Where do you live? I need to start checking out your dumpster!
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Danelectro Owners Club
- Thread starter portaflexer
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Some magical land where cool instruments grow on trees, evidently.
I've read the Dano DC guitars can be converted into basses. I'd do it, then rip the frets out - I'd love a fretless copy of my bass!
They didn't come from the same dumpster, but because of them, I do peek in when I have occasion to use one. The Mosrite was 5 or 6 years ago; the Danelectro was probably 20 years ago.
I've never found a guitar in a dumpster, but years ago I found an amp in a dumpster. It was a practice amp, 8" speaker, 15 watts... but it worked. Best free amp I ever owned.
I grabbed an early Wurlitzer Electric Piano leaning against a garbage can in a pouring rain about 15 years ago. I barely had room for it in the passenger seat of my work truck. I let it dry out for a couple weeks, and it worked just fine, with a couple sticky keys.. an easy fix. I just wish I'd jumped in the dumpster to find the legs and sustain pedal..
Just kidding. But realistically, usually dumpster finds are not nearly as cool as any of the three you've described among your group of friends, so that's an "outlying" cluster.
My brother is regular dumpster diver and dump scavenger (and buddy of a garbage man who passes on cool finds), and he gets some really cool stuff, but he's never found a vintage guitar in any state or repair.
Sorry - was the dc guitar without a bridge not your story?
Anyway, as I said, just kidding.
I thought there was ANOTHER dc that someone said they found. Clearly it wasn't one of your finds. My bad.
I can't answer, unfortunately, but I hope someone else will.
But I'm building a bass around a '90s Longhorn neck, and I'm trying to decide whether to use 1 pickup (like the great-sounding 1-pu Shorthorn I heard the guy from the guy from the Iguanas playing last summer), or 2 pickups (like the Jerry Jones and the Danos I have).
So I'm trying to decide whether my 1-pu bass would sound that good with me (not the Iguanas guy) playing it.
And what kind of lipstick pickup(s) to use
But I'm building a bass around a '90s Longhorn neck, and I'm trying to decide whether to use 1 pickup (like the great-sounding 1-pu Shorthorn I heard the guy from the guy from the Iguanas playing last summer), or 2 pickups (like the Jerry Jones and the Danos I have).
So I'm trying to decide whether my 1-pu bass would sound that good with me (not the Iguanas guy) playing it.
And what kind of lipstick pickup(s) to use
Have you play a shorthorn by chance? Like I said its a different animal than any other Danelectro I have owned or played. Since you have a Jerry Jones, I was told they are closer to the original you might be able to get a better idea of my description.
The body feels more solid. Like dense/hard. Its heavier for sure. The neck not having a truss rod, but 3/4" square aluminum tube beginning at the peghead and through the body to the bridge. I think for me that might be why its much punchier and resonant. The pickup is also a bit hotter than a reissue Danelectro. Another factor is the 3-way tone switch could be why the bass sounded good. It also gives it more versatile sound and more fun. I think if you find a way to do a 3 way switch, and just wind up a pick up hotter it would be a great addition to your collection to make a shorthorn copy. I think if you put the pickup more in the middle with the switch you would really have something different.
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I've had an old Shorthorn in my hands, but didn't really play it, in the sense of pugging it in and playing with a band.
I'm actually considering, as a future project, taking a reissue DC guitar and making it into a bass. Of course, there are "reissue" DC basses, but they're different. And it's possible to put a Longhorn neck on a DC guitar, but that's different also.
So to do a somewhat more faithful conversion would require doing a fretboard replacement on a DC guitar neck.
Like I said, I need to improve my skills first.
I have thought of doing the 3-way tone switch on my current project. I need to figure out the right values of the capacitors.
I'm considering various control configurations:
1-pickup:
- Just volume
- Volume, tone switch
2-pickup:
- Volume, 3-way or 4-way pickup selector (neck-series-bridge, or neck-series-parallel-bridge)
- Volume, volume, (& maybe tone switch)
I just ordered 5k lipsticks. 4k were more expensive, or had Strat mounting hardware (not an insurmountable problem).
The Artecs are 7.5k, which might be too high.
It's all a big experiment.
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- Jun 3, 2009
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- Bassgearu, Music Industry Consulting and Sales. Tech 21, NBE Corp, Sonosphere.
Well, lucky me, I had a '90's Longhorn Pro, a Jerry Jones Longhorn4 and Longhorn6, as well as a vint 63 Longhorn and a 69 vint Dan Armstrong Modified Dano all at the same time back in the early 2000s. So here goes:
The Dano Reissues are much more modern in tone then either the JJ or the vintage. The material difference and the complete difference in the lipstick pickups as well made the reissues much brighter, and also they gave a wider range of tones. So, basically, you got something that still has some hollowbody twang, but you can still get modern Ibanezzy tones, if that makes sense. Also, you can slap on the reissues and it sounds good. Not so much on the vintage.
Best way I can put it is to listen to anything from Springsteen's "Wild, Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" then compare that to a reissue. Garry recorded the album with his short horn and his longhorn (probably '66 or '67). You can tell that its way different when you do the test.
My two pennies.
I would add to the mix in this discussion the difference between the Korean and Chinese Re Issues. The first Longhorn I played in a music store was MIK, and I loved it. My son, who also plays Bass loved it as well. It was just fun! We talked about it all the way home and the seed was planted. I was shopping for PA equipment at the time, not a Bass. I later tried a few MIC versions, but they didn't trip my trigger. I ended up with a 90's MIK, and LOVE IT! I have many Basses in my stable, but I always end up playing my 4001 and Dano at every gig. I'd love to try a JJ version or original, they just aren't around much anymore. A testament of how cool they are. Those that have them, keep them.
Robin
Robin
Yo Tom! What up? Hey man, have you had a chance to stack up the 2009 Dead-On reissue Longhorns to the other ones? I'll tell you...there was a point where I almost went for a JJ, right before he closed up shop, but I ended up really digging the Dead-On so I forgot about it. Probably the cheapest built of the reissues but mine's been nothing but totally solid for me. Stays in tune all night, neck barely moves at all during seasonal changes, I had a hole drilled at the end of the upper horn for a Straplok and it hasn't split, and I've even flown it 9 or 10 times as checked baggage in a gig bag and Bass Safe and it would come out still in tune.
Unfortunately, it sounds good when I slap on it so I must have gotten a dud
You think replacement pickups might help?
SMc, did you like the Fab distortion on the bass? I was thinking the D2 Fab OD, but I see that the D1 Fab Distortion is quite popular. Any suggestions besides the expected "Get BOTH"?
