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Cold War Basses

Jan 10, 2022
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I've been looking at some of these cold war era basses from the USSR and East Germany listed on Reverb and elsewhere. While definitely unique they look like monumental pieces of crap. I'm curious, does anyone here have any firsthand experience with one of these?
 
I've had a few over the years. I was obsessed in the early 90s and pursued them whenever possible. Yes, they sucked, but it was a good suck. :D Pretty much every guitar or bass I had needed the fretboard to be trued and frets replaced, new nut, repaired/altered electronics, new jacks (although all of mine already came with a 1/4" jack bodged in) and either new or rigged up tuners. Where I ran into issues were:
scale length - bridge in wrong location, mostly too close to the nut
intonation - fret slots not cut precisely with some varying fret distances. Filling slots and resawing those that were way out was helpful. I replaced a fretboard once.
truss rod weakness/ineffectiveness - one I'm sure just had a nut and rod on the end but it didn't' go deeply into the neck or do anything really. :D
electronics - not working, not compatible with western gear, weak, anemic pickups, etc.

They are interesting but be prepared to put in way more work than it's worth to get it operational. Bonus if you're a tech or know how to repair/build. Working on these and cheap 60s japanese guitars are one of the things that got me into building. :thumbsup:
 
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