Big Bird is a recently-added member of the Ernie Ball Music Man robot family, feeding the wood raw materials into the computer-controlled cutting and drilling machine with automated precision.
All frets are hand-applied to exact specifications, ensuring each guitar or bass has the playability you'd expect from Ernie Ball Music Man. Ernie Ball Music Man necks and bodies are hand-sanded multiple times, creating flawless finishes and maximum playability. Three layers of high-gloss polyurethane are applied to each color-coated instrument body, producing a luxurious state-of-the-art finish. We use state-of-the-art technology like Ursula, our beloved buffing robot.
Automation ensures a high-quality and cost-effective product, every time. When you purchase an Ernie Ball Music Man guitar or bass, it has already been personally tested and tuned by one of our experienced setup technicians, ensuring you can play right out of the box. Sign up for the Ernie Ball mailing list. At the same time, a guy named Ernie Ball was running a less-than-successful guitar company called Earthwood, with his partner George Fullerton. Ball and Fullerton were looking for a new venture, so they made an offer to take over Music Man.
The new Music Man got off to a quick start. Musicians came around on the StingRay bass, and it remains one of their most popular models to date. Used by professional bass players on stage and in the studio, the StingRay effectively changed the bass guitar market.
But what really set Music Man apart from the competition were their forward-thinking designs. Music Man gained a lot of traction in the industry by making players guitars, with cool technology like 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. Their focus on quality, consistency, playability, and technology paid off, and now Music Man enjoys a reputation for building some of the coolest, most sought-after guitars on the planet.
Music an makes a vast selection of signature models for some of the best guitar players in the world, and boasts an endorsee roster featuring some of the biggest names in the music business.
His dream of a bohemian lifestyle was never realized, however. Interest in Slinky strings and the Ernie Ball name did not allow any time for his lifestyle changes save growing a beard. Overwhelmed by the demands of his new manufacturing operation, which ranged from laying out artwork to packaging string sets, Ball enlisted the help of his sons--Sterling, David, and Sherwood--who helped out in the warehouse after school. Sterling, in particular, was a pivotal addition to the company, serving as an adept salesman, an orchestrator of artist and dealer relations, and eventually as the company's leader.
Once Ball was able to settle into his new operation, he began pursuing a long-held dream. For years, he had wanted to make an acoustic bass guitar, a yet-to-be-developed instrument whose only close relative was the Mexican guitarron, common in mariachi bands. Ball took a trip south to Tijuana and bought a guitarron, but his efforts at retrofitting the instrument into his vision of an acoustic bass failed. Later, he teamed with a former Fender employee, George Fullerton, and realized success in making an all-wood acoustic bass.
The partnership resulted in the introduction of Earthwood guitars, basses, and strings. Although the Earthwood operation experienced production and personnel problems early on, the venture ultimately produced roughly 2, prized Earthwood basses, guitars, mandolas, and baby guitars before shuttering production in While Ball was developing his concept of an acoustic bass, his son, Sterling, came to the fore in the company's growth and expansion.
Sterling Ball figured prominently in the Ernie Ball Company's expansion overseas, spearheading the company's export activities. By , as the Earthwood operation wrestled with its own maturation, the Ernie Ball Company was exporting its products to 14 countries. Sterling Ball, surreptitiously, aggrandized the company's international operations. I was a young upstart. I had a friend who was working in another company who was a very good export manager. I said, 'Hey, could you send me some names, but don't tell the sales manager that I got these names.
I think I opened 21 new markets that way. It was then when we became a pretty serious exporter. In the music industry, Ernie Ball established a precedent for exporting merchandise. Instead of using foreign markets as a dumping ground for outdated products that had outlived their retail appeal in the United States, the company applied the same degree of commitment to overseas sales as it did to domestic sales.
The attention to foreign markets paid dividends, helping the company to turn into a highly successful exporter. While the company was making its indelible imprint overseas, it also aggrandized its stature domestically.
In the early s, Ernie and Sterling Ball readied themselves for their next achievement. They felt business conditions were ripe for the production of a highly crafted, U. The father-and-son team sought to enter the new business realm via acquisition. The target found in the Balls' acquisitive search was a company known for producing high-quality electric basses and amplifiers. The company was called Music Man, and in the operation was up for sale. Leo Fender had manufactured the company's instruments.
The Fender sales representative that Ernie Ball had talked to about string manufacture during the early s built Music Man's amplifiers. Sterling Ball had been involved in the design of the company most successful instrument, the StingRay bass, introduced in Once the acquisition was completed, Sterling Ball gathered a team of musicians, designers, and production specialists to develop a new product line marketed under the Music Man banner. Meanwhile, his father oversaw the construction of a new facility in San Luis Obispo to house the operations of both the Ernie Ball Company and Music Man.
In , the San Luis Obispo facility was occupied. One year later, the first bass designed at the San Luis Obispo facility was introduced, the Stingray 5. A steady stream of new product introductions and Sterling Ball's efforts to affiliate the company with the stars of rock and roll galvanized the company's reputation across the globe.
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