Weird & Wonderful Basses

[BigRedX]

Your Ovation Magnum would have been right at home in this thread had BassChat been around in the late 70s!

For me the mid 70s was when unconventional design in musical instruments stopped being synonymous with dodgy build quality and started being instruments that in a lot of cases were surpassing what the big 3 manufacturers (Fender, Gibson and Rickenbacker) were producing. Ovation's instruments were typical of the progressive thinking of the time where they could take the good features of existing guitars and ignore those that weren't up to scratch.

People who wanted to push the boundaries of bass design and construction such as Alembic, BC Rich, Kramer, Overwater, Ovation, Travis Bean to name but a few, and who paved the way for many of the instruments that have been covered in this thread.

Of course the most important question is: Did you see anything you liked?

[Chris2112]

Don't forget either, that in the 1970's Fender tasked Philip Kubicki with designing a headless bass for them to launch into the market. He worked on the project for a while because it had an interesting aside; allowing Fender to collect data on how headstock mass and design correlated to the "dead spots". The project never got off the ground despite prototypes being made there.

Just a few years later, Phil would be making on the most "futuristic" basses around, the Kubicki X Factor. Even today, it's design features, particularly it's ergonomics, put most other new designs to shame.

[fretmeister]

[quote name='Alpha-Dave' post='65722' date='Sep 26 2007, 10:03 AM']Ah, fair point.

To take the idea further, I have to wonder if anybody has ever uses stone to make a cap (obviously not a whole body) for a bass?

Edit:
This Roscoe might be yes! Although I couldn't find any more info on it.

[/quote]



They never got to basses before they went bust but...

The Auroc "strat" had a body made from marble. They weighed about as much as a small country....

[Chris2112]

I really like the look of that strat!

[Spoombung]

Well, this is interesting from Ansir Music. Some welcome experimentation with the playing angle.

[Bass_Guardian]

[quote name='Spoombung' post='1088552' date='Jan 13 2011, 08:24 PM']

Well, this is interesting from Ansir Music. Some welcome experimentation with the playing angle.[/quote]
I dont really know how to comment on this bass...

Is that neck angle playable???

[Spoombung]

[quote name='Bass_Guardian' post='1088585' date='Jan 13 2011, 08:58 PM']I dont really know how to comment on this bass...

Is that neck angle playable???[/quote]

Well...I'd get a tune out of it (I think?)

[Spoombung]

This is nice from Victor Rivera Diseñador

[RhysP]

Time this thread was given a bump - must be lots of people who've never seen the wonders contained within....

I've also finally managed to find a decent photo of Kasim Sulton with his John Veleno Ankh bass:

[BigRedX]

Thanks!

IIRC there were only two Veleno basses made so finding one to play will be a bit tricky...

I have played a couple of the guitars though, one a NOS made about 10 years ago from a cache of parts that had been found in a warehouse somewhere in the US. I've also played one of the original 70s models. TBH I preferred the feel of the NOS and very nearly bought it. However it was around the time when I had recently switched back to mostly playing bass, and I was more interested in getting a really good fretless.

Bumping this thread reminds me that I must get my act together and update my personal W&W thread.

I was also considering 50 W&W basses to play before you died - inspired by the recent BGM article. Anyone interested?

[RhysP]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='1218091' date='May 2 2011, 09:40 PM']IIRC there were only two Veleno basses made so finding one to play will be a bit tricky...[/quote]
That's right - Kasims Ankh bass & this one:



[quote name='BigRedX' post='1218091' date='May 2 2011, 09:40 PM']I was also considering 50 W&W basses to play before you died - inspired by the recent BGM article. Anyone interested?[/quote]
ME!
It's got to be better than the tedious pile of firewood in the BGM article.

Edited May 3, 2011 by RhysP

[merello]

What a thread!

[BigRedX]

[quote name='merello' post='1374911' date='Sep 15 2011, 09:47 PM']What a thread![/quote]
In a good or bad way?

[merello]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1316175419' post='1375451']
In a good or bad way?
[/quote]
In an absolutely ball-bustin', eye-crustin', woman trustin' magic eye sort of way!

[BigRedX]

I have no idea what that means...

[Kiwi]

BigRed - in some ways this thread would be perfect blog material.

[Roland Rock]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1321862713' post='1443715']
I have no idea what that means...
[/quote]

That surprises me BRX, it reads just like a Facebook update from Dick Venom :-)

Good idea for a blog too.

[ped]

He agreed to blog this a few weeks ago, great minds eh?

Cheers!
ped

[BigRedX]

Something will be on its way soon.

I decided that since it was going to be in a blog I would need something more than just some photos and a bit of text copied from the websites of basses I like the look of...

[TheGreek]

Thread resurrection:

I was looking for details of the fella from The Netherlands who made the jigsaw puzzle top basses and came across this thread buried in the depths of the BC archive - how did we ever let this happen??

Some really interesting basses amongst these - I was wondering how many of these companies are still making basses. It seems that the fella I was looking for, bas extravaganza nl, has stopped trading. Shame really as I'd like to get my hands on one of the jigsaw puzzle topped ones.

[BigRedX]

Wow! Back from the dead...

I exchanged several emails with Bas Extravaganza, as I was looking for a luthier to build me my ultimate fretless bass and I liked a lot of his designs. One thing that became very clear during this was that his basses were all pretty much one-offs and he wasn't very interested in revisiting an idea once he'd done it.

I would imagine that even if he was still making basses, the chances of getting him to make another Jigsaw would have been pretty minimal, so even then your only opportunity to own one would have been to buy the one he'd already made.

Do you know who owns it now? Some of his other basses are (or have been) owned by Basschat members (IIRC the single sting bass and Punk Rock bass).

BTW the massive list of links to other luthiers that was on his site went a long way to providing the source material for this thread.

[RhysP]

If any thread deserves to be resurrected it's this one.

[theokbassman]

I have one of these bad boys. Lucite Body with a Bartolini active pickup. Active or passive.
It's a Cort Greg Curbow 5
Plays awesome is not super heavy like the G&L L2500 and MIM 5 string Fender Jazz i had prior to it.

Edited November 12, 2016 by theokbassman

[KingBollock]

[quote name='theokbassman' timestamp='1478915686' post='3172744']
I have one of these bad boys. Lucite Body with a Bartolini active pickup. Active or passive.
It's a Cort Greg Curbow 5
Plays awesome is not super heavy like the G&L L2500 and MIM 5 string Fender Jazz i had prior to it.

[/quote]
I adore those and I love that colour, too, and the fact that they use so little wood. One of the loveliest basses I ever saw was a piano white fretless one.

I already have a Cort (T35) five string, I don't think my wife would understand the need to own another...

[kodiakblair]

Lovely bass the Cort Curbow. White fretless would look amazing.
I make do with this
[attachment=231957:Curbow 1.jpg]

But there's also this to ease the pain

[attachment=231958:Maniac (2).jpg]