Chris Larkin, Irish Luthier

[johnDeereJack]

I found out today via Syra Larkin's (Chris's wife) Facebook page that Chris passed away today. Am truly shocked and saddened at her news and my thoughts are with Syra and her family at this time.

 

https://www.facebook.com/syra.larkin/posts/10156532809403908

 

I was lucky enough to meet Chris in 87/88 at a music fair in London. Such a warm and genuinely friendly guy, was a pleasure to meet him. I'm also lucky enough to own one of his amazing and truly magnificent instruments - a fretless Reacter 4B built for me in 1986/87.

 

Rest easy, Chris. You'll be sadly missed.

Edited August 3, 2018 by johnDeereJack

[fleabag]

Thats a shock. I've always admired Chris's basses.  Some unique shapes indeed, but the Reacter series were my faves.

Shame

[Brook_fan]

Yeh, very sad new.  I used to visit his website quite often as he had one of the best looking acoustic basses I’ve ever seen.  Really sad,

Robbie 

[Russ]

Oh no.  

I had a Larkin many moons ago. It was a lovely instrument, weighed a ton but sounded huge. I actually looked up his website not too long ago to see what he'd been up to. 

RIP Chris. 

[el borracho]

1 hour ago, johnDeereJack said:

I was lucky enough to meet Chris in 87/88 at a music fair in London. Such a warm and genuinely friendly guy, was a pleasure to meet him.

I met him that sort of time as well - Earls Court maybe?? - really nice guy. I never did get one of his basses although they were on the list.

Sad loss.

[kevin_lindsay]

Very sad news indeed.

[TheGreek]

Condolences to his wife and family.

I've seen many of Chris' creations and was always very impressed....a sad loss.

[EmmettC]

RIP. Chris was a true gent. I am lucky enough to have spent time riding motorbikes with him, and even luckier to have an acoustic bass he made me

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by EmmettC

[BassBod]

Very sad to hear this.  Loved the style of his basses, although I only ever got to play one of the Blen EUBs.  It was great..

[n-h-m]

Late posting but only heard this very sad news - very lucky to have played and own a few of his basses - a master luthier whose legacy is the very fine instruments he handcrafted on this island...

[Christoph Navatil]

Hi there,

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name ich Christoph, I live in Vienna/Austria and I've known Chris for the best part of my life - since 1992. I ordered my first bass from Chris a day after my 18th birthday and over the years I got a couple of his basses.

Although I was aware of his illness for quite a while, it was a big shock to hear he's gone.

To keep up his legacy a friend  (who owns a couple of Larkin guitars himself) and myself decided to start working on a Chris Larkin owner / instrument database, that in the future should fill a website and maybe a book and therefore we are trying to collect as much information as possible.

So if anyone out there likes to join in, send us a couple of pictures, videos, soundfiles and whatever you have and know about your Larkin instrument. How you got it, any stories, whatsoever.
This is a non-profit thing and if there will be any money in the future it is to be donated into cancer research.

Anyway, here's a picture of my Chris Larkin basses

Cheers,

Christoph

[Burns-bass]

Beautiful Christoph.

[TheRev]

Wow, a Blen EUB. I forgot he made those - it's a beautiful looking thing.

[ped]

2 hours ago, Christoph Navatil said:

Hi there,

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name ich Christoph, I live in Vienna/Austria and I've known Chris for the best part of my life - since 1992. I ordered my first bass from Chris a day after my 18th birthday and over the years I got a couple of his basses.

Although I was aware of his illness for quite a while, it was a big shock to hear he's gone.

To keep up his legacy a friend  (who owns a couple of Larkin guitars himself) and myself decided to start working on a Chris Larkin owner / instrument database, that in the future should fill a website and maybe a book and therefore we are trying to collect as much information as possible.

So if anyone out there likes to join in, send us a couple of pictures, videos, soundfiles and whatever you have and know about your Larkin instrument. How you got it, any stories, whatsoever.
This is a non-profit thing and if there will be any money in the future it is to be donated into cancer research.

Anyway, here's a picture of my Chris Larkin basses

Cheers,

Christoph

Nice one Christoph. I’ll share that in FB and so on if you like, and put it in our newsletter. 

Now tell me more about that bass front one from left! 

[fleabag]

Looking at the front row, far right, i think that used to be on his website, and looks like it has the Imbuya Burl body  face.

What a stunning collection of Chris Larkin's impeccable builds

[fleabag]

Chris speaking about using non tropical woods.  A real trooper

 

[Christoph Navatil]

1 hour ago, ped said:

Nice one Christoph. I’ll share that in FB and so on if you like, and put it in our newsletter. 

Now tell me more about that bass front one from left! 

 

Hi Ped,

Thanks, it would be very nice, if you could share this.

The bass in the front row on the left side is called Razerbird. I did the design myself and Chris built it in 2007. The design is a merge of a Thunderbird shape and some elements of Chris’s 80ies Razer design. Pickups are a DiMarzia Model One in neck position, a 50ies style P-Bass pickup (Bakre Knuckle) in the middle and a regular P90 (Kent Armstrong or Gibson - I'm not sure which one is in there right now) in bridge position. It's a funny story how I got into using P90 on my basses, but I use P90 on most of my basses. Switching is done with two three was switches. The Telecaster style one switches neck and bridge, while a Les Paul style switch is connecting the Tele switch and the P-Bass. There's a Volume pot and nothing else... 😉

Boby timber is mahogany, overlay is maple and the neck is one piece maple.

Here are a couple of pics:

If you have any more questions, I'd be ready to try and answer them...

Cheers,

Christoph

 

[Christoph Navatil]

2 hours ago, fleabag said:

Looking at the front row, far right, i think that used to be on his website, and looks like it has the Imbuya Burl body  face.

What a stunning collection of Chris Larkin's impeccable builds

Hi there,

The overlay timber is called Burl Madrone. I bought this one second hand in 2001 and unfortunately I don't have any paperwork on this one. It looks like this one was originally built for the Frankfurt fair in 1996 and was origianlly sold by Musikhaus Öllerer in Germany. I don't think Chis used pictures of this one on his website. The fretless walnut top B5 (top row, next to the green Syra) was features in the Reacter range gallery on the old version of Chris's website.

Pickups on the B4 are Kent Armstrongs with P90 internals.

Cheers,

Christoph

[fleabag]

Thanks for the  correction Christoph.  What a beautiful bass

Edited October 4, 2018 by fleabag

[fleabag]

Just found the Imbuya Burl bass on Chris's website.  I can't help staring at this bass. It's a dream

http://www.chrislarkinguitars.com/instruments-gallery/electric-bass-guitars/imbuya-5.html

Edited October 4, 2018 by fleabag

[ped]

Thanks Christoph- I actually got my left and right mixed up so can you also tell me about the one two basses right of the razerbird, the sort of green burst one? Looks like it has Alembic series electronics or something?

[Owen]

3 hours ago, TheRev said:

Wow, a Blen EUB. I forgot he made those - it's a beautiful looking thing.

Somewhere there is a fretted Blen 6 string EUB. Madness. But sublime madness!

[Christoph Navatil]

15 hours ago, ped said:

Thanks Christoph- I actually got my left and right mixed up so can you also tell me about the one two basses right of the razerbird, the sort of green burst one? Looks like it has Alembic series electronics or something?

Hi Ped,

No that's not Alembic, these are three Kent Armstrong pickups. Originally it was a humbucker at neck and bridge and a single coil in between. Now it's P90 at neck and bridge and the signle coil in the middle.

This one is the first bass I ordered from Chris in 1992.

Cheers,

Christoph

[Christoph Navatil]

Hi there,

I've spent some time during the last few weeks and Geert and I managed to put some information we collected on Chris Larkin's instruments into a website honoring Chris and his work.

Please take a good look around:

https://chrislarkinowners.com/

Cheers,
Christoph

[bnt]

Since I’m in Ireland, I looked for local custom builders and found Chris’ instruments some time ago. My budget never allowed for getting one myself, and still doesn’t at the moment sadly. There’s one on sale here at the moment at a reasonable price, if anyone’s interested. (County Wicklow is fairly close to Dublin, if anyone’s visiting by ferry.)