Dean Guitars Baby ML

My Dean Baby ML is a fairly recent metallic silver model, not sure which year, but it can't be over five years old. It was made in China, and has a really light basswood body and a bolt-on maple neck with 22 frets. Two Dean passive humbuckers, possibly high-output, I don't really know. The bridge is a Tune-O-Matic model, which I like because it makes detuning the guitar much easier. This guitar is mostly used for Drop D and Drop C tuning and stays in tune very well. This guitar came with an aftermarket gig bag for free when it was bought from eBay about a year ago. This guitar was my first, as I am a fairly new player. I was drawn to this guitar, being a huge fan of legendary ML user Dimebag Darrell. The guitar is very light, and has a particularly nice, about medium-sized neck. I enjoy playing my Baby ML very much and devote about half my playing time (including band rehearsals) to this guitar. It is simple- just some wood with two pickups- no complex Floyd Rose, no coil taps and no active electronics. It's simple and all the better for it.

I find this guitar sounds very good for my favoured playing style, which is mostly heavy metal, such as Iron Maiden, Metallica and some more extreme bands like In Flames. I play through a Line 6 Spider III 15 watt combo. This great practice amp has four settings- Clean, Crunch, Metal and Insane. These last two settings are my favoured ones, usually with the gain on 4 or 5, the mids right down, and the bass and treble right up, with no effects. This is where the guitar truly excels. The pickups are absolutely excellent when you feed them a little distortion, and the tone is bright and cutting. The clean tone is very nice too, with a very slight twang at the bridge and lots of soul on the neck pickup. I'm not entirely sure but I don't think it could cover too many different styles of music, the pickups are just too distortion-orentated for anything other than metal. However, as a fairly inexperienced player (at least in other styles of music), who mainly plays distorted rock, I'm not complaining, especially with the tone you can get for that one particular style.

As previously mentioned, I didn't buy this guitar new, so I have no idea how it was set up at the factory, but I couldn't find any noticeable flaws when it arrived. There are a couple of chokes at higher frets (noticeably the 16th and 17th on the B string and 12th on the A) but these should be easy to sort. These chokes are irritating, but it's nothing which can't be sorted. The action is pretty low as well.

My guitar seems very solidly built. In the year or so that I've had it nothing has gone wrong and it still plays like a dream. The finish seems OK as well, although maybe that element of it could be slightly more durable. This guitar would definitely stand up to a live schedule. In fact, it's probably better suited to gigging than my other guitar, an Ibanez RG. I say this chiefly because of the hardtail bridge, as opposed to the complicated Floyd Rose on my RG which makes detuning almost impossible (a nuisance since most of the songs I play with our band are in Drop D). My ML may need straplocks, because the strap has come off a couple of times in rehearsal (luckily I was holding the neck at the time!) If I was playing this guitar live I would probably take a backup as a safety precaution, although I'd do that with any guitar. As it is, I think it would be able to do a gig unaided- there isn't a great deal to go wrong on it!

I've never dealt with Dean over this guitar, and probably won't be needing to any time soon.

Overall, I love this guitar. I love the simplicity, and how the fact that there are few extras only makes what is there more useful. I also own an Ibanez RG350EX, which I love just as much, but find harder to tune. My favourite feature on the guitar is probably the pickups, or maybe the fact that it can make even the most butter-fingered of players look like Dimebag himself. I would definitely buy another if this one was lost or stolen, and would recommend it to any aspiring metaller with a budget of under ??300. I can't find anything to hate about this guitar, apart from some trivial and easily rectifiable minor flaws. If there was one thing I could add, I would say maybe some of the desirables on full-size MLs, like set necks etc. Great guitar, and one which would still be worth every penny if the price was twice as high. My only reason for the 9 is the lack of some desirable features available on the higher-end MLs. But still VERY highly recommended!

Just purchased this guitar in the kit with amp, strap, etc.. Pretty well made for a $200 guitar other than a few things which I will cover later. 22 fret, 24-3/4" scale, two (pretty good)passive humbeuckers, fixed bridge.

I play mostly metal and this guitar works pretty well for that, which it should, considering the pedigree. I know this is a cheap guitar, purchased mainly for the novelty of it but I am actually pretty impressed with the sound. The bridge pickup is a bit trebly and the neck is a bit bassy but you get a pretty good difference in sound between the two, which is better than i can say for other more expensive guitars that I own. With the selectror switch in the middle position, you get a pretty ballsy cool tone from it. I really like playing this thing. I also own a Jackson SLSMG soloist and i'd have to say, I enjoy this thing just as much. It is a blast to play and it was cheap as hell!

This is where my issues come in. The action fit and finish is actually pretty nice as well. My biggest beef is this. If I didn't SEE this, I don't think it would sonically be noticeable, but the bridge pickup poles starting with the low E string line up pretty straight with the string but as you go across the strings, The pole pieces start to stagger away from the strings and by the high E string, the string is right at the edge of the pole piece. I haven't investigated this too much yet as I plan on replacing the bridge pup with a Bill Lawrence L-500XL wnich is a blade pup and will cure this problem anyhow, but I do plan on figuring out if this is something that can be adjusted or not. Like I said, it doesn't seen to affect the sound at all though. This could be one of many things, pups not placed in body right, bridge and nut alignment, or maybe the pickup pole pieces are not spaced correctly. I will do some measuring and post my findings in a later post. Also, I will probably replace the nut eventually as the strings upon initial visual inspection, don't seem to be spaced evenly. Again I haven't measured this and it could just be an optical illusion. The guitar was set up pretty well from the factory so I can't complain too much for a $200 guitar. Plays pretty cool otherwise.

Not had long enough, but come on, it's a $200 guitar and I have a Jackson soloist to comare it with. I also have an ($600)ESP H-207 and this Dean s just as nice if not better. Especially the neck and frets. Damned ESP fretwork.

I give this a 9 based on the price paid. Is it as good as my Jackson, hell no! But for 1/5 of the cost how can I complain. The neck is the best part of this thing. It is unfinished, smooth, straight and feels awesome. Besides some of my issues, I still have to give it a 9 for value. I will play the hell out of this thing and give my Jackson a rest. I don't play for money, just fun, and this thing is great for that. Once I get the new pup in it, I will post some more findings but I expect it to only get better. Eventually, my daughter may inherit it, I say may because I don't know if I will give it up. Great sound, feel and value.

my dean baby ml was made in 2002, i purchased it in 2003 and it has done me well over the past 2 years. it has 22 frets with a bolt on maple neck,a 24-3/4" scale and a Rosewood fingerboard that's finished with abalone dot inlays. The nut is 1-5/8" wide. Nice-quality, black hardware is used, like die-cast tuners and a Tune-O-Matic bridge. Dean-design dual humbucking pickups complete the package.The body, made of Basswood is a very odd looking star shape with a nice silver finish with hard paint to scratch. it has very few features when it comes to sound alteration, a volume control, a tone control and a 3way pick-up selector.but 'come on' what do you expect for the price, u can't realy fault it

it has quite a nice sound through a 100 watt DFX marshall stack, but unfortunetly the bridge pick-up is a bit tinny, that is untill u switch to the neck pick-up, that is when it comes rediculasly bassy.
it has quite a nice pinch on it for playing rock solos, which i have to say suite the guitar very well,i dislike the fret buzz very much and it gets very annoying, and it seems that the only way to get rid of it is to higher the action so that it is almost impossible to play.lol.

the guitar set-up was shit, it had really high action and a really awful tone, the one that i had origanlly played in the shop had obviously been set-up differently.

the pick-ups were awful they were really loss and used to move around alot, but that didnt bug me

the finish was beautiful, i have to say that it was a really good looking guitar, and if you want to pul the girls then this is the guitar for you my man.lol.

i gig with this guitar twice a week' and have been for the last year, it has with-standed so much shit, and like i said it is a really beautiful looking guitar for live performances.i could depend on this guitar any day of the week.

i loved this guitar (at the time), i think that i have totally changed my opinion when it comes guitar playing and listening to music. but i am selling this guitar and i have a les paul custom coming in a couple of days so that should cool. but i advice new players to buy this guitar, because even tho' it is low budget, it is good what you get for the price.

Ive had my dean for a few months. It seems like no time at all but it has had a huge act on my style of music. It looks excellent (in black which ive got) and has two really good dean humbuckers.
Although it has minimul extra features it has a volume control, a tone control and a three way pickup selector which each do their job well. Of course a guitar has got to play well for people to buy it but this guitar just jumped out of the rack in the shop and i had to buy it.

I play a lot of "heavy" rock and this guitar is just excellent for this and many other types of music. I play with a peavey rage 158 15 watt amp and the distortion is excellent. The clean is also really good but you cant alter this sound too much with the tone controls. the dirtier sounds are really strong and rich but improvements could be made on the clean option.

The guitar was set up really well when i bought it and had a fairly high action. The best feature of the guitar for me is the finish of the body. It has a rich solid black cover and a high quality maple neck.

I feel that i can really rely on this guitar as it is solid and strongly held together. I think that it will last for a long time but if i did a live gig i wouldn't depend on this guitar alone and would have a back-up in case something went wrong.

Under warranty for 3 Months! i was hopin g for a bit longer than this but nothing has gone wrong so far so i havnt used customer support

After playing this guitar for a few months i dont think i did anything wrong in buying this guitar but however i think that i maybe could have loojed at many of the other options befor going straight for the good looking one. I tried it out in the shop and I knew straight away that this was the one for me. I like a variety of guitars and if I had have chosen another guitar it would have been an Gibson SG but due to the price i would have to say the epiphone version.

Mine is brand new and silver. The finish is beautiful. It has 22 frets. It has a beautiful carved top. It has a tone, a volume, and a 3-way selector. It has 2 high output humbuckers that are fucking awesome. I love the lightness and bright tone of the basswood body. It has a wonderful rosewood fretboard, and a psycotically fast neck. It has a great tune-o-matic bridge. It's a bit plain, but that's the way i like my guitars. I love this damn guitar!

THIS GUITAR SOUNDS FUCKING AWESOME!! I use a Randall RG150ES stack, a Yamaha HY-10G III practice amp, and a Randall RG230ES Chorus amp. It sounds the best w/the stack, obviously. It has a great bright sound if you want it that way, or it has a dark vicious tone. Either way it's an awesome guitar.

This guitar is perfect (to me at least)! The neck is amazing. It has a super fast neck, and everything is perfect.

Everything's pretty damn solid.

no experience, never had a problem.

I have been playing for abou 3-4 years. That doesn't seem too long, but i'm suprisingly good (sounds stuck-up, but oh well). Besides the Baby ML, i own a Dean Evo Playmate Series, Yamaha EG303 (cheap!), Dean Undertaker ML, Dean Phantom Icon, Washburn Dime 2ST, Fernandes Dragonfly X, and a Fernandes Vertigo X. I would cry if i lost this guitar, it's pretty much my fav. guitar. I'd definately replace it. I think this guitar is fucking awesome overall!

1984 or 85 Dean Baby ML. USA made in Dean's custom shop in Chicago towards the end of the USA Dean custom "era"(78-85). Serial number on back of headstock but unlike full size early Dean's, first 2 digits are NOT the production year. 24 fret set-in neck with ebony fretboard and mother-of-pearl(?) block inlays. Has the small V headstock unlike the bigger V's of the 78-84 guitars. Wood appears to be something fairly light colored and probably inexpenseive, could be pine, maybe spruce as mentioned below? This one now has a zebra DiMarzio Super Distortion (installed by me) in the bridge position and a Gotoh zebra humbucker in the neck position which was probably the original pickup. This Baby ML also has a factory installed Kahler tremelo w/ locking nut above stock Dean bone nut. Round neck similar to a Les Paul but not as thick. Tuning keys look like Schallers but have no "S" symbol or markings of any kind. Volume and Tone pots and a basic 3-way pickup switch. Finish is a pearl white with painted on(i.e. not real) black binding around body.

The stock pickups are fairly poor. Dean had to cut some corners on these Baby-series guitars to sell them for under $1000 list price and the pickups are one of those areas. The original full size Dean's all had specially made DiMarzio Super Distortion's which in my opinion are the best sounding pickups ever made by anyone for any amount of money. I added a standard zebra Super Distortion and the sound is as expected,....excellent, powerful and crunchy. I play through a Digitech 2112 and Valve FX(which actually has a better heavy distortion sound than the 2112/2120 series) into a Marshall 6100 100W Aniversary full stack. This processor/amp combination makes any guitar sound like a pro.

As the current owner of 3 older Dean ML's (80,81,82....I love these guitars!) I had been looking for a good Baby ML for some time hoping it would be a super high quality "mini" version of what I had been playing for 18 years. These Baby series guitars are a mixed bag. They are not made out of Mahogany like the full size guitars, they don't have the good DiMarzio pickups and the painted on "binding" is kind of cheap looking. If you can get past that, it really does play wonderfully. Dean did not skimp on the neck construction and it shows. The neck is wonderful and has the same ebony fretboard, bone nut and pearl block inlays as my full size ML's. I bought this one used and after approx 15 years, the neck is still great and allows super low accurate action. The Kahler isn't the greatest for coming back into the same position after heavy dive-bomb activity, it may need replacing. The paint has help up well and has yellowed slightly over the years. Overall, it's a nice little guitar that came in a very nice original Dean case.

This Baby ML has gold harware and Kahler. The gold on the tuning keys has worn off about 35%. The finish on the Kahler is in all honesty...crap. The previous owner took horrible care of this guitar as far as the metal parts are concerned. Every piece of metal on it, including the frets, was rusted and need some serious polishing. The tuning keys came out OK with some of the gold coming off. The frets polished up very nicely. The Kahler still looks bad. All this is NOT the fault of the guitar, just a neglectful owner. The finish on the neck and body has remained quite nice and looks to be of pretty good quality. The pots, pickups, switch all seem to work fine, no problems.

Not really applicable. The Dean name has been sold off several times and the company that built this guitar is no longer around. I did have to deal with the "real" Dean company back in 1985 on a repair and they did a nice job.

Overall, a nice little guitar for not much money. These Baby series Dean's are not as nice as the full size models but you have to remember that they were quite a bit cheaper than the big ones back when they were new. My only real gripe with my Baby is the cheap pickups. That was an easy fix. I like this little guitar a lot. It has a wonderful neck and plays great. In fact, if I find another in better condition I'll probably buy it and sell this one. I've been playing guitar for about 20 years, 18 years on Dean's. I own a bunch of these old Dean's, a few USA Jackson's, a few Kramers and a couple Charvels. The Dean's are my favorites by far. Over the last 20 years, I've seen nothing that could compare to the old USA Dean's other than the USA Jackson custom shop guitars.

A metallic candy apple red, set-neck, 3/4 size version of the ML with hard case. 24 frets on a rosewood fretboard with real abalone block inlays. Small import style headstock, No SN# or other markings. Gold hardware and Kahler trem - looks nonfactory (area routed out for trem block is unpainted and looks like it was cleaned up with a chisel). The body appears to be solid spruce!!Suprise!! Round but not fat neck and 2 zebra humbuckers, no markings; judging from features the guitar is mid 80's and they are probably not Dimarzios.

Very different sounding from my other Deans (2 Z's). The pickups are brighter and the acoustic sound is strat-ish. The sound actually seems to radiate from the area between the pickups in a very strange way! Weird!!! Fender-y clean with more umph and great cut with distortion. I phlipped the magnet on the neck pickup to provide out of phase phun when both pickups are used.

It plays great and the fret work and inlays are very good (swirly abalone). It looks like the fretboard was lightly dyed at one time and most of it has worn off, revealing a slab of rosewood with a wide range of grain coloration - just the way I like my rosewood. Because of misdeeds of previous owners I replaced pickup mounting rings, jack plate, truss rod and control cavity covers, pots and rewired the entire guitar. Anybody out there know what the exact original circuit is? Mr. Z? I'm guessing switch, M vol. and tone. Please email with any info.

The guy I bought it from did not know much about guitars, unfortunately, and I rescued the little freak(the guitar, not the guy). The paint is chipped at all pointy ends (which is just about everywhere on an ML) and around the fretboard. He put EMG's in it with LARGE wood screws, two of which went through the back of the guitar. Ouch! The bridge pickup mounting ring was on backwards and the strings were rubbing on it. No wonder he sold it, he couldn't get any sound out of the damn thing!!! It held up remarkably well to all the abuse.

I got an Email from Mr. Z about my Z review (which should be Standard Z, not Flame Z, sorry). That's more customer support than I've gotten from anyone else.

The best guitar to use when playing or re-enacting the video to Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55". Even though it's a really cool guitar with a unique sound, it still does not satisfy my need for a Brazillia Burst flame maple-topped Z with binding.