Which idea gets sent out to be mass produced?

[ryan morris]

I've seen several excellent Luthiers give their ideas to onother company overseas and have them build it for a much cheaper price (e.g. Greg Curbow with Cort, Mike Tobias and his Grendal, Heir, and Kingston, Conklin and Groove Tools, and so on...). Anyways, how does such a visionary that is capeable of so much decide what to put into a budget bass that's going to get their name spread all over the place?
Thanks, Ryan
PS. I'm def. a fan of the budget lines of the greats.

[Conklin]

Hi Ryan,

When I got involved with my overseas production project called Groove Tools by Conklin, I was also unsure as to what should be included on the basses and I was also somewhat unclear on how the retail side of the business worked. I wanted to go hog wild at first and just throw in everything, but we decided to sort of pull back and look at what most players were requesting on the average order. It seems that pretty much everyone wanted some type of tone control and a nice top. From there it was just a matter of including a lot of the details that we have become known for such as our "off-sides" position markers, our mult-laminate necks with truss rod adjustment at the headstock, our highly offset double-cutaway bodystyle and our locking input jack.

Now that the line has been out awhile, we have had tons of requests from players all over the world to expand the line and I am chomping at the bit to add all kinds of new products, colors and options, but we have been somewhat stymied by the big retail chains which pretty much control what they bring in. I know it may seem silly and it is hard to understand, but they sort of tell you what they are going to sell. It is quite a bit different from what I am used to as a Custom builder where we can introduce new ideas at the drop of a hat.

The artist models we have out have been more true to form because we literally brought out exactly what they wanted irregardless of what our dealers wanted.

Hopefully over time I will be able to regain some control over what new models and new options are offered, but for now I'll just roll with it.

Be Good,
Bill