The Eight String Fret-less Basses

   The eight string electric bass story begins at the beginning of my instrument making endeavors.

I was eighteen and traveling in Thailand and decided to go to Singapore before I came home via Penang. 

I gravitated towards a music shop and had bought an old octaver pedal and a few strings and was leaving when I spied a bass neck

hanging in the front window and doubled back.

   It was an Ibanez eight string fret-less bass neck which I suspect must have been ordered especially back in the seventies and not

ever picked up.

   To my knowledge they made a few eight string fretted basses back then but not fret-less. I recently got sent a photo of one of

them from an (up to the point of finding it very cheap) potential customer for one of mine.The octave strings on this one are above

the bass ones so it is set up for finger style playing rather than plectrum when it is the other way around.

It cost me 90 Singaporean dollars and I carried it around in my backpack for weeks and when I eventually got home I found out what

the extra holes in the head stock were for.

   I found the matching brass bridge in the Ibanez distributors in Sydney that had also been there since the 70's and no longer

appeared on the stock list. I had happened to be there during stock take and the guys were not sure what it was supposed to cost so

in the end I got it for a case of beer (!) with a two-piece brass and bone nut taped to it, score! Obviously this was destiny.

   A piece of oak and a bit of Queensland Walnut from the Anagote Timbers and I was away. I lashed out on a set of reflex plus

active pickups ($220 was a fortune in 1991!) Active pickups were the latest thing, these are I think English made and sound

amazing, really fat. I soon had it going.  The oak didn't prove stable enough (I chose it because it had the hardest rating in the book

in the library but hard isn't necessarily stable as i found out later as it bent with time (16 years) so I rebuilt it in maple.

   The Queensland walnut body has cracked a bit. It was made of two stacked flat pieces laminated together of one of which I cut the

control cavity out of and the top which I cut the neck pocket and the pickup cavities out of, which worked well. I have some

recordings of it back then but on tape at 9.6 ips and since my old Tascam 4 track tape machine packed it in lost in slo-mo land.

   This lasted until a couple of years ago when it got trashed by a toddler falling on it while it was leaned against the wall so now

I've rebuilt the middle section from an even thicker piece of Blackwood. 

   If you have never heard an eight string bass, the sound has a natural chorus like sound somewhat like a 12-string guitar only it is in

the mids instead of tops. For some reason the bass range is fatter still and it has a solidness to it and definition that feels like a stone

wall of bass. Kind of reminiscent of what happens to the sound when you heavily compress it. The play of overtones as the

notes decay lends a motion and pleasing complexity to the sound that I love. 

   Fret-less is the go in my book. I feel restricted on a fretted bass now and miss the extra expressiveness and feel. I end up playing

more notes and more complex harmonies to keep it fun whereas I am happy to sit on a groove and work the tone and feel on a

fret-less.

 Here are some recent photos;

   Crystal Grid Rainbow Music studios in Byron Bay used it as a house bass for a few years and recorded a buch of things with it, Tone

loved it. 

    Everyone is impressed with the sound and so eventually I built another one from New Guinea Rosewood for the sides

and laminated rock maple through neck with a Honduran Rosewood fingerboard. I found a nice looking totally unknown "Music-Tech'

pickup in a music shop in Kensington in Sydney (which I know nothing about,) and used Gotoh bass machine heads and Shaller

electric guitar tuners. It was the first major thing I had finished for my new business and the very next day it was stolen from

my house along with my wife's laptop and modem and my minidisk. My best friend was in the market for a bass and wanted to buy it.

I strung it up and did the nut and we had gotten to play it for a while acoustically in the middle of the night, it sounded great. We

hadn't plugged it in as my family were asleep so the sound of that pickup is still a mystery. 

   This is the only picture I have which was taken during assembly.

   Another two are finished at present with Silky Oak for the sides, laminated Maple and Blackwood for the necks,  and Honduran

Rosewood fingerboards, Schaller bridges (now out of production unfortunately),  Gotoh and Schaller machine heads . I'm pretty

happy with them. The sound is like the last one, really nice. The J one has a Piece of Brazilian Rosewood on the headstock, Honduran

Rosewood fretboard and a brass nut;

   I got a Classic Bass series humbucking Bartolini jazz style bridge pickup and in the neck position for a good top-end response

there,  a single coil Bartolini bridge pickup for a bit of extra tops there.

   The sister to the one above has an Indian Rosewood fretboard and headstock veneer and and an Ironwood nut and

USA Dimarzio J/P ultra bass series pickup set and it has the same electronics setup and the really nice looking abalone top and

Rosewood knobs as well. Really nice tone and very very fat bottom end. I am loving how it's settling in.

Make me an offer if you are interested in buying these basses.

 

Isn't this cool...it's a bass mandolin which I guess is the acoustic equivalent (as seen on pamela''smusic.com)

 

  Scroogle.org 12ers for the next level of fat (as inspired by Cheap Trick bassist long ago and made by for a while by 

Kramer....triple courses - two sets of octave strings...hmm... I saw one recently in Melbourne in a music shop, sounded great.

Some of them had on board mixers for each string set.

If you liked this page give it a google plus1 for me.