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Club Clement - Owners, share your photos and thoughts here!

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MrWalker

MrWalker

Apr 3, 2002
1,846
360
58
Norway
#1
Tom Clement lives down in sunny Florida and builds some great basses! I just saw someone post questions for information on here, and I just thought we could create a nice little hang-out for us Clement ownders! Might be useful for people looking for information on the basses, as well as allowing us to do what we like best... flash of those basses of ours! :)

Since Tom is also on the forum, we might get some communication with him, as well!? :)

So, guys, shoot!
 
#2
OK, I'll post first myself, and become #1 in my second owner's club as well! :D

Here is the first of my two Clement fretless basses, bass #69. Tom built it for me to my exact specifications. Since it was going all the way from sunny Florida to cold and rainy Norway, Tom nick named it "The Tundra Bass". :D

It's got a swamp ash body, hard maple neck with a bloodwood fingerboard, Schaller bridge, Gotoh tuners and a Nordstrand MM 4.2 pickup. No electronics by my specs, the Nordstrand is wired directly to the output jack.
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This is my second Clement bass, bass #76. It's nick named the Tundra VI, and shares most of the specs with its older brother. It's got Hipshot hardware, though, and a Nordstrand dual coil pickup. But it's swamp ash and bloodwood, and has the same wonderful fretless tone.
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#3
I'm member no. 2 (guess that makes me like the vice president or something).

Mine hasn't shipped yet! Its almost done...finishing is incomplete-- Tom is giving it those final touches.

Let me introduce Clement bass No. 82:

Mahogany with Bubinga top. Mahogany neck (with bubinga stringers). Lined ebony board.

Electronics are super cool: bartolini mag with a hipshot ghost piezo bridge. 18 volt electronics (YES THIS IS THE LATEST MEMBER OF MY PIEZO POSSE...combines warmth of mahogany with the edge of piezo...great sounding bass!).

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#4
MrWalker said:
OK, I'll post first myself, and become #1 in my second owner's club as well! :D

Here is the first of my two Clement fretless basses, bass #69. Tom built it for me to my exact specifications. Since it was going all the way from sunny Florida to cold and rainy Norway, Tom nick named it "The Tundra Bass". :D

It's got a swamp ash body, hard maple neck with a bloodwood fingerboard, Schaller bridge, Gotoh tuners and a Nordstrand MM 4.2 pickup. No electronics by my specs, the Nordstrand is wired directly to the output jack.
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This is my second Clement bass, bass #76. It's nick named the Tundra VI, and shares most of the specs with its older brother. It's got Hipshot hardware, though, and a Nordstrand dual coil pickup. But it's swamp ash and bloodwood, and has the same wonderful fretless tone.
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Beautiful basses! I actually emailed him last night because I saw his name in another thread. We're now in negotiations for a possible six string fretted with spalted maple top and a striped mahogany body. I want the single cut with the chambered body, 34 scale. I had to talk him into a fretted bass but I'm just not ready for a fretless YET. Thinking about a bloodwood finger board and matching knobs with nordstrand pick ups... I really wanted a 17" wide body but he didn't want to go that wide. But I think we can still get a great bass! You guys got any clips you can post so I can hear your beauties?
 
#5
Welcome to the club richnota, you're #2 and vice president for sure!

And I hope we can welcome you soon, too, Ammioz! You can hear a sound sample of my #69 on the web site, just go to Gallery-> Sound Samples and find the sample for #69 in the list. Bloodwood is close to maple in sound, I think, so it's a rather good fingerboard material if you're looking for snappiness. Maybe a little warmer sounding than maple.

I am very fond of my Tundras. Just got home from practice with the band, and they wer all amazed with the Tundra 4-string above. It had the bite, but could still sing... it's all a matter of playing dynamics. The bass delivers all the time!

I don't think you'll regret a Clement bass. Tom is a great luthier to work with. He'll keep you posted and will confirm every option with you before he goes ahead. Keeps you in the loop all the time. A great experience to have him build the basses for me!!! :)

A chambered 6-string fretted??? I am going to keep my eyes on that progress, believe me. You're getting very close to my dream bass there! :)
 
#6
hi there all =]
i'm also an owner of two of these beautiful basses #65 and #79 =]
#65 is a fretless 4 i own for a some months now, and i couldn't hold my self and ordered #79 a fretted 4, which was set on her way to me from florida few hour ago :smug:
very pleased with the with tom's works of art =]

great basses made by a great person =]
 

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#7
Welcome to the club, pino!! :)

you're #3, then!

Beautiful basses! how do like the body shape on those basses? They are a bit unusual as compared to other bass designs, quite slim along the waisteline...
They look rather ergonomical to play?
 
#11
Here is my Short Scale (Fender 30") Fretless bass that tom made for me. I received in back in June of 2003, after I found Tom selling 32" scale fretless basses on ebay. The body is mostly Mahogany with maple and wenge stringers. The neck is Mahogany with a wenge stringer and the fingerboard is Wenge. The tuners are in a unique assymetrical 2+2 arrangement, the bridge is composed of an individual bridge piece for each string, and there is a unique ebony thumbrest put in to hide where there were some holes drilled in the incorrect spot for the bridges (a happy accident!). The pickup is an EMG 35 DC with an 18 volt circuit. I did not want any controls on the bass, that way the players hands and playing position would control volume and tone. Tom still insisted that he wire up a volume and tone control, which are housed inside the control cavity in case I ever wanted to use them. The other advantage of the 35 DC, is that it uses a quick fit connector, so you can take the pickup out and plug in another from the 35 DC series, such as their P or J configuration which use the same size housing. I originally had Rotosound rounds on it, but they chewed up the fretboard, and I now use Rotosound black nylon tapewound, which help to give it a faux upright type of sound. Overall, a great playing and sounding fretless bass! One last thing to add, Tom was very easy to work with and very communicative! I was looking back, and there were over 70 emails back and forth between Tom and I!
 

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#12
I'm in. My bass is #78 on Tom's site. I haven't rec'd mine yet either, but hope to in the next few weeks. Tom has been a great guy to work with: very communicative and not afraid to take some pics of the work in progress. I expect the price of his instruments will skyrocket very shortly...
35" scale
Bloodwood board
Ash body
Maple/wenge neck
Gotoh tuners
Schaller bridge
Custom Nordstrand dual coil pickup
Neutrik jack
Passive only
 

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#15
Clement Basses are awesome,i live about 30 minutes from him,i get the pleasure of putting some of the sound clips down for him(the bluesy Jaco sounding clips;),i have seen his workshop and have played a lot of his basses,top notch stuff.I think he makes one of the best assymetrical oval shape necks(i recommend this shape),they are so ergodynamic,and have an incredible feel.I highly recommend his work, and i also must say he is a hell of a guy.Have a custom fretless made by Tom,you will love it,i would personally love a 6 from Tom, like this one, i did the sound clip for the owner of this one,this bass sings,and has the neck i talked about earlier.
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http://steamrocks.com
 
#16
grocker said:
Clement Basses are awesome,i live about 30 minutes from him,i get the pleasure of putting some of the sound clips down for him(the bluesy Jaco sounding clips;),i have seen his workshop and have played a lot of his basses,top notch stuff.I think he makes one of the best assymetrical oval shape necks(i recommend this shape),they are so ergodynamic,and have an incredible feel.I highly recommend his work, and i also must say he is a hell of a guy.Have a custom fretless made by Tom,you will love it,i would personally love a 6 from Tom, like this one, i did the sound clip for the owner of this one,this bass sings,and has the neck i talked about earlier.
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http://steamrocks.com
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That's my bass!!! :hyper::hyper::hyper:
 
#17
Hi guy's!!!

I'm going to be the proud owner of bass #86 :bassist:

It's going to be a singlecut bass the shape is combination Between Tom's #47 bass and what i wanted
Here is specs :

Body: 2 piece Mahogany body with Amboyna burl top
Neck: 5 piece Maple center with 2 purpleheart stringers
Fingerboard: Ebony
Electronics: Nordstrand fat stack soapbar (set), Aguilar OBP-3 bass preamp configuration : vol - vol - mid (push/pull) - bass -treble.
Hardware: Hipshot A style bridge (black). hipshot ultralight tuners(black)

That's about it!!!

Here is a rough sketch
 

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#19
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#20
Welcome, erezbass, you're #8!
That rough sketch really looks promising!

I must tell you guys I played a gig with my Tundra IV yesterday, and received a lot of compliments for my sound. Although some of the sound is probably in the hands of the player, I couldn't get that sound without my Tundra. I don't have a super amp, just a basic Yorkville Bloc80B, but it has served me pretty well over the years, especially for fretless bass. But it's nothing special, just a basic 15" speaker and a ordinary bass/mid/treble tone control. So there's really not a lot of magic going on with the amp... it's the bass (and hopefully my fingers?) that makes the huge difference from the other fretless basses I've played.

I'm very happy to have found the Tundra, because it gives me "my" fretless sound. Not a Jaco-clone type of sound that I used to get on my other fretlesses. Don't get me wrong, the Jaco sound is a cool sound in itself, but the Tundra provides me with a new type of fretless sound, a lot warmer and singing, and it allows me total dynamic freedom without loosing my "mwah". If I dig in over the pickup, I will get a very distinct and defined tone that really cuts through and delievers the mwah in a controlled but distinctive manner. If I attack it softly over the fingerboard, it just sings and sings and mwahs for ever, and is a beautiful voice for backing my singer on the softer and more romantic songs. (We play standard jazz tunes, like "Night and Day", "Desafinado", "Lullaby of Birdland", and so on.)

I'd cry a river if anything happened to my Tundra basses. And although I'm pretty sure Tom would build me a new bass with the same kind of magic in it, I would never part with these basses voluntarily. I'd have to have another Tundra that was even better before i'd even consider letting one of them go. :)
 
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