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Ernie Ball Music Man Custom Design Experience

Some "Music Man" History From George Fullerton.

Big Poppa said:
barry I love your posts because it stirs the old memory.

It was Dennis Kovarik who would play beer barrel polka for Leo. He is the guy that added the extra fret to the sting ray

Tommy was a lif long tinkerer up until his death. he made his own computers and was still fussing over distortion circuits at the time of his passing.

If you thinnk that straight truss rods that Leo and George were caused by a low level employee then I have some land in botswana to sell you. Tommy had irrefutable proof of this and I have said this before I said "wy dont you sue the guys" and TOmmy said "thats not how my daddy raised me."

YOu can slice it and dice it anyway you want. there were reasons for each of the splits Leo and Forrest had the intiail falling out then Forrest had a falling out with Tommy. It is just my opinion (covering my legal ass here) that Leo couldnt believe that the Sting ray and sabre guitars were such a collosal failure. His ego couldn't handle it.
The bass was a smash hit and the amps were in great demand and top top quality.
If the Leo Designed Music Man guitars had been a hit, I dont think that they would have ever parted company. The designs that G&L did were fender designs revisited, something that Tommy had no interest in. I am not bagging on G&L in any way, I consider their curren t owners the Mc Laren's to be as good as they come. It is just a fact that the guitars were based on Leos two biggest hits.

Barry I know you were there but you did not get the inside and I know your parting was bitter. I was on the inside. I remember Tommy coming over to our house on Lido in Newport and taking my dad and I outside to talk. He said "Ern, I want Sterling to come to work for me, I could really use him". My Dad said "That's up to him, but I need him too" At the time I also had an offer to go on the road with Jethro Tull on the crew. I think that I made the right choice.
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Yeah G&L Basses are great if you own a Boat I guess. My Opion only, I think the only thing they ever nailed was Sparkle Finishes. Other then that I'm speaking Basses only, They all feel like a Home Depot Bass, something that was made there maybe.
 
Yes, you were much tighter with all of em than I, obviously. And this has been your whole life, and only a part of mine.

A string of 1000 faulty guitars shouldn't have killed a multimiliion dollar company though. Something as simple as a faulty cap in an amp or guitar preamp could do just as much damage and a company should be prepared for it. It was mainly that it caused the arguement that broke it all up contractually. All of them had too much self-pride, not just Leo.

I never favored the guitar designs. I had minimal experience with guitars going in and always liked the sound of his Strat or Tele more. I always preferred that lab guitar to every one I ever heard out of MM.... In fact, in Leo's lab there was a Les Paul. I told Leo that I preferred its sound much more - but found its physical architecture strange. I thought that if he could get that sound with the variability in tone control etc. he had in existing guitars he would have a hit. But he couldn't HEAR what I was talking about. He couldn't hear the discontinuous buzzes and off harmonics that I complained about in his guitar. He just heard the bite of the HF stuff, and had a lot of people around him that said yes to everything he ever asked. I told him what I really thought and I think maybe that is why he kept me around. Tom must have gotten tired of it and fired me :-)

Thats a nice picture thinking of Tom working on distortion circuits etc. Wish I could have been there too. I think he was a ham (I am too) so that was the original source of his tinkering and learning of new electronics technologies. Funny to think of him working on computers!

I think my beer barrel polka story is accurate. They came over in a limo, we drove separately and met them there. Several musicians had played this for Leo over the time I was there - I think I or someone else just joked "ok now play the polka for Leo" and they/he did.
 
Steve Dude Barr said:
I want to know about the "future"
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I'm sure Bovinehost has posted this pic of his over at DP a few times, but here it is again for good measure. :D
bassfuture3.jpg
 
Barry barry barry

first off it was 2,500 not 1,000. Secondly it is enough to take you down if at the same time CLF refused to make replacement necks . Tommy then refused to do business with those guys after that. He was left with a revenue reduction of over 60% with an infrastructure that could withstand a 20% reduction but not 60%. At the end as many of you know Grover jackson was samll and trying to step in but he made great stuff but just couldn't get up to speed quick enough do to his relative small size at that time.

Leo didn't have a Les Paul, He had a "The Paul" which was a walnut neck and bodied variation of the les Paul but thinner and had different contours. I have that guitar also.
It sounds nothing like a mahoghany body/maple top standard LP.
 
Big Poppa said:
Barry barry barry

first off it was 2,500 not 1,000. Secondly it is enough to take you down if at the same time CLF refused to make replacement necks . Tommy then refused to do business with those guys after that. He was left with a revenue reduction of over 60% with an infrastructure that could withstand a 20% reduction but not 60%. At the end as many of you know Grover jackson was samll and trying to step in but he made great stuff but just couldn't get up to speed quick enough do to his relative small size at that time.

Leo didn't have a Les Paul, He had a "The Paul" which was a walnut neck and bodied variation of the les Paul but thinner and had different contours. I have that guitar also.
It sounds nothing like a mahoghany body/maple top standard LP.
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I'm loving this!

But seriously, DO THE BOOK!

We need "The life and adventures of Sterling Ball"
 
If Mark means have another beer and sit back and listen then I got that covered.


tk
 
Now why would a beer drinker want a car? How bout play for some more beer?


tk
 
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