Fox Products: Crafting World-Class Musical Instruments in South Whitley, Indiana
The story of Fox Products begins with Hugo Fox, a native Hoosier and a bassoonist with the Chicago Symphony for nearly 30 years.
“Upon retiring from that position, he moved back to South Whitley, where he was born and raised, to the Fox family farm, which is the property we’re on today,” says Gabe Starkey, President and CEO of Fox Products
For most of his career, Hugo played a Heckel bassoon made in Germany. In the 1940s, and for decades prior, there were no bassoons made in the United States. Hugo dreamed of world class instruments made right here in Indiana.
Starkey says, “I like to envision him just sitting at his kitchen table, looking at his bassoon and thinking, ‘I could do this. I could pull this off.’ It took him two years to make the first instrument.”
All in rather humble surroundings. Starkey explains, “He actually converted one of the farm's chicken coops, the first manufacturing setting for Fox Products.”
But after nearly a decade of production, Hugo's health began to decline. In the early 60s, his son Alan returned to South Whitley to learn and ultimately grow the family business. During Alan's tenure, which lasted more than 50 years, Fox expanded into international markets, built a new factory, and developed their first contrabassoon, oboe, and English horn.
“Alan incorporated all the product families that were currently produced and really grew the company exponentially,” says Starkey.
In 2012, Tony Starkey, a fellow South Whitley resident and business owner, acquired Fox Products, and in 2024, Fox celebrated 75 years of manufacturing instruments for a variety of customers.
Fox Products and the Legacy of Hugo Fox
“We have brighter-sounding instruments, we have darker-sounding instruments. Those words themselves mean different things to different people. But we have instruments that offer different results in terms of sound concept,” Thelen explains.
“There's also the different levels of player. A student needs just a real stable instrument that's going to respond and going to help them become a good player quickly,” states Thelen. “A professional probably needs something that has a lot more flexibility where they can play with the tone color, they can play with the pitch if they need to. We can accommodate all those things with our various models.”
All the instruments made at Fox, bright or dark, student or professional, have a common starting point.
“We get in raw materials, we get in wood that is going to be the body of the instrument, and we get metal that is going to be the keys of the instrument,” Thelen says.
From these simple raw materials, things get, well, complicated.
“There might be five people who touch any individual single key component. That little key component is going to go into a subassembly, that is what a person would call a key, and probably two to four people touch that. All of that, times 40-some odd keys,” Thelen explains. “Then it takes at least a dozen people to do the finishing process. So it's many hands and many hands multiple times.”
And the real magic at Fox is in all of these hands. In the hands drilling tone holes, in the hands making bocals, and in the hands doing the final play testing.
Blending Old-World Craftsmanship with Modern Technology
“Everybody on our team takes a lot of pride in what we do, and they take a lot of pride in the part that they're playing in something that's world renowned, like our products. It's something that's really ingrained in the DNA, and it speaks to the high caliber of people on our team and their overall dedication to equality and the mission of providing the most high quality assurance in the music industry,” Starkey says.
The team at Fox is around 140 strong, and while many are focused on traditional instrument building skills, an increasing number are transitioning to more modern methods.
Thelen explains, “The process has changed dramatically since I've been here for the last 18 years. We are automating so much more. There's so much more precision and control due to the introduction of CNC mills and lathes.”
A more recent expansion brought Fox's silver plating in-house.
Starkey adds, “That's actually a facility that my father owned in his previous business venture. It's kind of coming full circle. I remember riding my scooter around there when I was a kid, shooting baskets and all that. It's been pretty fun to have that facility back in the fold.”
Continues Starkey, “Our business strategy is to put our arms around as much as possible so we can really control the outcome and the quality. Silver plating was a daunting thing for us to bring online, but we have a really dedicated crew that has worked their tail off to dial that in, and we're really happy with that decision.”
75 years and counting, tens of thousands of instruments built and countless musicians challenged and inspired. All right here in South Whitley.
“It's amazing the transformation the company has made since starting out on a chicken coop to where we are today. It also speaks to where we want to take it in the future. For a company like ours to be around for 75 years and to be still a small, family-owned business really takes a constant evolution of not only how we do, but also what we do,” Starkey prides.
—
The above video is a clip from Journey Indiana from WTIU. You can watch more segments and full episodes at pbs.org/show/journey-indiana/