Many of us were quite critical of other replica "Relic" instruments that had been done in the past. The product can easily become a gimmick if you’re not serious about it. Countless hours of research and experimentation proved again and again that no shortcuts could be taken if we were to create something up to our standards.

New old stock, period correct Music Man components were found in our stash and used including the truss rods, truss rod bullet nuts, and truss rod bushings. The original Music Man logo stamp was dug up by our long-time vendor and used on the 3-bolt neck plates. Old, original engineering hand drawings from the early 80's were used to create some of the out-of-date steel, nickel plated parts. The project soon became an homage to the history of Music Man as a company as much as an homage to Cliff Williams and his tenure using our machines.

Dudley Gimpel and Derek Brooks are absolute encyclopedias of Music Man history (and guitar history in general, for that matter) and were invaluable resources during all of the research. They helped to clarify which historical "facts" about MM basses of this era were actually true or false. Dudley's attention to detail when it came to reproducing the original Stingray pickup was incredible. The entire electronics package as a whole is a thing of beauty with no detail spared. If you remove the Banana Plate, you will find old school electronic components no longer in production with the entire cavity enclosed in copper shielding tape. Yes, as close to Cliff's setup as possible.

The best results to show the signs of age came from mimicking the organic, natural process of each component. The bodies & necks were fully painted and then scraped down by hand. The cracking or "checking" of the paint was replicated by remembering that time you left your axe in your car trunk on too cold of a night. The hardware was all plated in traditional fashion and then deteriorated in the proper places using chemicals that best represented the natural oxidation progression. Basically, every process utilized was as close to the 'real deal' as possible. After all, you can’t fake the funk!

The Nitrocellulose Lacquer checking on the body came out great after Dudley suggested that we put string tension on the body while it spent a night in the freezer. The string tension cups the body and directs the cracking propagation perpendicular to the strings.

Much of the hardware is Nickel-plated steel, which is no longer commonplace for simple nuts and bolts found on the shelf as it was in the 70's. Many components had to be purchased with Black-Oxide finish, stripped and re-plated in Nickel only to be stripped again in specific areas and corroded accordingly. The plating was stripped in the exact areas of Cliff's hardware by using lacquer masking paint for the plating to remain, and a Nickel Stripping solution carefully monitored at the correct temperature and length of time. A Muriatic Acid vapor chamber was then utilized to heavily oxidize the plating and raw steel sections for the final look.

The worn through areas of the paint were mimicked by scraping, sanding, and rubbing off the paint by hand. Our laser bed provided an extremely light etching on the bodies to show the exact areas to be worn away. Each body and neck were then painted on the exposed raw wood with oil paint to match the dirt and grime from the last 4 decades of some serious Rocking and Rolling!

Everyone is an AC/DC fan whether they want to admit it or not. At Ernie Ball/Music Man, we are HUGE fans! Throughout the project, we couldn't hold back from saying our favorite song titles and lyrics to each other during different phases of the R&D process. "It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock & Roll)", "Shot Down In Flames", "Shake A Leg", etc. I think so many of these lyrics proved incredibly relevant to this project because it was a very 'Rock & Roll' endeavor. Start with nothing, give it your all, and don't stop until you’re satisfied!

Blair Ridings

Project Lead Engineer