a 305mm (12-inch) radius fingerboard and slim 42mm (1.65-inch) wide nut. Also included were the company’s ‘modern classic’ hardtail bridge, plus pushpush pots for both volume and tone: one for overall boost and the other a coil-split for the neck humbucker. Nestled by the bridge sat a humbucking-sized single coil, its polepieces running diagonally across the chrome cover.
The basic bones of that instrument remained on the subsequent Sterling By Music Man JV60 version, although it lost the neck pickup’s coil-split and received a different bridge. While the later JV60C and our review model, the JV60CB, follow the Sterling’s basic template, this one’s chambered white ash body, tune-o-matic bridge and Bigsby B50 vibrato tailpiece make it the slightly leftfield and perhaps most interesting alternative.
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Design traits this model shares with other Music Man family guitars include four‐over-two locking tuners, a five-bolt neck plate with dressed-back heel, easy body-end truss rod adjustment, and mattfinished neck (although not hand-rubbed wax and oil as is present on USA-made equivalents). Like other active models, a quick-release battery compartment is discreetly located on the guitar’s rear.
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With both pickups on, the mix of humbucker and single-coil tones conjures up a bright Rickenbacker-style chime
With knurled chrome master volume and tone knobs, a three-way lever switch, black pickguard, and an f-hole tidily cut from the ash front (the back is separately glued on), it’s a functional but great-looking guitar. The see-through gloss Butterscotch finish visually complements the dark roasted maple neck and has been superbly applied. In fact, we can’t fault t
