Big Poppa Presents Volume 1

[Tom F]

I love getting home from work and see things like this. Thanks for sharing Dargin and Big Poppa for both the wealth of information and the unique perspective behind it!

On a lighter note, if anybody gives you a hard time about pole piece alingment on your Stingray, just show them that pic!

 

[Jazzbassman23]

How about a book? Plenty of books available detailing Fender's history. Why not Leo and Music Man? This is great. I just love history, and what could be better than Music Man history?

 

[spectorbassguy]

Fascinating stuff!

 

[kilgore777]

How about a book? Plenty of books available detailing Fender's history. Why not Leo and Music Man? This is great. I just love history, and what could be better than Music Man history?

Yeah, I would love to see a book as well.... I am amazed at anything about Leo... the Leonardo of modern musical instruments! But everyone who contributed to MM is a genius in their own right...

Hey, anyone know if the first MMs PUPs were hand-wound?

 

[SteveB]

book, schmook

To heck with the book... just keep posting the goods here on your forum, Big Poppa! It's already paid for, anyway!

Bring it on.. more tales from the inside.

 

[bovinehost]

Hmmm, good question - has Bass Player ever done an extensive interview with El Jefe de San Luis Obispo?

And it doesn't have to be a Leo-Fest, either, although of course most of us have nothing but respect for The Man....but there were so many things that happened when Ernie B decided to build basses...and how young Sterling traveled the country....yeah, it probably is book material.

 

[dlloyd]

This thread is quite possibly the single finest reason for the internet to exist. This thread and porn, anyway.

The photos in the first post are porn...

 

[dlloyd]

Here is a rambling story. When I was just getting out of high school I would go up to Fullerton and beta test for Leo. My godfather Tom Walker was pretty impressed that I hooked up Eric Clapton with Music Man amps while still in High School, so he hooked me up with Leo. Leo was a secret partner of Music Man because when he sold fender to CBS in 1965 he signed a ten year non compete clause so he couldn't actively compete with Fender until the ten years was up.

A couple of things that people dont know; Leo did not design the Music Man preamps in the instruments and did not design any of the Music Man amps Tommy Walker did. Don't listen to anyone else I was there.

You could not make an instrument bright enough for Leo as he was hard of hearing. He would plug in a stingray guitar and have me play this horribly bright guitar and sit make and say "that's like honey". Most of Leo's design was centered around the bridge with the Music man stuff. He would make you put a phillips head screw driver on the stainless rollers and have you put your ear bone on the other end of the
screwdriver and feel the vibrations

Most of the beta tests involved me and Tommy Walker and Leo and some old local country players. The extra fret on the Stingray was added by Dennis Kovarik a Detroit bass player that had relocated to LA and we were friends and I got him involved .I also got Freebo, Bonnie Raitt's old bass player involved and he has a sub 20 serial number Sting Ray. He wanted to be able to hit a high E on the G so thats why that fret was added. Since much of Leo's work was unplugged I had to convince him that pole pieces were affecting the string vibration and that the pick up and preamp were so hot that they would override the input of most amps. I have I think number 3 somewhere, but number 26's pickup was hand made for me by Leo and is the only one ever made. Leo called it "Old Smoothie". This was my main bass for a long time. The finish is a very bad goopy polyester sunburst.

Dargin could you post a close up of the pickup?

That is superb stuff BP...

While we've got a pic of a "pre-EB" stingray up there, something that's interested me for a while is that one of the earlier changes to the Stingray when EB took over was the shifting of the string tree from between the D and G to between the A and D... does it provide much of an advantage for the A string?

I'd guessed that the only reason it was originally on the D and G was because that's where they always had been on Fender basses and that it didn't really provide that much functionality for the G, the break angle already being pretty good.

 

[Psychicpet]

*Salutes headstock*

Ditto!

Big Poppa, care to elaborate on your Maple leaf?? for all of us Canuckleheads


pd

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

WOW! WOW! WOW!

Thought I'd seen and heard just about everything.

(Jack...those things you drink with olives...I need a few)

.

 

[Dees]

Jack...those things you drink with olives...I need a few.

Maybe a double scotch would be more effective
That is a great story indeed, shocking news

 

[Morrow]

( I have been busy at work and am a little late in joining this one) Thankyou Big Poppa for dropping in and sharing this. Every once in a while I learn something new ( to me) about the developement of the instrument .
You should do a book....or at least get Volume 2 ready.

 

[Aragorn35016]

God I love Bass history!!!! Thanks BP and Dargin for sharing this!!!!

 

[Fuzzy Dustmite]

I'll put my two cents in and say that I, too, am enjoying this thread. Always fascinating to learn the little things that not many people are privy to.

 

[Dargin]

Here are a few close up shots of the pickup and bridge.

 

[mike not fat]

Seems to me that GAV is going to update his pages !

Can we say this is history ?

MNF

 

[Doogels]

This is a VERY cool thread.

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

Big Poppa,

RE:
A couple of things that people dont know; Leo did not design the Music Man preamps in the instruments and did not design any of the Music Man amps Tommy Walker did. Don't listen to anyone else I was there.

Do you know how many pre-amp versions were made?

.

 

[bovinehost]

Do you know how many pre-amp versions were made?

I think one of the reasons Gavin is asking that question - and if it isn't, I'd like to follow it up anyway - is that we all know that Leo was a tinkerer. We've heard that there were as many as ten different preamps used during the LF period.

Could that be true?

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

>>>I think one of the reasons Gavin is asking that question - and if it isn't, I'd like to follow it up anyway - is that we all know that Leo was a tinkerer. We've heard that there were as many as ten different preamps used during the LF period.

Yep...that's it Jack

( Oh, and thaks BP for sharing all the valuable info....appreciated )

.