Stingray Bass Bodies

[yddeds]

I think it would be cool if we could get some music man stingray style bodies preferably in 4 and 5 string options and preferably with the headstock as well. What do you guys think?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

They made some Ernie Ball shaped stuff in the past, but stopped for legal reasons.

Ever tried finding Stingray parts?  Darn near impossible.  Even when contacting them, depending what you want, you have to send them the old part first.

They (and Rickenbacker) are very proactive with protecting their brand.

Needless to say, it won't be happening.

 

[yddeds]

They made some Ernie Ball shaped stuff in the past, but stopped for legal reasons.

Ever tried finding Stingray parts?  Darn near impossible.  Even when contacting them, depending what you want, you have to send them the old part first.

They (and Rickenbacker) are very proactive with protecting their brand.

Needless to say, it won't be happening.

Damn thats a shame why cant more companies be like fender and make deals with warmoth i like stingrays but theres some things i wish were different

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It's just speculation, but by the time Fender got around to licensing, they hadn't been owned by Leo for years.  The Fender name is just that and has been bought and sold several times over.  Since Ernie Ball bought Music Man, it's been a family affair, and they protect what's theirs.  They even go after stuff they don't own (Earvana?).  The Fender body shapes aren't licensed because they waited too long to do so.  I think maybe Leo learned a thing or 2 about licensing from people he sold things to.  G&L, familar body shapes withstanding, has some unique stuff you don't see copied, and it's not from lack of trying, I'd guess.

 

[Cagey]

Damn thats a shame why cant more companies be like fender and make deals with warmoth i like stingrays but theres some things i wish were different.

There are a lot of companies out there that regard the use of "intellectual property" as a zero-sum game. That is, if someone else gets a sale based on their idea, it's a loss of a sale for them. This isn't true by any stretch of the imagination, but for reasons apparent only to the IP holder, many continue to believe it.

The reality is that widespread propagation of that idea helps the originator make sales as the idea becomes popular and therefore desirable. Witness Fender's designs. Everybody and their brother makes a Strat or Tele, yet Fender sells jillions of them.

Sadly, Fender is in trouble, but it's not because they're losing business to others, it's because they've fallen into the same trap many large companies do - too much bureaucracy/administration. When you're a manufacturer and you have more vice presidents than assemblers, you've got a problem. So, their costs have outstripped their ability to cover them. Happens all the time. Look at governments.

 

[bagman67]

Sadly, Fender is in trouble, but it's not because they're losing business to others, it's because they've fallen into the same trap many large companies do - too much bureaucracy/administration. When you're a manufacturer and you have more vice presidents than assemblers, you've got a problem. So, their costs have outstripped their ability to cover them. Happens all the time. Look at governments.

Actually, they're not losing business to others because they have BOUGHT so many others, which necessitated a lot of creative (read: destructive) debt financing, which has consumed virtually all operating profits and then some.  The cost to musicians?  Good bye, Hamer, and good bye, US-made Ovations, etc., etc., etc.  Meanwhile, they have successfully marketed Asian-built Gretsches and Guilds (I'd own one of each if I had a few spare Benjamins lying around), but still not successfully enough to sate the debt financiers' appetite for interest.

 

[Cagey]

I'll buy that, but it still speaks to administrative/management problems. They're playing games they learned at Harvard/Yale that have little to do with reality.

I sincerely think that the secret to big business is keeping it small. Your customers have to believe that they're the only thing keeping that business alive. Lose that, and you're all done.

 

[drewfx]

I'll buy that, but it still speaks to administrative/management problems. They're playing games they learned at Harvard/Yale that have little to do with reality.

They played games that make them rich while the company takes on the debt.

But there is new management. The current owners are TPG Growth http://www.tpggrowth.com/ and Servco Pacific http://www.servco.com/ (whose primary business is selling cars).

You can learn about the people involved here:
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/people.asp?privcapId=1468570

CEO Larry Thomas just resigned (not surprising after a transition to new ownership) and his acting replacement is one of the guys from TPG growth.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I sincerely think that the secret to big business is keeping it small. Your customers have to believe that they're the only thing keeping that business alive. Lose that, and you're all done.

↑ = very yes!

 

[swarfrat]

And not borrowing money. If you own yer own stuff, and you only have to pay taxes and labor.. you can sit and play tiddly winks for a looooooooooong time waiting out the market to recover. Virtually all of these imminent catastrophes waiting in the wings are because the entire nation is in debt to their eyeballs. (Or over their heads), and because of the creative ways to restructure debt. 

 

[stubhead]

Yeah, Swarfy kinda beat me to it (DEBT), but specifically:

I sincerely think that the secret to big business is keeping it small. Your customers have to believe that they're the only thing keeping that business alive. Lose that, and you're all done.

AND INTEREST. INTEREST, INTEREST, INTEREST.

It can seem astonishing to the innocent to see really smart people in a business where a steady 10% yearly profit is a sign of good business practices, practices that are required to keep investor confidence - and they will sign on for a 12% or 15% yearly interest "short-term" loan, shoot some of these "collapsing credit" loans make usury look quaint, 25%, 40%, unpayable is a better term - take it, believing (claiming?) that they will "turn the corner" somehow - even if their own exact previous job was working as one of the "bankers" who make damn sure you'll never actually dig out from under your short-term loan!

On the one hand, it can sometimes appear as though taking a whole bunch of really, really, smart, 130+ I.Q. people and putting them in the same room and saying "You're all really smart, figure something out" instantly turns them all dumb as muffins; on the other hand, as the man says, the "best" of these guys have absolutely no respect for company names, reputations, shareholders, product quality or any of that rot, the only thing that matters is their own ability to suck money out of somebody/something/somewhere.

They all went to school together, they share private jet rides to the same economic summits in Vail and Switzerland and the Bahamas, one week you can play golf with the exact same person who is going to launch a vicious, share-crushing hostile takeover the next week, and - you'll be playing golf again the week after that! You'll just be hiring each other or serving on a board together the year after that, no reason to get unpleasant or anything.

The only losers are honest people, doing actual work. I really wish I could exaggerate or that this wasn't true, but we are deeply, deeply screwed. Took our eye off the ball for 30, 40 years - "Amusing ourselves to death", as it's been described - and everything worth stealing is stole. Even more astonishing, there are some people actually convinced that - poor people stole it all! :laughing3: That ain't where it goes, in my long experience.  :-\

(I have this weird kind of problem where I think finance & international business/govt. is interesting and where Muffy B. B-Starlet left her underpants last night is boring, but it's my own fault, I know.)

 

[Bradjonesbass]

Sadly, Fender is in trouble, but it's not because they're losing business to others, it's because they've fallen into the same trap many large companies do - too much bureaucracy/administration. When you're a manufacturer and you have more vice presidents than assemblers, you've got a problem. So, their costs have outstripped their ability to cover them. Happens all the time. Look at governments.

Actually, they're not losing business to others because they have BOUGHT so many others, which necessitated a lot of creative (read: destructive) debt financing, which has consumed virtually all operating profits and then some.  The cost to musicians?  Good bye, Hamer, and good bye, US-made Ovations, etc., etc., etc.  Meanwhile, they have successfully marketed Asian-built Gretsches and Guilds (I'd own one of each if I had a few spare Benjamins lying around), but still not successfully enough to sate the debt financiers' appetite for interest.

They've also successfully killed of SWR and Genz Benz, two of the best bass amp makers in the world once they bought them out. Genz in particular ticked me off because they were extremely innovative and built very high quality gear.