his contract with CBS that bought Fender, had a 10year non compete, meaning Fender could not work for, or create another copany that was in direct competition with Fender.
After the 10years was up, Leo Fender was FED UP with how CBS was handling his first company FENDER, and set out with Music Man as a rebuttal bass to take things further so they could beat Fender’s P and J bass to smithereens.
After developing the Stingray, testing it out on the great Luis Johnson (one of the funk pioneers) really helped Leo Fender to really stick it to CBS and FENDER and push them next level, was sort of the idea.
After Ernie Ball showed interest, and was destining new strings for the Stingray and that type of play, he also had a keen interest in staying on the project, eventually talking it over and purchasing if from Leo Fender and is group.
So Leo sold Music to Ernie Ball, and he continued to develope it further using his son Sterling Ball as the 2nd test subject. This was to create a smoother yet powerful Stingray and Luis Johnson could still slap the shit out of, but could be drawn way back to get softer more subtle tones, on the bass with the same basic design.
Sterling also wanted a smaller body bass, For the pre-amp that he wanted less headroom, and more functionality.
So instead of using bass and treble boosts to raise the power of the lows and highs,
he wasn’t a selector switch to change from a pickup wired in parallel (classic stingray) switch to a pick up wired in series, and one selection to put it into a hum cancelling single coil (or something to that effect)
This is where the STERLING, the bass was origonated, after they did all the wrk on several revisions of the Stingray, they then did a version of the Sterling.
I know there is alot ore information, some may be more correct adn factually accurate then what I just wrote off the top of my head, but then again, I often have a good memory and what I said may be what is, and the other page may confirm, or deny, and possibly be culprit, you will have to decide.
I only wanted to break this down into a simple quick story that many if not all can appreciate, and maybe help a few that are still confused.
If I have made it seem more confusing, PM me with questions and I will try to straighten it all oug.