Ernie Ball Music Man’s StingRay II – revealed at NAMM this 12 months – marked Cory Wong’s foray into the world of humbucker-loaded signature fashions. 

And in a brand new interview with Guitarist, the jazz/funk maestro explains why single coils have been now not chopping it, and why he selected EBMM to get the job accomplished.

“I’ve been on the lookout for a humbucker guitar for lots of years,” he explains. “I lastly needed to settle for the fact that single coils weren’t going to offer me every part that the world has to supply – as a result of, properly, they’re simply completely different. It’s a special software, proper?”

He goes on: “I like my Strat; I’m a Strat man by means of and thru, however I simply wanted a guitar with humbuckers. If I am going out on tour, I simply need two guitars: I desire a guitar that may do every part the Strat doesn’t do. So I need one thing to offer me the George Benson, Larry Carlton factor.

After realising it was “perhaps unattainable” to get the sound he was on the lookout for out of 1 guitar, he set about trialling some completely different pickups and guitars to hone in on the tone he was after.

“I acquired fairly shut with a few of them,” Wong says. “Then in the future, I used to be simply scrolling the web and I noticed [Vulfpeck/Fearless Flyers bassist] Joe Dart texting me, he’s like, ‘Yo, so the Joe Dart Jr bass is popping out, test it out!’ And he despatched me an image. This factor seems to be superb. It’s mainly similar to a miniature StingRay, and it had one pickup and no matter.

“I emailed Brian Ball [Ernie Ball CEO]. I used to be like, ‘Hey, are you able to simply slap six strings on there and a humbucker and ship me one?’ He’s like, ‘No, I can’t. That’s not the way it works.’”

After pushing Brian to experiment with a render of a six-string StingRay, he realised he and Wong had already begun collaborating. “I really feel like we’re sort of collaborating on this,” Ball stated. “How concerned do you wish to be on this?”

Wong replied: “Nonetheless concerned you need me to be. As a result of what you’re doing proper now’s making the guitar that I wish to be a companion to my Strat.”

A longtime Fender endorsee, Wong was fast to name the Massive F to clear his potential collab with Ernie Ball Music Man.

“I used to be like, ‘Hey, I’m on the lookout for a humbucker guitar, and blah, blah. I’m exploring this house with Music Man, I imply, it’s a very completely different guitar, you understand? It’s a completely completely different software.’ So it’s like, ‘All proper…’

Check out the StingRay II at Ernie Ball Music Man.