Does Fender Custom Shop have this market completely cornered? Has anyone played one? What makes them so special? Is there a need for a high quality slab clone that did not come from the FCS? Lately, I've seen a number of cheap 'clone' 66 slabs appear for sale on the market. Is it a case of Custom Shop or nothing!
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Is there really a market for the 1966 slab Precision clone?
- Thread starter Slab66
- Start date
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
- 9,060
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- Disclosures
- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
I have talked at length with our regions Fender rep about this. For what it is The custom shop version is way over priced. A version in the 2k list price I think would sell well. I'll keep hounding him.
Considering what some of the CS basses go for and, the reasonably low prices for vintage instruments why not by the real deal instead of the copy?
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
- 9,060
- 38,448
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
There were approximately 25-35 '66 Slab body Precisions made, most if not all were sent to England. Aside from being rare they are associated with John Entwistle. He had a number of them. I think the story goes he smashes up four and took the parts and made one bass nicknamed "Frankenstein" This is the bass you hear on Live At Leeds. http://youtu.be/ea0759BeJ2U
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
- 9,060
- 38,448
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
- 16,223
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- fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
- 16,223
- 7,614
- 76
- Disclosures
- fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!!!!!!
Nope. No win.
Since there were something like 20 ever made (1966 only), you won't find one in reasonable condition for anything like a
"reasonably low price." In fact, you just WON'T find one, in all likelihood.
Another thread Gareth? 
If anybody should know, it should be you! You created a company that sells 1966 Slab clones, did you not test the waters first to see who would buy them?
Fender's custom shop is, dare I say, not catering for musicians. Lawyers, dentists and plastic surgeons can afford $5k Precision basses.... give working bassists $5k to spend on a single instrument and I wager they will not darken the doorways of any Fender dealers.
Fender released that Dennis Dunaway Jazz bass, which was a '70s reissue covered in mirrors. That instrument honors the Fender bass he was playing on the higher profile Alice Cooper tours. In my opinion the proper Dunaway bass is the EB-0 he modded with mirrors and a split-coil Precision pickup. I once saw the tone he got with that bass described, perfectly, as an 'eerie thud'.
Now somebody was willing to pay $5k for this bass... any guesses? Rich boomers who saw Alice Cooper when they were at college maybe?
The problem with the 1966 Slab bass, as I see it, is twofold.
1) Lack of notoriety. The Slab bass is famous mostly for supplying the guys for Entwistle's Frankenstein bass. That bass does appear in the Woodstock movie and the Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus. Entwistle's slab crops up in the Monterey film and the 'All My Loving' film, neither of which are held in as high a regard. Ace Kefford had one and you get a glimpse of another slab bass during the opening sequences of the Born To Boogie film (as the bassist angrily bashes the back of the neck). The original slabs are not that high profile. I know about them because of the Who Tabs website that covers The Who's gear from back in the day. That, and a few quotes from Entwistle from around the period, are the only real notes we have on the bass.
2) Lack of justification. The bass was, at the time, a cost-cutting measure on Fender's part. When viewed on a certain level it can be regarded simply as a less-ergonomic and heavier P bass. The notable difference in tone is debatable (the bass Entwistle used at the Isle of Wight may sound different, but we don't know how it was recorded). I have a theory that most P basses will sound like a Slab if you lower the action and play them through raging tube amps into shallow width un-ported 412 cabinets. It isn't a subtle bass tone; it delivers a ton of mid-range frequencies with a lot of snarl.
If anybody should know, it should be you! You created a company that sells 1966 Slab clones, did you not test the waters first to see who would buy them?
Fender's custom shop is, dare I say, not catering for musicians. Lawyers, dentists and plastic surgeons can afford $5k Precision basses.... give working bassists $5k to spend on a single instrument and I wager they will not darken the doorways of any Fender dealers.
Fender released that Dennis Dunaway Jazz bass, which was a '70s reissue covered in mirrors. That instrument honors the Fender bass he was playing on the higher profile Alice Cooper tours. In my opinion the proper Dunaway bass is the EB-0 he modded with mirrors and a split-coil Precision pickup. I once saw the tone he got with that bass described, perfectly, as an 'eerie thud'.
Now somebody was willing to pay $5k for this bass... any guesses? Rich boomers who saw Alice Cooper when they were at college maybe?
The problem with the 1966 Slab bass, as I see it, is twofold.
1) Lack of notoriety. The Slab bass is famous mostly for supplying the guys for Entwistle's Frankenstein bass. That bass does appear in the Woodstock movie and the Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus. Entwistle's slab crops up in the Monterey film and the 'All My Loving' film, neither of which are held in as high a regard. Ace Kefford had one and you get a glimpse of another slab bass during the opening sequences of the Born To Boogie film (as the bassist angrily bashes the back of the neck). The original slabs are not that high profile. I know about them because of the Who Tabs website that covers The Who's gear from back in the day. That, and a few quotes from Entwistle from around the period, are the only real notes we have on the bass.
2) Lack of justification. The bass was, at the time, a cost-cutting measure on Fender's part. When viewed on a certain level it can be regarded simply as a less-ergonomic and heavier P bass. The notable difference in tone is debatable (the bass Entwistle used at the Isle of Wight may sound different, but we don't know how it was recorded). I have a theory that most P basses will sound like a Slab if you lower the action and play them through raging tube amps into shallow width un-ported 412 cabinets. It isn't a subtle bass tone; it delivers a ton of mid-range frequencies with a lot of snarl.
Nope. No win.
Since there were something like 200 ever made (1966 only), you won't find one in reasonable condition for anything like a
"reasonably low price." In fact, you just WON'T find one, in all likelihood.
Sorry, I didn't get caught up in the "only could be a 66' slab board"
If it's the slab board, they existed on earlier models
If it has to be a 66' I can't help wondering why a particular post-CBS bass would matter.
The exception of the big frets they put on Strats during a short of time in 1965
I don't think there is much of one. Everyone would complain about the "sharp corners" and how they "dig into their forearms."
