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That does seem hard to believe....

I would be interested to see a pic of the bass with the Thundertrons. I would have preferred to use pickups with conventional polepieces, but couldn't find any TV Jones ones that lined up with the wide string spacing.

My old tech (now retired) said that Fender had sent him the service manual back in the 1970s, but he'd never seen an actual amp until I took him mine about a decade ago.

It needed three "big and heavy" cabs to work in the 1970s, but any four ohm cabs will do, and three Neo cabs aren't that heavy (I use three Schroeders). That said, I don't use it much, because I don't really need that much power.

I still use my Electric Blue for "coffee shop" level gigs, and jams with acoustic guitarists. I am often complimented on the tone it produces.

I found that a jumbo ABG worked with a nylon string guitar, but that was about it.

I have gigged with an old-style (made in Korea, Bisonic pickup) Starfire I for many years, and if this one comes close to that, then it should be well worth the price. Still, I do think that the Bisonic pickup is part of the equation, and my gigging bass does have the Curtis Novak variant.

The Elfin Hollowbody Bass looks nice, and is relevant to this thread! I recommend you buy one of those!

From the look of the pictures on Taylor's website, the Koa version comes without a pickguard.

I haven't played any of those, because they mostly didn't come out until after my "acoustic bass buying phase" was over. I take your point about them being easier to play than a "full size" ABG, although I imagine that none of them are "loud" acoustically.

Oops. For some reason, a couple of quotes got missed in the above. Still, you can figure out which bits I am replying to.

I mostly didn't use amplification. I (naively) thought and acoustic bass could be played acoustically. I should say I was never in an "acoustic bass phase" as such. I bought a few over a period of time, but I didn't really gig with them. I never said that. If you want something that...

My point has always been that the "I need an ABG so I can play around a campfire" crew are pretty much destined for disappointment (and they are, from my observation at least, a big percentage of first time buyers). There is a another thread right there.

"Common" is another word that I don't recall mentioning. Nobody would buy an expensive instrument to sound like an ABG. Most ABGs don't actually sound that good. I do accept that in the hands of a great player, most instruments can sound good (even an ABG). There's that word "normal". I...

Let's agree to disagree on that, and wonder where the word "traditional" crept in (I never said you could get those tones on a P-bass). To the extent that I have a "complaint" about ABGs, it is that they aren't very loud, and anything they can do can be done by an appropriately set up and...

Should he hand back his PhD in bass playing, and ask for one in bass fishing?

They sound enough like a double bass to fool 98% of people. That's probably good enough to sell the van that you need to transport the DB around.

I admit that the "percussive" soundboard thing couldn't really be duplicated on an electric. Other than that, I don't agree with your statement. In fact, my recent researches have convinced me that a well designed, set up and amplified electric can essentially duplicate a DB.

No reason it couldn't do that in a hollow body electric. After Ed Goode's comment, I did a bit of searching, and found some videos of hollow body or chambered electrics that got a good DB sound. There were a few, although they were high-end instruments from Rob Allen and Veilette. Maybe, but...

Yep, those phosphor bronze strings never help. You will see that I have tapewounds on my Guild B-30. Fractionally less loud, immeasurably greater tone.

I just checked out the Stoll website that yonatan1991 referred to! There are some very interesting things on there!

Hadn't even heard of them until 5 minutes ago, but I have just googled! You are not wrong about the "big sizes"!

That is interesting, because while I was looking for "electric bass with piezo emulating ABG" videos, I found a number of "electric bass with piezo emulating DB" videos, some of which got pretty close tone wise (although none of those involved "budget" basses). Perhaps there is another thread...

You are right, there aren't any videos (that I am aware of anyway) that do this. The reason, I suspect, is that pretty much nobody would want to emulate the "standard" ABG sound (with its nasal highs and scratchy finger tone). There are plenty of videos showing "piezo electric emulating...

The reason I'm doing it is to warn people not to follow my example, namely spending about $10K (AUD) trying to get a "usable" one, and failing. I don't dislike ABGs as such, and I have still kept one for old time's sake (pic below). It's just that I hear so many people saying "I want an ABG so...

This pretty much covers it:

The first one is being played percussively, which I accept is far easier to do on an ABG than on anything else. I don't think the tone coming from the strings themselves would be that hard to achieve. The second one has a very unusual tone. At first, I thought he had some effect in there...

Amplified acoustic guitars, no. Amplified acoustic basses, yes. Yes, I do hear that, thanks. I do not however hear it as between ABGs and hollowbody electrics, which can produce an extremely acoustic sound. I haven't played one, but it must be the loudest ABG ever made if what you say is...

Yep, agree completely (although my solution was to use a cheap Indonesian made Hofner, which gives the tone a little "hollowness" that is hard to get with a solid body).

Nice tone. Tapes are the way to go.

If you'd seen the length of my fingers, you would understand why it is not possible for me to play anything with a high action. As to your other point, I really wanted to find a "workable" ABG, and spent lots of money buying various well credentialled ones (including an Earthwood). I ended up...

Thanks for that. I'll google to find out a bit more about them.

Yes, someone has pointed that out. They also mentioned that the Maton Bindarra (from my home country of Australia) came out in the late 1960s.

Yep, it was (I think most of them were the "shallow spec"). No idea how a guy of my size would play the "deep" one.

Ron Carter is a great player (probably the greatest living jazz bassie, in my view at least), but he has been around a while, and probably predated the adoption of the electric bass by jazzers. Plus, he probably has someone to load it into the van and drive it around for him. Many of the...

As an Australian, I am familiar with the Maton Bindara, although I didn't thing they went back to the late 1960s (all the ones I have heard of have been mid-70s ones). Anyway, they only made about 50 or 60 of the things from memory. Never heard of the Harptone. Never heard of the viola baixo...

I've played plenty of good ones. However, if what you mean by "set up for maximum acoustic volume" is "set up with an unplayably high action", then no I haven't, because I need an action that is playable. I agree with that bit at least. I use tapewounds on my sole ABG nowadays.

You must not have been round in the 1990s then. A heap of major artists did MTV Unplugged shows, and some "Unplugged" albums were mega sellers. Clapton's "Unplugged" album sold more than 25 million copies.

Absolutely correct! Certainly nobody in the 1960s used an ABG, because they didn't come out until 1972!

Never played one. Never even seen one in the flesh, to be honest. I'd like to have a go on one, but I don't think there are a lot here in Australia. From photos I have seen, they seem to have a big body, but a short neck. I get your "vibrations" comment (one comment that I often annoy my...