Is this a bass guitar?

[dbsfgyd1]

This is Paul Tutmarc's Audiovox 736, made in 1936... simple question - is it a bass guitar?

Looks like one to me. I can’t vouch for the tuning (E-A-D-G).

 

[mikecd1]

Do not see a tort guard on it so I'm skeptical, but yeah its a bass guitar of a sort.
The Audiovox 736 Electric Bass and 936 Amp | Vintage Guitar® magazine

 

[Smooth_bass88]

well it ain't no toaster oven

 

[NoiseNinja]

I called it a bass fiddle because that was what it was called when it was released. It's what it was called, not necessarily what we would call it today.

View attachment 4200529

While technology and bass design certainly has come a long way since and improved for the better marketing department buzzword nonsense sadly hasn't.

Yes, I'd say it's definitely a bass guitar, even if the company who made it called it something else.

 

[chris_b]

We'd all be playing basses like this if Leo had stayed fixing radios.

 

[UNICORN BASS]

I voted bass. The one played in the video sounds much like my old Gretch which was set up piccolo with similar gauge strings.

 

[chris_b]

By the mid 30's even electric guitars hadn't been around for that long. Paul Tutmarc had to call it a bass fiddle because he was trying to sell a totally new and different concept to double bass players

 

[oldandbold]

It looks and sounds like a nice short-scale bass.

 

[40Hz]

I guess this instrument pre-dates the phrase "cuts thru the mix" and "plays like buttah". We've obviously advance so much since then.

LOL! Thanks for that. I needed a laugh this morning.

I think the real question here, is....would the Fender Custom Shop make one?

Yes, and it would be gorgeous! ... ... ... And then they would relic it.

Better Fender than Gibson. If Gibson decided to make one, only 150 would ever be built. And they would only be available in “heritage” cherry or walnut - and retail for $5000.

And then…they’d probably sue everybody one more time.

The question "is this a bass guitar" is also misleading. By modern standards, perhaps no. But by it's function, probably yes. I haven't heard it but it is in the configuration of a guitar and it plays lower register bass notes? That's all you really need to know. It's a type of guitar that plays bass notes. Call it a pickle, if you will. But by it's function, it is what we today call a bass guitar.

True enough. Function rules despite all the fun hairsplitting over definitions can provide. In a baroque ensemble setting the cello often fulfills the role of “the bass” and is sometimes referred to as the “small bass.”

Which leads to the larger question of why this has come up again? Hopefully it’s not going to be used as a sly segue into yet another endless discussion about who “really” first came up with the first electric bass guitar. <*eyeroll*>

 

[Rib 13]

Its a bass guitar to me

In 1936 (especially during the Great Depression), calling it Bass Fiddle makes more sense to market it to that eras demographic to sell it....Marketing it as a Bass Guitar in that era would be like marketing it as a
Bass Flying Saucer......

"Bass Guitar" is an odd description of what we call electric bass. A Precision Bass does not look much like a traditional guitar - it's the wrong shape and has the wrong strings. What Leo Fender actually called it is not entirely clear - I have seen representations of the original patent documents that variously refer to the instrument as an "electric bass" and as a "guitar" (but not bass guitar). It is documented that Leo was thinking of upright bass players having to haul around that "doghouse" from gig to gig and having to work hard to be heard. There are some notes about his idea to develop and electric bass for them. And later, after the Precision was slow to catch on widely, he had the idea to appeal to guitar players allowing them to double on bass. I think perhaps that's when he started to refer to his instrument as a "bass guitar".

For my part, I don't like to refer to the instrument as any kind of guitar. IMO it's an electric bass, period. By and large it's not played like a guitar, but it is played like a double bass, though held more like a guitar. The function of the instrument is more akin to the double bass than the guitar.

Maybe I'll avoid nomenclature issues and just call it Fred.

just my opinion, but i think the same thing applies here: the 'bass guitar' concept would be too alien of a description in the 1950s to try and sell a P-bass, even though it is - for all intents and purposes - almost the exact modeling Leo Fender makes for guitarists. They would be trying to sell it to upright bass players as an alternative...in the 1950s, 'electric bass' sounds like more of a welcoming concept to upright players than 'bass guitar', doesn't it?

(edit: hell, for the longest time, it was such an oddity in the 50s/60s that many players simply called any electric guitar-like bass a 'Fender Bass')

 

[chris_b]

Did I remember this right? Wasn't Fender's original electric bass guitar concept aimed at guitarists doubling? They thought they'd have more interest from guitarists than from upright bass players.

 

[TonH]

I voted yes, but that's because I made a replica in the past.

Audiovox 736 replica | TalkBass.com (with soundclips).

 

[Honkey tonk]

I wonder if ...
back when? the fiddlers were cooler than gedar players

Hence the name bass fiddle

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I wonder if ...
back when? the fiddlers were cooler than gedar players

Hence the name bass fiddle

I knew "bull fiddle" which I think might be Irish in origin (mainly because I first heard Sharon Shannon use it).

 

[Deleted member 165050]

If Gibson decided to make one, only 150 would ever be built. And they would only be available in “heritage” cherry or walnut - and retail for $5000.
And then…they’d probably sue everybody one more time.

You can't knock Gibson in a Tutmarc thread! Don't you know the meaning of propriety???

Hopefully it’s not going to be used as a sly segue into yet another endless discussion about who “really” first came up with the first electric bass guitar. <*eyeroll*>

That's neatly avoided by the thread question I believe

 

[Honkey tonk]

I knew "bull fiddle" which I think might be Irish in origin (mainly because I first heard Sharon Shannon use it).

4 strings might also have been the (real) reason

 

[Jeff Scott]

Do not see a tort guard on it so I'm skeptical...

Using this definition, you should be skeptical of early 7enders, too.

 

[mongo2]

Not only is the Audiovox 736 an electric bass guitar, it's indisputably the first electric bass guitar.

 

[40Hz]

You can't knock Gibson in a Tutmarc thread! Don't you know the meaning of propriety???

Apparently not. But I’m a Gibson bass owner/player “an be but dumb” sometimes.

That's neatly avoided by the thread question I believe

Sure hope so. Things are seldom neat around here. In any event, my apologies for the derail.

 

[mikecd1]

Using this definition, you should be skeptical of early 7enders, too.

Yeah, the tort poke purely a Talkbass joke, but yes until we see some provenance smart to withhold judgement which is why I linked to that great article detailing the majesty of that Audiovox. Curious what they used for strings and it doesn't really say, but references to a horseshoe pickup begs the question if Beauchamp, Barth and Rickenbacker collaborated or exchanged info at all with Tutmarc. As I recall Rickenbacker also made "Electro" strings for a very long time though not sure exactly when that started, but remember buying original Ric bass strings in a little red box when I cold find them. The steel guitar certainly led the path forward for modern electronic instruments IMO.