ATB66

Hey, just thought I’d add my story to the Pangborn thread here, having found this whilst having a browse.… Anyway, I bought my Pangborn from my local guitar shop in Perth, ‘CC Music’ back in 1985 for £585 (reduced from £645) – I’m guessing it had been reduced since there wasn’t too much interest in it, due to the price, because if you think, £645 was a lot of dough back in ’85, and still is you could argue. I remember a Wal Pro Custom at that time, costing around £690 or £720 (try getting one for that price now!!!). I don’t know what model it is, but it's cherry red, has a straight-through laminated neck (5 laminations) of maple and mahogany (it may even have a thin strip of ebony on either side of the laminated neck), to which, what I assume to be mahogany ‘wings’ are glued to, the neck itself, being a rather nice piece of rosewood. Hardware-wise, a gold-plated Schaller bridge and tuning pegs and a brass nut. Electronics- wise, a set of Kent Armstrong pickups encased in a black resin (mocked-up to look like ebony), connected to an active/passive circuit, with a 3-way pickup selector switch and volume and tone control. Did I mention the ‘slap groove’ located at the base of the neck? Yes indeed, a fine looking bass, but the problems with the electronics started soon after I got it – basically, the ‘active’ electronics, which despite the decent tonal range, absolutely killed the single 9V battery within a few hours, presumably as a result of a high-drain circuit, perhaps not helped by red LED, illuminated when the active electronics were switched on. As a result of this and the fact that over a couple of months, the electronics started making some terrible sounds, I had no option to (personally) return the bass to Ashely Pangborn at his workshop in East Dulwich – I remember when arrived at the workshop, Level 42’s ‘Something About You’ track was playing on the radio, and I took this as a good omen, but as it turned-out, it didn’t roll this way! I did however, see examples of his carbon fibre necks! Arriving back at the workshop a few days later, Ashley advised me that he was unable to repair the electronics, but for £180 (if I remember correctly), he said could fit his new phantom-powered parametric EQ system, which he was fitting to his latest bases. For some reason, in hindsight, my naivety I suppose, rather than just insist that he do his utmost to resolve the issue at no cost to me, given the bass was just a few months old, I agreed to this ‘upgrade’, and then headed back to Perth sans bass, much to my dismay. From memory, what then followed, was a 2-week wait for my bass, which eventually arrived via train from London and a taxi from the train station in Perth. Though the new phantom powered-electronics negated the need to spend £’s on Duracell batteries, I have to be honest in saying that the new EQ system only produced a few usable sounds, since ‘sweeping’ through the various settings produced crazy ‘synth-like’ sounds, which were totally unusable. In the months to follow, as I got more into Stanley & Mark King, it was evident that the Schaller bridge just wasn’t up to the job – basically the frantic slap activity would cause the saddles to lower, resulting in fret-buzz – evidently, the bass’s design didn’t create a steep enough angle between the back of the bridge to the top of the saddle. To remedy this, I contacted JayDee, and John Diggins agreed to fit one of his 2-part bridges, and in addition to that, a roller-nut, nice! Whilst down at JayDee’s , I saw a special custom bass which was being built for the bassist in the Cutting Crew, and I was aware that one of Mark King’s basses was in for repair, as a result of it being dropped by the roadie that MK had thrown it do during a gig. Whilst John was working on the bass, he gave it a once over, and established that the pickups had been fitted the wrong way round – i.e. the neck pickup, which has slightly shorter magnets than the bridge, had been fitted in the bridge position, and vice-versa. When swapped over, the output between the 2 pickups seemed more balanced. Returning to Perth, this time, with my bass, it didn’t take much playing to realise that this new setup had a similar problem – whilst the saddles didn’t actually lower through playing (if you’re aware of the robust nature of the JayDee bridge design, you’ll know why), the angle between the circular string anchors and the top of the saddles was too shallow, and the strings basically flapped about! This was remedied by a return to JayDee, who duly countersunk the string anchors into the body of the base, thereby rectifying the issue, job done. Anyway, for years now, the bass has been stored in my loft, ‘out of sight, and out of mind’ really – it’s pretty much been this way since I discovered Musicman basses, but I have fond memories of my Pangborn, despite the issues it took to get it fit for purpose so to speak. I don’t know how much it would be worth, considering it's a bit of a hybrid, in fact unique, though I suspect I could get my money back for it. Just thought I’d share my ‘Pangborn’ story with you all, since it may be of interest to someone. Cheers.