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Bass with a whammy bar?

#41
I forgot to comment...duh....the Kahler is actually really good. Tuning isnt as much of a problem when you put the bar higher up, where it should be if it were left handed. Check out Vic's location on his Fodera. This seems to give an even pull across the neck, where as if it is in the right handed position, it pulls harder on the lighter strings and it unevenly brings them back to flat high strings and sharp low strings. Also, a little graphite dust in the nut slots or some Graphitall from GHS will lubricate the nut and keep it from catching, so tuning improves here as well. Harmonic bends, dive bombs, and chord trems. Its a trick that can be over used, but it also can be beautiful and unique.
 
#43
i think that trems should really excel working with short-scale basses, like the mentioned six-string bass vi..
another idea: grab any cheap 30inch scale bass, tune it to ADGC with thin strings and use a tremolo. could be a fun bass!
 
#44
Barkless dog, what brand and model is that 6 string bass ? I like i
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That was a custom Carvin I ordered new, spent about $1200, on added the Kahler for $400 then sold it several years later for $798 !!!!

I actually got more for it used with the Kahler, they usually can be had for around $500-$600. It was a so so bass, not great not bad and the kahler was a mother to move/use. My RD's Kahler is like a bouncey ball, very responsive- Never regretted it, would never be without one.

What is that bass?
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Yes a 78 RD artist and yes that is a Gizmo mounting plate (I used the double sided tape. The Gizmo's Wheels have deteriorated away and crumble if you flex them in any way!
rdgiz.gif


rdbri.gif
 
#46
Gizmotron for those who might wonder-

The Gizmo (sometimes called The Gizmotron) was an effects device for the electric guitar, invented ca. 1975 by English rock musicians Kevin Godley and Lol Creme while they were members of the British rock group 10cc.
The Gizmo first featured on 10cc's second album, Sheet Music (1974) on the track Old Wild Men, and its ability to create a wide range of sounds was central to the production of Godley and Creme's first post-10cc project, the 1977 triple-LP concept album Consequences.
According to Paul Gambaccini's sleeve notes for Consequences,[1] 10cc were unable to afford an orchestra for their early albums, so Creme and Godley imagined an effects unit that would enable a guitar to produce violin-like sounds (this was some years before the introduction of the polyphonic synthesiser and long before the development of digital sampling).
The resulting device, a small box which was attached to the bridge of the guitar, consisted of six small motor-driven wheels, whose continuous bowing action was activated by pressing one or all of keys located on the top of the unit. Pressing a key would bow the corresponding string, while the other hand remained free to fret single notes or full chords.
John McConnell, then a senior lecturer in Physics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) assisted Godley and Creme in the development of the prototype. He considered it critical that the instrument retain the natural decay of a note rather than the sharp cut-off often experienced with an electronic synthesizer.
Other Godley & Creme albums featuring the Gizmo include L and Godley & Creme. The Gizmo can also be heard on This Mortal Coil's recording It'll End in Tears (4AD), where it was played by Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins. The Gizmo is also featured on The Church's Violet Town where it is played by Marty Willson-Piper.
The device was also used on Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door (1979) .
One of the faults with The Gizmo was that is was very temperamental, and affected by conditions such as humidity and temperature. Gizmotron, the company set up to produce The Gizmo, was eventually driven bankrupt as The Gizmo was released at the same time as cheap synthesizers and was unable to find a market.
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#48
Unfortunately no, not digital.

I packed it away when synthesizers & string samplers came out and it was hard to get the setup even across the strings. You had to fiddle with it constantly.

When I pullit out for those picture the wheel arm just crumbled on one of them. To work again, new arms would have to be made,
 
#50
Barkless Dog said:
Gizmotron, the company set up to produce The Gizmo, was eventually driven bankrupt as The Gizmo was released at the same time as cheap synthesizers and was unable to find a market.
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And to make matters worse, they got the Musitronics company (inventor of the original Mutron III) involved in distributing the Gizmo...and then Musitronics got bought up by ARP (inventor of the ARP 2600 & Odyssey & Avatar synthesizers, among other things)

...and then they were driven bankrupt!


I still think the Gizmo is one of the coolest ideas ever conceived for guitar/bass playing.
 
#51
I had a gizmotron years ago on a Yamaha BB300 beater bass. It was a fun toy, but I'll be damned if I ever found a way to acutally use the thing in a song.

The other problem I had with it was that where I had it located must have put the rubber wheels that "bow" the strings right on top of some sort of harmonic point. Open E string bowed by the Giz had this really bizarre harmonic overtone, and it wasn't an E.

As Barkless mentioned though, the rubber that was used in the wheels would eventually age and turn hard and brittle. Since it uses rubber to connect the wheels to the unit itself, they'd get hard and crack and wheels would fall off. To compound matters, the motor in mine just stopped... motoring.

I ended up throwing the whole thing in the trash. Quite a tough thing for something I think I paid like $200 for, but this was pre-ebay, pre-craigslist, pre-internet. You can only sell something when there's a buyer.
 
#55
Kahler makes a 5 string Hybrid. www.wammiworld.com has them for sale for @$200. The real pain is getting a qualified luthier to install it and set it up as it requires routing, as well as fill in, like on newer Ibanez with mono-rail individual bridges. I had mine done at www.thelowend.net in Nashville, TN. They were reasonable with the price and had it back to me in about 4 weeks. Good Luck.
 
#57
So essentialy, get a khaler, set it up left handed, find some one reliable... What all goes in to actually installing the khaler? Is it just replacing the bridge and an area for the springs or is there electrical work invloved...
Also thanks for the responses guys, I was worried I would get a "IF YOU WANT A WHAMMY BAR BUY A GUITAR NOOB!" response.
 
#58
RapierSix said:
So essentialy, get a khaler, set it up left handed, find some one reliable... What all goes in to actually installing the khaler? Is it just replacing the bridge and an area for the springs or is there electrical work invloved...
Also thanks for the responses guys, I was worried I would get a "IF YOU WANT A WHAMMY BAR BUY A GUITAR NOOB!" response.
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Just needs a rout for the springs etc. the bridge ground wire needs attaching to it.
And both Kahler's and Hipshot's are made ambidextrious, there's a slot for the trem bar on each side of the bridge, jst try out both and use which feels better.
 

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