First a little history about why this bass is very important to me.
Since I was a teenager I always wanted to learn bass.
I lost my mother as a baby at just 1 year old. In the year 2000 I was 19 and I received a letter from the government of my country (Brazil) informing me that my late mother had left a small savings account in my name and since I was already of legal age I could receive this money. It wasn't much because as she passed away very early she hadn't made many deposits. At the exchange rate at the time, it would be around 750 dollars.
My younger self decided to use this money to pursue my dream at the time, which was to learn to play bass.
Musical instruments have always been very expensive in Brazil but I had 750 dollars which to my 19 year old self sounded like millions.
I went into an instrument store that no longer exists in my city (São Paulo) and with all the wisdom of a buyer at 19 I said: "What can I get with 750 dollars?".
At the time, that money only bought a few bad Fender copies, but the sales guy guaranteed that there was a better deal if I was willing to take an instrument that had never had an owner but that couldn't be sold as new.
And that brings us to this Ibanez ATK.
That was in March 2000 and the story I remember from that time is as follows:
The store owner was the Ibanez distributor in Brazil and was responsible for imports, representation, maintenance and warranties. He said that this bass came as a prototype to test interest and public acceptance in the national market and came to the 1999 Expomusic (our version of Namm). At this fair he suffered a scratch on the side and it could not be returned to Ibanez International. He was selling it at cost price.
So, with 750 dollars I got the mysterious Ibanez ATK, a small Kustom KBA40 combo amp (remember those?), a strap and cable.
Regarding the bass, I never found any ATK that looked like this one.
The main differences are the neck painted black with the rosewood fretboard and pearl inlay, it came with an active preamp and a Seymour Duncan Basslines pickup and the number of knobs is different from any I've ever seen. They are volume + push/pull, treble and a concentric with mid and bass. The body does not have any filling where another knob would be. The tuning pegs are also different from the open tuners that usually equip these basses. No serial number or anything else printed anywhere other than the make and model on the headstock.
It's been exactly like this since March 2000 and the only customization I made was the conversion (in a way that can be easily undone) to fretless about 8 years ago.
Its sound is perfect and has a very pleasant tone which is accentuated as fretless with a very pleasant growl.
Posting to see if anyone else knows or has seen any ATK in these configurations. I know there are a lot of people here who have a long history with ATKs (@rogerbmiller comes to mind) and any information would help to learn more about the origins of this old friend
.
Since I was a teenager I always wanted to learn bass.
I lost my mother as a baby at just 1 year old. In the year 2000 I was 19 and I received a letter from the government of my country (Brazil) informing me that my late mother had left a small savings account in my name and since I was already of legal age I could receive this money. It wasn't much because as she passed away very early she hadn't made many deposits. At the exchange rate at the time, it would be around 750 dollars.
My younger self decided to use this money to pursue my dream at the time, which was to learn to play bass.
Musical instruments have always been very expensive in Brazil but I had 750 dollars which to my 19 year old self sounded like millions.
I went into an instrument store that no longer exists in my city (São Paulo) and with all the wisdom of a buyer at 19 I said: "What can I get with 750 dollars?".
At the time, that money only bought a few bad Fender copies, but the sales guy guaranteed that there was a better deal if I was willing to take an instrument that had never had an owner but that couldn't be sold as new.
And that brings us to this Ibanez ATK.
That was in March 2000 and the story I remember from that time is as follows:
The store owner was the Ibanez distributor in Brazil and was responsible for imports, representation, maintenance and warranties. He said that this bass came as a prototype to test interest and public acceptance in the national market and came to the 1999 Expomusic (our version of Namm). At this fair he suffered a scratch on the side and it could not be returned to Ibanez International. He was selling it at cost price.
So, with 750 dollars I got the mysterious Ibanez ATK, a small Kustom KBA40 combo amp (remember those?), a strap and cable.
Regarding the bass, I never found any ATK that looked like this one.
The main differences are the neck painted black with the rosewood fretboard and pearl inlay, it came with an active preamp and a Seymour Duncan Basslines pickup and the number of knobs is different from any I've ever seen. They are volume + push/pull, treble and a concentric with mid and bass. The body does not have any filling where another knob would be. The tuning pegs are also different from the open tuners that usually equip these basses. No serial number or anything else printed anywhere other than the make and model on the headstock.
It's been exactly like this since March 2000 and the only customization I made was the conversion (in a way that can be easily undone) to fretless about 8 years ago.
Its sound is perfect and has a very pleasant tone which is accentuated as fretless with a very pleasant growl.
Posting to see if anyone else knows or has seen any ATK in these configurations. I know there are a lot of people here who have a long history with ATKs (@rogerbmiller comes to mind) and any information would help to learn more about the origins of this old friend
.
