BigRedX's Weird & Wonderful Basses

[BigRedX]

Since lots of other people seem to be doing it, I thought I'd start a thread for my personal weird and wonderful basses and the stories behind them.

And the best place to start is with the very first bass I bought.

My first band, formed when I was 14 with a couple of school friends, was a recording only project. Gigging meant owning amps and a proper drum kit which we just didn't have. In the early days our equipment consisted of a couple of acoustic guitars with pickups fitted, a 10W practice amp, a Bontempi organ and anything that sound half-way decent when hit as percussion. None of us owned a bass, but there were two people in our year at school who did, so when we got together during the holidays to record the songs we had written, we would borrow one of these. Neither bass was particularly great, one was a precision-ish home-made affair with a humbucker mounted at an extreme angle so the pole-pieces lined up with the closely spaced strings. The other was a Mosrite-influenced "Woolies" special. Neither was capable sonically of much more than a dull thud.

I didn't actually buy my first bass until I went to university and grant money meant some disposable income, although the purchase was still funded by cutting back on my food consumption for a month or two. We were getting together to record during the holidays, but no longer in touch with our old bass owning school-mates, so we needed to buy one ourselves. It was 1981 and I had resigned myself to the fact that owning a bass I could afford would mean a Jap-crap copy of vaguely Fender-ish design, when what I really wanted was an Aria Pro II or an Ibanez. However on a trip home, I spotted something interesting hanging up among the Grants and Columbus basses in my local musical instrument emporium:



There was something about it that appealed to my sense of individuality and originality. Remember this was the time of post-punk and the height of the DIY self-released record. The very fact that it looked nothing like the basses anyone else I knew was using was a definite plus in my eyes. An hour or so playing it in the shop convinced me that it was a usable musical instrument, and I did have a go on one of the more 'normal' basses just to make sure I was making the right decision. £60 got me the bass, the original hard case and the shop threw in a Fender-branded strap.

TBH when I bought it, I wasn't entirely sure exactly what I had. The only identification on it was on the pickups which were marked "Burns Tri-Sonic". I knew a bit about Burns guitars from articles that were appearing in the music instrument magazines on 50s and 60s instruments, but it wouldn't be until I got hold of "The Burns Book" by Paul Day several years later that I identified the bass as a Burns Sonic.



As you can see, these days it's not in a very original condition. When I bought it, the bass still sported the original bridge, machine heads and knobs, but had already been stripped of it's red and black finish (there proved to be traces of red paint in the control cavity) and the Burns Logos that should have been on the headstock and scratch plate. The scratch plate had also been drilled to accommodate an extra jack socket and two extra knobs that weren't connected to the rest of the electronics. The bridge and machine heads were on their last legs; all the screw threads had stripped on the bridge and it was only holding together due to the fact that it was trussed up with wire, and the E and A machine heads slipped as you approached proper pitch (which the shop had disguised by tuning the bass down a tone!)

The machine heads and bridge were replaced within about a month of purchase - the machine heads with 4 Gotoh guitar ones and the bridge with a Fender-style which turned out to be the first of many. The bridge on this bass has been the most frustrating bit to fix so it is playable. Due to the design of the bass the tops of the saddles need to be almost 25mm above the body (the original bridge manages this by not only being very chunky, but also by being mounted on a 5mm thick plastic plinth that was fixed to the scratch plate). The current solution may not be elegant but it works better than any of my previous attempts. I also took the opportunity to replace the controls with ones that didn't crackle when turned and sort out the extra redundant socket and controls on the scratch, by laminating another layer of plastic over the existing one and just re-drilling holes for the controls that I wanted.

I don't know what the original controls should have been, but it looked as though at some point they'd been replaced with components that were easily obtained from an electronics shop rather than the sorts of pots and switches usually found on guitars. That meant that who ever had done the previous rewire needed to be fairly creative in their thinking in order to make a three-way toggle with the centre position being off (the standard easily available component of the time) work like a traditional pickup selector. This means that selecting both pickups wires them in series rather than the more normal parallel configuration. As this was already my favourite setting by the time I came to revamp the electronics, plus the fact that the cavity was too shallow for a standard guitar pickup selector switch, I kept things as they were simply replacing the old switch with a more elegant mini-toggle.

And apart from my on-going quest to find a more suitable bridge that was it. I used this bass throughout the 80s. It's on all the Midnight Circus recordings from "Modern Atoms" onwards (and therefore on the second half of the Richard, Roger... compilation CD). It was my main instrument in my next two bands until I switched to playing synth although even then it would be used for writing the basslines, to be programmed into the sequencer.

In many ways for an instrument that dates from the early 60s it has some very progressive features. At a time when most budget instruments featured bolt-on neck joints of questionable quality, this has an innovative set neck joint which is completely heel-less:



This gives fantastic upper neck access, something which I took full advantage of in my early playing days and one of the reasons why now I don't really get one with the more traditional bolt-on neck designs. The neck fairly narrow across the width but pretty chunky in depth with an almost semi-circular profile. There's no adjustable truss-rod although I believe there is some re-enforcement fitted in the neck. It has by now developed a bit more relief than is conducive to getting a really low action. It's still on the original frets and could probably do with a refret and a slight re-profiling of the fingerboard to counteract the excess relief, but as I don't play it outside of the studio these days it's not a priority.

It's a 29.5" scale which is short even by short scale standards, and getting strings that give a decent note below A has been problematic in the past, but the current set made by Newtone has most definitely solved this. The important thing is that it sounds fantastic - whether that was by design or a lucky accident by whoever rewired it before I bought it. At the time I was using it most it had exactly the right combination of thick but clear and snappy tone that any bassist influenced by ACR and Joy Division would want. In many ways the strengths and weaknesses of this bass did as much to influence my playing style as the bands I was listening to. I doubt I'd have been the same bass player if I'd ended up with a Grant P-bass copy.

Edited November 8, 2009 by BigRedX

[BigRedX]

The subject of this next post is the first really good bass I owned.



An Overwater "Original" 5-string. This was the 4th bass I bought. The other two which I no longer own, were a Red Futurama Bass and a Wasburn Force ABT 5-string. The Futurama was bought as a spare for the Burns Sonic after I broke a string at an important gig and had to borrow the support band's violin bass which I hated. TBH the Futurama wasn't that much better. It was constructed mostly out of red vinyl, plastic and plywood, had the vibe of a 60s Mini interior, and sounded nothing like the Burns which made it a poor substitute. Also it was 32" scale which meant that I needed yet another type of hard to find strings for it. In the end it got sold in order the fund the purchase of a Roland SH09 synth. This is the only bass I regret selling only because it was in perfect and completely original condition when I had it and now be quite valuable. At the time of its sale I needed the synth more.

The Washburn was a completely different proposition. Apart from being a 5-string in the late 80s when such basses were still comparatively rare, it was by my standards pretty normal. However having come back to playing the bass after 6 years of doing exclusively electronic music I needed something capable of producing seriously low notes and the Burns wasn't much good at anything lower than open A. The Washburn was the only 5-string available locally in my price range and although the B string wasn't all that good, but it did get me comfortable with 5-strings and paved the way for the Overwater purchase.

I bought the Overwater second-hand some time in 1993. It was in my local Carlsbro Sound Centre sticking out like a sore thumb among the more conventional Fender and Ibanez basses of the time. I didn't know much about them other than the bass player in The Mission and John Entwistle used them, but the mutant Thunderbird shape appealed and had the right weird rock vibe that I was looking for at the time. I must have spent most of the afternoon playing it and was very impressed. It had all the features of the Burns that I loved - great upper neck access and a thick but clear sound, but also cable of proper notes right down to the B string! Unfortunately the asking price of £600 made me pause, also I wasn't 100% sold on the top wood which looked a bit MFI wardrobe to me. I told the shop I would have to think about it and left it at that.



By the time I got home I decided that I'd been stupid not to buy it there and then. I was at that point the best bass I had ever played, it had all the features I liked from both the Burns and the Washburn and looked pretty damn cool as well. I decided that I would go back to the shop during my next free lunchbreak and put down a deposit on it. Unfortunately I was so busy at work and doing so much overtime I wasn't able to get back to the shop for almost a month. I had resigned myself to the fact that someone else would have bought it by now (how could such a brilliant instrument remain unsold for so long), but if by some chance it was still there I would reserve it. Imagine my surprise to find that not only was it still available, but in the intervening weeks the price had been reduced to £350! In retrospect I hate to think how little the original owner had got for it to enable Carlsbro to sell it so cheap. I think I spent all of 5 minutes playing it just to remind myself how good it was before paying and heading home with my brand new purchase under my arm.

I hadn't come across instrument construction with the kind of attention to detail that the Overwater displayed before that point. My experience of a quality guitar or bass at that point would have been a top of the range Gibson or one of the early Aria Pro II basses. The Overwater was in a whole new league! Wooden pickup covers and knobs, the access cover were held on by bolts going into threaded inserts rather than screws into the wood, fantastic fault-free construction! The active electronic were something different as well. Sounds like a fixed Q bandpass filter for each pickup and a master volume and blend control. The built-in DI socket turned out to be extremely useful as at the time I was using a lot of extreme effects on the bass, but this allowed me to record the bass clean while listening to the effected sound I was used to and then adding the effects at the appropriate level in the final mix.



Plus of course usable notes all the way down to low B. I think this was the first guitar or bass I had owned that didn't place any real restrictions on what I played and for the first time the limiting factor was my ability only. For the next 10 years this was the bass I played nearly all the time. The Burns still got used in the studio on occasion and the Washburn came to every gig as a backup instrument (thankfully I never needed to use it). The only slightly limiting factor was the 36" scale length - something that I didn't notice until the first time I changed the strings and discovered that 34" scale strings gave me silk wraps in the first fret area! The problem wasn't so much the length as finding suitable strings for it. Rotosound who's strings I'd been using quite happily on my basses up until then seemed to be incapable of making a decent 36" B string. I think while I was using them only 1 in 3 B-strings were any good and I soon learnt to keep the old B just in case the new turned out to be yet another duff one. Eventually I discovered Newtone and then Overwater strings who didn't have the problems that Rotosound were having with the B-string.



In the last 5 years I've bought a lot more basses, and although this is no longer my first choice bass, it's still one of the benchmarks that I judge all my over basses by. In the last year I joined a band playing rock covers and had contemplated buying a Thunderbird. However I tried the Overwater out on a couple of the songs and while it's not appropriate for all of them, for a lot of them it's got the sound and the vibe!

[wotnwhy]

good to see some weird & wonderfull posts from you again! it's been too long

[BigRedX]

Thanks!

This thread is just going to be about the basses that I actually own.

For reference don't expect to find any Fenders, Musicmen or Warwicks, they're simply not my thing. There may be a couple of more conventionally shaped basses coming up but they'll be made out of weird materials!

[wotnwhy]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='649585' date='Nov 9 2009, 12:19 PM']don't expect to find any Fenders, Musicmen or Warwicks, they're simply not my thing. There may be a couple of more conventionally shaped basses coming up but they'll be made out of weird materials![/quote]

looking forward to it all!

[Shaggy]

That Overwater is [b]fab[/b] - the only one I've seen I've really liked

[OutToPlayJazz]

I wish you'd stop showing that Overwater Original, X I played the four string version in a local music shop when I was an 18 year old college student & loved everything about it but could never afford one at the time. I've never seen one for sale since, perhaps fortunately as well! Congrats for the umpteenth time on a stunning example of one of my favourite all time basses, X

Edited November 10, 2009 by OutToPlayJazz

[BigRedX]

This post was going to be about the next bass that I bought, but since the Overwater in my last post was such a hit, I thought I'd write about this instead:



I get this about 18 months ago on eBay. I'd been tempted by a couple of other Overwater Original fretless basses before, but they'd all been 4-strings. This was the first 5-string fretless with the "Original" shape that I'd seen. It had come up a couple of times over the previous 12 months but the reserve price had always been too high for anyone to win it. I'm glad I'd held out for a 5-string because this turned out to be a rather special bass.

Talking to Chris may of Overwater at Music Live in 2008 I mentioned that I had recently bought a fretless Original 5-string and described the bass. It turns out that this one was one of the very first 5-strings that Overwater ever made and is a couple of years older than my fretted Original dating from around 1984. It was originally made for Mickey Féat who was a member of Roger Chapman's band "Streetwalkers" and during the 80s played as a session bassist on some rather high-profile albums by artists including Tina Turner, David Gilmour and van Morrison to name but a few. Chris said that there was a good chance that any fretless bass on the albums in question may well have been played on this bass.

I've had a look for photographic or video evidence on the web, but the only things I can find are a couple of clips on YouTube from a David Gilmour gig with Mickey Féat on bass. Unfortunately for me his rather tasty bass playing on those is being done on a Wal!

That doesn't stop this bass from being a fantastic musical instrument that I feel honoured to own. Despite being another 36" scale instrument it's so effortlessly playable I don't really notice the slight extra stretch between notes. At some point the Overwater pre-amp which I guess would have been the same as the one on my fretted bass has been replaced with a Ken Smith 2-band pre-amp. This is actually a nice sounding circuit, but I can't help but think that for the sounds I like the original might have been more appropriate. I've been tempted to try the ACG EQ01 that is currently in my Pedulla Buzz in here.





TBH though the Smith pre-amp does seem musically suited to the bass, the only real downside to it's installation is that the DI socket is no longer functional since that was part of the original pre-amp and the odd-looking lower control doesn't actually do anything. Apart from the different electronics and lack of frets this bass feels exactly like my other Overwater which makes them an ideal fretted/fretless pair. The "Original" body is actually really well balanced and each end of the neck is comfortably playable.

Considering that this is a 25 year old instrument that by all accounts has had a busy playing life it's still in remarkably good condition. There's a couple of worn patches on the the body, but they're small and insignificant compared with what you see on other basses of the same age.

Another fantastic example of great British bass-making and one with an interesting history to boot. I hope that maybe I might be able to add something to that history....

[OutToPlayJazz]

Another stunning example, BRX Leave me these two in your will, will you?

[GreeneKing]

Now this is a REALLY interesting 'here's my basses' thread that I'll follow with intense interest.

[BigRedX]

Thanks guys!

I'm glad you liking what I'm posting. I like reading the stories behind the basses people buy so I hope mine are of equal interest. I can't guarantee that all the instruments feature will have equally interesting stories I'm pretty sure that there a couple of basses I own who's whole story is "I saw this on eBay and thought it looked cool so I bought it"!

[BigRedX]

Next up is my current first choice fretted bass:



Gus G3 5-string in matt black.

I had been interested in Gus Guitars since I saw one of the prototypes in the mid to late 80s in a musical instrument magazine. In the early days of Gus Guitars although Simon did make at least one bass, his main focus was on 6-string guitars and my perception of him was as a guitar rather than bass builder. At the time all my money was being spent on synths and high-tech recording equipment, but I liked what I was enough to decide that at some point I would love to own a Gus. I saw my next one in the window of one of the Denmark Street shops in the early 90s. At that time it was still out of my price range but it made me more sure than ever that this was the instrument for me if I ever found myself playing guitar as my main instrument.

Then in 1999 Simon was exhibiting at the Mad About Guitars show in Birmingham (the forerunner to Music Live) and had not only his guitars but also the recently released Gus G3 bass on display. Also he was offering a discount on any instruments bought or ordered at the show. At the time though I had just switched over to playing guitar in my current band and therefore my first Gus wasn't a bass, but a G1 Vibrato Guitar with twin humbuckers in chrome and pewter finish.

The G3 Bass came 3 years later and was ordered partly for myself and partly for the bass player in my current band to use live rather than his rather boring looking red P-bass copy which visually didn't fit at all with the "space-age-disco" look of the band. However while the G1 Guitar had taken only 12 weeks from order to completion, the G3 took quite a bit longer...

I'd been taken by the looks of another bass on display where Simon had been experimenting with alternative finishes and sported black chrome on all the metal-work and decided that this would be the look I wanted for the bass (it would also contrast nicely with my 'silver' guitar). I spec'd out the bass with Simon and paid my deposit. Unfortunately by the time it came to produce the metal-work for my bass the chromers that had been used previously had gone out of business and Simon was having difficulties finding an alternative supplier of black chrome that would do the small volumes that he would be sending them to the standard required. In the end after several months of waiting for suitable samples to be produced without success, Simon suggested maybe looking at anodising instead, and set me samples of the knobs and bridge pieces in that finish. I liked the look and agreed to the change provided that the body and the neck of the bass was finished matt black to match the anodising.

So 11 months after placing my order the matt-black G3 arrived:



The matt finish had worked a treat and while this wasn't as immediately stunning as the guitar with it's chrome tubes, it's an equally superb instrument. The Gus instruments are more than just weird looking guitars and basses. I believe that Simon Farmer is one of people pushing the boundaries of how modern instruments are designed and constructed. The body and neck are made out of Cedar a wood more commonly associated with acoustic guitars rather than solid-body electrics. This is then wrapped in a carbon-fibre skin. The result has all the structural advantages of a carbon-fibre instrument but sounds more like a conventional wood-constructed one. The carbon-fibre skin also allows Simon to do interesting things with the shape of the instrument without having to worry about any possible weaknesses in the wood as well as producing a completely seamless neck/body joint.



I went for a passive configuration with humbuckers. My rig at that time was (and still is) completely programmable and MIDI controlled, so on-board electronics didn't really offer me any advantages, plus I didn't think that the extra-fat sound produced by the humbuckers needed any extra help. The controls are simply volume (one of the few passive volume controls I've come across that work smoothly throughout its range) 3-way pickup selector and tone (with a pull coil tap switch). Most of the time I have everything set to full and then cut the frequencies I don't want at the amp. This bass doesn't really do the super-bright sounds but then again that's not what I'm after in a bass guitar. What it does do excellently is thick, fat, bass that's full of low-end authority and that still manages to retain note clarity.



At the moment I can't see another bass that for me is capable of surpassing this one. It doesn't quite do everything I want, but I don't expect any bass to be that versatile, and I have other instruments that do the things that this bass can't. It is the bass that I reach for first when I'm figuring out a bassline for one of my bands.

[Owen]

I played a GUS bass in a Music Live thing some time ago. It really was very fine indeed. I particularly liked the 5 or 6 (it was a long time ago) way rotary pick up selector/series/parallel thing which although it was a passive bass gave me all sorts of tonal options. I could quite easily live with one.

[4000]

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='651075' date='Nov 10 2009, 09:57 PM']I wish you'd stop showing that Overwater Original, X I played the four string version in a local music shop when I was an 18 year old college student & loved everything about it but could never afford one at the time. I've never seen one for sale since, perhaps fortunately as well! Congrats for the umpteenth time on a stunning example of one of my favourite all time basses, X [/quote]

Last time I spoke to Chris (which is a while back admittedly) he said they still do these to special order; of course this may not be the case now.

[xilddx]

What a superb thread!

[matt_citizenbass]

if that burns bass was long scale. i would quite happily do anything for it. it is beautiful!

[cocco]

There was a 4 string overwater original in black in speed music in cardiff when it was still open. It was marked up for £350 and was the first overwater Id ever seen. I wanted it but alas I could not afford it . the one that got away? I think so

[7string]

Why didn't I read this sooner. Thoroughly enjoying it! Thanks BRX.

[7string]

Being the Basschat GUS aficionado, I thought you'd like this. It comes from "Trade Secrets Book 2" from Stew Mac.

[BigRedX]

I've left this thread alone for too long and it's far from done...

Here's another Gus G3, this time a 4-string fretless.



This bass started out life as one of the demo models. I can remember seeing and playing it first at the 2002 LGS. In those days it sported black chrome hardware and was actually the inspiration behind the finish of my all-black G3. Some years later I spoke to Simon Farmer at Gus demo at Harrods, and mentioned that in my current band I was playing mainly fretless and on the lookout for something more inspiring than the Squier VMJ that I was struggling with at the time. He mentioned that this bass was still available, and I couldn't really resist.

Since I already had a bass with black hardware I had Simon replace the black chrome parts with more 'traditional' bright chrome hardware, which I think was the right choice - with the black chrome it looked good, but now it's even better!



This was my first unlined fretless and the plain fingerboard took some getting used to, but not too long. Sound-wise it's very interesting. It's not at all the bass for emulating Jaco or 80s fretless sounds. It's for cutting through loud rock when you also want to slide some notes. Think David J (Bauhaus) but more so.



As far as I am aware this was the first fretless Gus bass made. Recently Simon has made another than makes this look fairly tame by comparison - 3 octave carbon fibre fingerboard, jewellery grade gold plating on all the metal work and MIDI!

[wotnwhy]

yum yum

[steve-soar]

That's sexy and space aged.

[alanbass1]

I'm starting to hanker after a Gus....

[BigRedX]

You know you want one... ;-)

More Gus porn coming soon...

[BigRedX]

As promised here's some more lovely Gus porn...

Another G3 5-string this time active with single coil pickups...



This is one of only two Gus basses that I've ever seen come up for sale second hand - it turned up on eBay 2 years ago. At the time it sported a very battered green/purple flip finish and had a suitably low price to reflect this. What wasn't so obvious from the photos or the description was that a good portion of the chrome had come off as well, the access plate for the bridge mechanism was missing and the straplock buttons had been replaced with ones that did a pretty poor job of holding the strap in place. Even the Hiscox case that it came in looked seriously worse for wear...

I'm not a fan of the relic'd look and opening the case was a seriously depressing event... Luckily despite all the damage (and damage is what it is) the bass was still structurally sound and played and sounded fantastic, so I got in touch with Simon Farmer of Gus about getting it patched up. It turned out that the original finish was beyond saving and TBH I wasn't a fan of the look so I went for CAR instead...



It turned out that this bass is the one that is pictured in the G3 5 Active section of the Gus web site (in it's original undamaged finish) and was the second 5-string Gus bass made, being a demo model it was one off the basses I based the spec for my matt black Gus on.

For those that are interested the full story of the restoration can be found [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=29915&hl"]here[/url].

The single coil pickups mean that the basic tonal character is slightly brighter than the humbucker-equipped matt black Gus. However there is enough overlap in the core sounds of each for them the be a suitable reserve for the other. This one suits pick-style attack, while the other has a nice fat sound when played finger-style.

There's no denying that it looks fantastic on stage...



Next time - something even more bizarre that you won't have seen before.

Edited April 22, 2010 by BigRedX