Joe dart .. Ernie ball jazz !

[mb94952]

EBMM staff meeting when Talkbass enters the conversation ...

 

[GregC]

67 sold so far. That's a little over $180k in sales in about 14 hours. Yeah, I can't imagine why they make signature basses for Joe.

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

Looks like another well-made bass I don't want or need. I am only sure about a couple things though... Joe Dart, and really no one on Talk Bass either for that matter care about what I think.

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

Squier predates Fender by about 50 years, but once Fender bought that company, they repurposed the brand to manufacturing their budget line of instruments.

I've no idea how those businesses are compartmentalized, but if there's any market cannibalism, it's probably between Squier and Fender Made In Mexico.

At the end of the day, it's all profit for FMIC.

Whilst SBMM could be argued to be in competition with EBMM (in reality they're more directly competing with Fender MIM, G&L Tribute, Ibanez), every SBMM instrument nets EBMM a small profit through the license fee paid by Praxis.

oh weird didn’t know that squire had a Gibson/epiphone relationship.

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

While they are technically separate companies with different people, the SBMM line simply would not exist without EBMM's say-so. And the numbers--13 total employees and $2.38 million in sales annually--suggest that SBMM is pretty much Praxis' entire business. So there's no way in the world they would have used Sterling's name without EBMM's approval.
Link Removed

I remember when they first started making them they said that they wanted to make sure the factories overseas were treating employees fairly and stuff, would make sense if the company overseas making a licensed product would therefore have a little more autonomy than normal. And also there’s the whole thing of choosing between either the copies existing and you not making money on them vs the copy’s exist and you make money on them

 

[Vektori]

Interested of the pickups, since i love split coils. Though, i wonder how the differ from the Delanos i have with big poles.

Other than that, this bass does nothing for me. If i would get it for free, could mod it to be vol tone 3way switch. Though, MM necks and a heavy ash body is not my thing. So...

 

[mb94952]

I'm holding my breath for the new Peavey Cirrus, right ? @Fred from Peavey ?

 

[bench]

Crazy how the most divisive bassist on this site is Joe Dart. Not because he doesn't have talent. Not because he is a bad guy. But because people are appalled by his tongue in cheek corny band, and and his limited run signature basses.

Yep! He and khruangbins Laura Lee... I like the look of the bass. I guess a lot of people complaining about the "ikea" look are rather fond of the Fender Marcus Miller, which sports even more plastic than those knobs. And about the missing tone control... If you look at rig rundowns there are so many bassists going "everything full open all the time" and "i leave the preamp flat" that they probably just don't need it...

 

[TheMartianBassist]

So its a Jazz bass?

And a passive one at that.

 

[bench]

Dart is a cool player, though not my favorite personally.
For modern/current players killing with EB/MM basses, I'd personally rather see a Paul Bender sig.

But - what really amazes me is that although they're doing TWO Dart signature models, they never did a signature model for Flea or Tony Levin (note: I know there was a short-lived OLP Levin model, but that doesn't really count).
Two of the most successful and visible players of the last couple of decades, who basically built their sounds and personas with MusicMan basses, and neither of them
got an "official" signature bass.

I have no beef with Dart as a player - he's good, and I appreciate that he's bringing the bass out front and getting people excited.
Tim Commerford makes a bit more sense as a signature artist, though (like Dart) he rather noticeably spends a lot of his time with J-basses.

But I think very few people would try to make the case that either of those guys have done more for EB/MM's visibility than Flea or T-Lev. Or even Pino, for that matter, who basically
put the fretless Stingray on the map in the '80s with Paul Young and others.

Go figure. If I had Flea or Tony playing my basses, I'd have them up on billboards in Times Square.

Tony and Flea sold them a lot of stingrays as is, i guess

 

[sleddogn]

can i just buy the knobs?

 

[bigswifty1]

I am a pathetic MM fanboy. Own two, have previously owned three others. So this is something very unusual for me to say:

I am utterly untempted by this bass.

 

[bigswifty1]

Not my thing at all. Unmoved and untempted by this.

 

[Nebadon2000]

Is that a Markbass Amp he is using " The Horror'

 

[user362432]

Exact reason why Harley Benton exist and why think paying more than $500 for the single item is the waste of money and tax on... you know whom...

 

[jbrew73]

It even has a loose neck joint and crooked string alignment just like a real jazz bass. Kudos to mm for an accurate replica.

 

[MtManiac]

No idea how they play or sound, but I’m also not even a little curious. That’s gotta be the most boring looking instrument I’ve seen in a long time.

 

[Gizmot]

In terms of parts, yeah.

But any time they make an instrument that isn't a standard StingRay Special, it disrupts their production line.

StingRays are their bread and butter - guaranteed money in the bank.

If they're not making as many StingRays, they're effectively losing money, so the cost of anything that isn't a StingRay has to cover the disruption, and help mitigate the risk.

They've already stated that due to Covid, and the resultant global supply line issues, they've had to temporarily cease production of anything other than StingRay Specials (that's why they aren't currently making StingRay Classics), and the range of available colours will be more limited.

Consequently, there have been more BFR offerings, whereby they've taken the StingRay Special, and dressed it up for the ball.

And yet they've still managed to release the Tim Commerford, the DarkRay, the Cliff Wiliams, the Joe Dart short scale, and now the Joe Dart 2, all during the pandemic.

It seems they were only able to remain that agile, by being a small family owned company, that had the autonomy to be able to scale back, focus on the essentials, and do right by their highly valued, highly skilled American work force, paying taxes in California.

Who wouldn't want to pay less for their instruments?
But I get why they're priced the way they are.

I respect the fact that EBMM is a boutique manufacturer and build what they do. They could grow their brand and their company if they could expand their offerings of instruments and appeal to more buyers. The Joe Dart and the Dark Ray, etc. aren’t doing that - those are simply small variations of StringRays. They need things like the Caprice that are priced right and also some premium models that give players real choices and also offer something different to get customers to buy more than one.

 

[nnnnnn]

For people who like that sort of thing it is exactly the sort of thing that they would like.

Isn't it a bit weird that he says it's geared towards slap-and-pop but he didn't do any of that in the clip except for two quick pops near the end?

Still, a Music Man with no pickguard and no control plate looks nice - they should offer that option on all their models. (And I say that as a Stingray owner.)

A one-trick pony with no tone control.

According to the ad copy you don't need a tone control because the player's technique and finesse will control the tone. In my opinion that is a bit insulting, but anyway I guess after the first model EBMM already knows they'll sell.

 

[gt96g]

It's probably a nice bass, but I'm not dying to play one. When EBMM came out with the Caprice, I wanted one but shortly thereafter, they raised the price by ~30%. I ended up buying one that was used. I enjoyed and played it for a couple of years and sold it because I wanted something else. EBMM said they discontinued the Caprice because they didn't sell and it's not surprising that they didn't sell after they raised the price by a huge amount. What's the price of this?

I've always found it funny that when EBMM comes out with their take on a J, P, or PJ, they always use proprietary pickup routs so the end user can't tweak the pickups to suit thier own tone. I had a caprice a few years back, the quality and workmanship on that bass was amazing, but I hated the electronics. The p pup would have been replaceable l, but to do anything with the J pup would have required major surgery, which I wasn't gonna do. Had I been able to do something as simple as change the pickups I probably would still have that bass. I mean, it's not like there aren't a million manufacturers producing aftermarket music man humbuckers, just don't get it.