Electric Gypsy Bass
The first Electric Gypsy bass has made it’s maiden voyage last night, and the result of many sleepless nights has turned out to be even better than I had dared dream of!!! My initial worries were about the balance of the instrument: a Fender bass has great body balance because the horn where the strap button sits extends way over the neck, thereby distributing better the weight issue of the longer neck and bigger gravity pull of the tuners. A Gibson-style bass body has many balance problems (as anyone who’s ever played a Thunderbird can attest!).
Well, on the Electric Gypsy bass, the balance issue has been resolved. Five bassists have commented already on how it’s one of the best balanced basses they’ve ever held.
Then the electronics. The MOOD-knob on this bass is as revolutionary and useful as the MOOD-knob on my guitars (altho it does an entirely different thing). You can roll from Jazz Bass to Precision to Musicman, and many sounds in between. Again, highly interactive with the volume controls.
I’m using two Gary Nordstrand MusicMan type humbuckers controlled by two individual Volume knobs. The MOOD-knob rolls the pickups thru the sounds, and the Tone-knob is classic treble-roll-off, but with a very useful taper.
So how’s the sound? Everybody agreed last night: best bass sound they’d ever heard!
First bass should be on its way to the customer in about a week, and photos will be posted soon. I’m still fine-tuning her.