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Weird & Wonderful Basses


BigRedX
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[quote name='Waldo' post='65820' date='Sep 26 2007, 12:10 PM']I'll see your stone capped bass and raise you a solid granite guitar!

[url="http://www.jemsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58720"]http://www.jemsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58720[/url]

As the title of the thread says, 'Insane'![/quote]


Especially since he's hoping to get £14K for it!

Edited by BigRedX
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[quote name='BigRedX' post='65622' date='Sep 25 2007, 11:15 PM']Todays basses come from the [url="http://www.littleguitarworks.com/"]Little Guitar Works[/url]

This is the Torzal:




No there's nothing wrong with the neck on these basses. It's designed to be twisted like that!

This design, initially conceived by Jerome Little has the bridge at a 15° angle to plane of the body and the nut rotated 20° in the opposite direction giving a total twist of 35°. This allows for a more 'neutral' wrist position for both the freting picking hands. The twist concept was developed in conjunction with Xavier Padilla, bass player with the Gipsy Kings who would have been unable to carry on playing due to DeQuervain’s syndrome in his arm until he got his twisted bass. Have a look at his even more extreme custom model on the Little Guitar Works web site.[/quote]

There is a gool video review of the Torzal in action on youtube.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLi8pOa6zYk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLi8pOa6zYk[/url]

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[quote name='jms5-string' post='65872' date='Sep 26 2007, 01:41 PM']maybe not one of the weirdest basses but it is one of the nicest I have seen!:

See also [url="http://www.adamovic.nl/"]http://www.adamovic.nl/[/url]
Does anybody know more about this builder?

[url="http://imageshack.us"][/url][/quote]

I love how the headstock continues the design. A very pretty bass indeed.

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[quote name='jms5-string' post='65872' date='Sep 26 2007, 01:41 PM']maybe not one of the weirdest basses but it is one of the nicest I have seen!

See also [url="http://www.adamovic.nl/"]http://www.adamovic.nl/[/url]
Does anybody know more about this builder?[/quote]

Adamovic are on my bookmarked sites and the Eclipse is one of the basses I'd been looking at for my Fretless, however, while it's a nice single cut extended access bass, IMO not quite weird enough for this thread.

Edited by BigRedX
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[quote name='BigRedX' post='65826' date='Sep 26 2007, 12:17 PM']Especially since he's hoping to get £14K for it![/quote]

To be fair, that's not the price he's personally asking, it's the price that the art dealer is asking for it (as it's being sold as a work of art, rather than an instrument). But yes, it is a tad expensive!

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The next bass on this thread is about retro as it's going to get.

From [url="http://www.hallmarkguitars.com/"]Hallmark Guitars[/url] comes the Swept-Wing Bass.



Available in Vintage (left) and Custom (right) versions.

Hallmark are one of those 'revived' guitar brands like Burns and Danelectro, where more modern takes on original 60s designs are being produced. Read through the Hallmark history on their site - it's fascinaing stuff, linked in with Mosrite (which you'll be able to tell from the designs) and as usual with innovative ideas from the 60s filled with bad business deals and missed opportunities.

The Swept-Wing Bass is short scale 30" with retro styling in sparkle colours, or transparent over flamed maple for a slightly more modern look. One of these will set you back $824-895.

Edited by BigRedX
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And from 60s retro to agressively modern: [url="http://rksguitars.com/main.php"]RKS[/url]

Here an A Bass


and an I Bass


The brainchild of industrial designer Ravi Sawhney and his design team, the RKS guitars and basses feature a modular design with a central section of neck pickups electronics and bridge and detachable body wings. At the moment the bass models are actually slightly more conservative than the guitars - check out the hollow bodies, I'd love to see some of those body designs on a bass...

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In regards to the A and I basses That central section an the added on wings reminds me of the gene simmons bass (punisher?) which had a removeable outer section and lots of aluminium in the construction.

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Fridays basses (just a little late) come from another German maufacturer - [url="http://www.phantom-guitars.de"]Phantom[/url]

More fretless basses with metal fingerboards, here we have the Luxman Metal Guru


and the XTC Metal Guru


Very little info on the website other than model specifications, and most of the instruments are fairly conventional, but I do like the metal fingerboards and the extended access of the Luxman.

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And a bit more on time come Saturdays choice. More Germans, this time [url="http://www.kraushaar-gitarren.de/"]Kraushaar[/url]

Here's a Hero Bass and a Kordy Fretless Bass


Some very individual guitars and basses on the site - these are two of my favourites. The Kordy in particular has some interesting features which are shown in the build photos that accompany the information - the central block instead of being solid as on most semi-acoustic instruments has holes connecting the two chambers; the end of the fretless fingerboard has a raised metal edge to give a traditional slap sound while still allowing fretless playing - something that Basslab instruments also feature.

Edited by BigRedX
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Sorry for the lack of basses for this thread over the last two days...

I'll try and make up for that over the week.

Here's something that looks at first glance fairly conventional from [url="http://www.lightwave-systems.com"]Lightwave[/url]

Two Sabre SLs



Lightwave uses the specially designed Lightwave optical pickup which is built into the oversized monolithic bridge units. These use infra red light to read the sting vibration and are supposed to give a more realistic sound of the the string. The standard model (top) also has a piezo system which Lightwave call "Ice-Tone" which can be blended in with the optical sensor output. The hybrid model (bottom) replaces the piezo with an active humbucker. I have one of the earlier models, the chambered Sabre A and I can confirm that the bass output and sustain are amazing. The notes are really pure and deep and you can get some wonderful tones out of this bass. This is one instrument where changing strings makes a massive difference to the tone, so it's unfortunate that it's so fiddly to set up. The optical sensors have to be perfectly aligned with the strings to get the best results which involves allen key adjustments and removing the back panel to access a scary amount of internal electronics. However the end results are well worth the effort. the amount of control available over the string balance etc is astounding and a good setup will give rewards in the sounds that are possible with this instrument.

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i remember playing a bass with the lightwaves in it (remember those super sculpted £15,000 basses?), and they were indeed very very good. i remember asking at the gallery about the system when i was having my Shuker made, but was quoted around 4/500 quid, which always made me stop and think when one of these popped up on ebay, because IIRC a few fretless Sabre A's went for around £400 back in the day.

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Not a proper update, but a quick look at eBay reveled that the those responsible for producing the Ritter copies have now turned their attentions to Atlansia...

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Electric-4-string-Bass-Guitar-Solid-wood-body_W0QQitemZ200161013505QQihZ010QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]Check this out[/url] complete with the mad reversed tuner order headstock...

Around £150 inc shipping (but not customs charges) from the US.

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