Brief History of Music Man
The story begins in 1971 when Forrest White and Tom Walker formed a company they would call Tri-Sonix, Inc (often incorrectly referred to as "Tri-Sonic"). Tom Walker approached Leo Fender about financial help in forming Tri-Sonix. White had worked with Leo in the very early days of Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company as the plant manager and stayed on after the company was sold to the CBS Corporation, but had grown unhappy with their management. Tom Walker worked as a sales rep at Fender. Because of a 10-year non-compete clause in the 1965 contract that sold the Fender companies to CBS, Leo Fender was a silent partner.
The name of this partnership was changed to Musitek, Inc. by 1973 and in January 1974 the final name, Music Man, appeared. Leo Fender did not like the name Tri-Sonix, so the name evolved under Leo Fender's suggestion to call the new company Music Man. In 1974, the company started producing its first product, an amplifier designed by Leo Fender and Tom Walker called the "Sixty Five". It was a hybrid of tube and solid state technology. The preamps used the then burgeoning solid state "op-amp" integrated circuits embodying traditional Fender preamp time constants and architecture, while the power amps typically featured a Cathode Driven Tube power amp stage, much as were used in the radio broadcast industry in AM Transmitters. There were a few models with a tube phase splitter in them, but for the most part Music Man amplifiers used the faster responding common Grid, Cathode Coupled drive from a solid state front end that players characterized as "loud as hell". The number of designs rapidly increased. 15 of the 28 pages from 1976 catalogue were dedicated to amplification. In 1975, Fender's legal restriction had expired and after a vote of the board he was named the president of Music Man.
However, this wasn't Fender's sole enterprise. He also owned and ran a consulting firm called CLF Research (Clarence Leo Fender) in Fullerton, California. By 1976, it had built a manufacturing facility for musical instruments and was contracted to make Music Man products. In June 1976, production started on guitars and in August basses followed. The 1976 catalogue shows the first offerings; A two pickup guitar called the "StingRay 1" and the StingRay Bass. Both instruments featured bolt on neck designs; the basses featured a distinctive 3+1 tuner arrangement that should help eliminate "dead spots" while the guitars came with a traditional, Fender-style 6-on-a-side tuner array. The StingRay Bass featured a single large hum-bucking pickup (located somewhat toward but not adjacent to the bridge) with a two-band fixed-frequency EQ. A row of string mutes sat on the bridge. Basses were produced in fretted and fretless versions.
These instruments were designed by Leo Fender and Forrest White. Tom Walker played a large part in the design of the bass preamp. They were the first production guitar and basses to use active electronics which could boost levels in selected frequency bands, whereas traditional electronics could only reduce the levels. The preamps were coated with epoxy to prevent reverse engineering. The StingRay Bass sold well. While highly innovative electronically, the guitar was not blessed cosmetically and met with little success. Part of the reason for the poor sales of the guitar was that the preamp actually made the sound "too clean" for most Rock and Roll guitarists.[citation needed]
In December 1978, a two pickup bass was introduced called the Sabre (discontinued in 1991). A redesigned guitar bearing the same name followed. Both sold poorly.
CLF Research and Music Man were treated as separate companies, headed by Leo Fender and Tommy Walker, respectively. Fender made the guitars and basses, while Walker's company made the amplifiers and sold accessories. The instruments were made at CLF and shipped to Music Man's warehouse, where each instrument was inspected and tested. Problems with fibers in the finish caused Music Man's inspectors to reject a high percentage of the instruments, and return them to CLF for refinishing. Since Music Man didn't pay CLF Research until the instrument finishes were deemed acceptable, a rift developed between CLF and Music Man over payment.
Low sales stressed the staff. The company's internal conflicts caused Leo Fender to form another partnership. Paul Bechtoldt author of "G&L: Leo's Legacy" describes the situation:
Leo had decided to market guitars under another name besides Music Man in 10/79 due to tension between CLF and Music Man. Production of bodies and necks for both Music Man and G&L were concurrent up to and including March 1981. G&L was incorporated May 1980, although some early models with the moniker "G&L" have body dates from March 1980.
Other incidents point to a later date for CLF's exit. Sterling Ball, Music Man's current owner, describes the circumstances and confusion regarding this era on the Ernie Ball website forum:
"Here is the problem...most of these guys are dead so trying to correct the record becomes more and more difficult. Tommy, Leo, Forrest and quite a few more are no longer with us. I can tell you that Leo was very disappointed that his stingray and sabre guitars didn't sell and that was the basis for G&L. G&L (GEORGE AND LEO) was started at CLF behind Music Man's back and coincidence or other CLF made 2,500 Music man bass necks with straight truss rods. Tommy was forced to go to a young upstart Grover Jackson to make the basses. Grover was the one who introduced the trans finishes. I often asked Tommy why he didn't sue over the suspect necks and he replied "My daddy didn't raise me like that".
Still another account varies. In an interview conducted by Gav Townsing, George Fullerton offers this scenario:
"At the end of 1979 we stopped building for Music Man Guitars and never made another item for them. We really weren’t friends at that point and not even talking."
In November 1979, Leo had enough of Music Man's pressure and the ties were cut.
New Beginning
Ernie Ball had started producing a modern acoustic bass guitar in 1972 under the name Earthwood but, despite endorsement by players of the stature of John Entwistle, the bass was only moderately successful in terms of sales and production stopped around the mid-1970s. Ball's partner in this company was George Fullerton. The factory, which Ball still owned at the time of the Music Man purchase, was located in San Luis Obispo, California and that is where Music Man started producing basses in 1985.
Ernie Ball Music Man improved their visibility in the guitar market with a succession of new guitar models, largely player-endorsed, including the Silhouette (1986), Steve Morse Signature (1987), Eddie Van Halen Signature Music Man Axis guitar model (1990), Albert Lee Signature (1993), Steve Lukather Signature (1993), the John Petrucci 6 & 7-string guitars (1999). They also introduced a series of new electric bass models, including the StingRay 5 (1987), the Sterling Bass (1993) and the Bongo Bass (2003) (the futuristic look of which was designed in conjunction with the BMW Designworks USA team). While none of these could compete against Fender or Gibson on sales figures, Music Man outpaced the competition by making 'players' guitars with quick change pickup assemblies, Teflon coated truss-rods, low noise pickup designs, piezo bridge pickups, 5 and 6 bolt necks, sculpted neck joints, graphite acrylic resin coated body cavities and most importantly, consistently high quality fit and finish.