Is Washburn next?

[Heiwa]

This sounds right. Washburn began life as a craft builder and was sold to a conglomerate. Much like Schecter, though the current Schecter seems to have done a better job of marketing and co-positioning with retailers.

Someone said “they will fail like Samick” - Samick has definitely not failed, they are one of the largest private-label builders in the world, similar to Cort, and build basses that are sold under very many household names. Ironically, Samick was behind the Washburn revival in the 80s/90s that we’re all thinking of. They manufactured just about all of the Washburn instruments up to the mid-2000s, at which point Washburn started to use other manufacturers as well.

Samick as a brand (not as a manufacturer) didn't have a great reputation in the late nineties and early 2000s. I got tired of seeing Samick guitars and Washburn basses gathering dust in pawn shops and secondhand stores. Some models were nice, but nothing popular. And while Cort is a giant and I love them, few of us truly appreciate them... they're not popular either.

 

[Altitude]

I think Samick was less used in the 80's (or maybe prominently used at the end of the 80's), as a lot of what we associate with Washburn's Korean and later Chinese/Vietnamese instruments was more the 90's. Washburn branding was being used for MIJ instruments for much of the 80s.

According to my research, Samick began building for Washburn in 1985 and was the primary manufacturer by 1988. Looks like they continued that way through at least the mid-90s.

Samick as a brand (not as a manufacturer) didn't have a great reputation in the late nineties and early 2000s. I got tired of seeing Samick guitars and Washburn basses gathering dust in pawn shops and secondhand stores. Some models were nice, but nothing popular. And while Cort is a giant and I love them, few of us truly appreciate them... they're not popular either.

Agreed, as a brand neither of them is super appealing, at least not in the US. But it looks like 50-80% of Samick’s output is sold under the name of another brand, and 70-90% of Cort’s. I suspect those figures would be far higher if limited to sales in North America.

So it would be going too far to say that their self-branded lines are hobbies compared to their total output, but not by much.

 

[Ken Mathews]

I didn't mean to imply that any of them were on par with G&L, but I also wouldn't consider G&L to be an "it" brand. They were too cult classic to be; not enough big players in any one genre or time period playing them. Really, none of them were ever "it" brands aside from maybe Hamer, and that was ages ago.

However, Washburn, like G&L, did have a few shorter term high profile endorsers. G&L had Tom Hamilton for a little while, plus Dee Murray and a few others endorsed them in their early years. Washburn had Rudy Sarzo and Pat Badger briefly, and I know during the unplugged craze, they had Darryl Jones, Michael Rhodes and several others endorsing their AEBGs.

They also had Stu Hamm for a while.

 

[ggvicviper]

They also had Stu Hamm for a while.

Yep, but VERY briefly in the 2010s... like a year.

 

[Altitude]

Maybe someone has the backstory on the Status-licensed Washburn basses from the 90s. I always thought that was the strangest thing; there was no apparent connection between the two companies at all. And even at the Mark King high water mark the demand for Status Series basses couldn’t have been high enough to justify a “licensed by” low-end copy. But what do I know…

 

[dune]

I didn't mean to imply that any of them were on par with G&L, but I also wouldn't consider G&L to be an "it" brand. They were too cult classic to be; not enough big players in any one genre or time period playing them. Really, none of them were ever "it" brands aside from maybe Hamer, and that was ages ago.

However, Washburn, like G&L, did have a few shorter term high profile endorsers. G&L had Tom Hamilton for a little while, plus Dee Murray and a few others endorsed them in their early years. Washburn had Rudy Sarzo and Pat Badger briefly, and I know during the unplugged craze, they had Darryl Jones, Michael Rhodes and several others endorsing their AEBGs.

Probably the main thing that G&L had going for it was the Leo connection. I agree that they never seemed to have any period in which they were an "it" brand. Of course, none of the others were able to sustain that "it" period for very long. Just my subjectivity on all of it anyway. I was either in or just out of my teens and living in the boonies when Dean and Hamer first came on, and the majority of the information I was getting was what I saw in Guitar Player magazine, so it may have been nothing more than marketing hype. I also could have qualified things by saying that I wasn't paying much attention at all to gear for the 20 years from 1998 to 2018, so maybe Washburn was "it" for a during that period and I just missed it. Our singer and rhythm player had a Washburn in the late 80's and other than the quirky vibrato, seemed like a nice axe.

 

[ctmullins]

I really like my Washburn Idol guitar. I wouldn’t mind picking up the bass version too one day.

 

[Dust2Dust]

I was doing some research today trying to find out what strings Rick Savage uses and I guess I confused the AI because this popped up.

Rick Savage does not play Ernie Ball bass strings. He currently uses custom basses made by Jackson after endorsing Washburn XB920 and XB925 bass guitars.

Washburn lost another one.

 

[ggvicviper]

I was doing some research today trying to find out what strings Rick Savage uses and I guess I confused the AI because this popped up.

Rick Savage does not play Ernie Ball bass strings. He currently uses custom basses made by Jackson after endorsing Washburn XB920 and XB925 bass guitars.

Washburn lost another one.

Looked it up. He's using both a Jackson Concert bass and another that has a similar body shape to the XB Bantams. I guess it's all the family, because those XBs were Grover Jackson's design.

It's all kinda depressing though.

 

[Iridescentone]

I haven’t thought about Washburn basses since the 80’s, or their guitars other than the Nuno models.
I also seen to recall they got caught trying to pass off some import instruments as US made. That surely didn’t help them.

I remember hearing/reading about that. Up until then, Washburn was fairly well regarded as makers of good quality guitars, at least in my locale.

~ 1981-1982, I bought a new Vulture bass when my local store picked up the Washburn line. It was beautifully built and finished in the prettiest 2-tone burst I'd ever seen. A real stunner with an interesting feature set.

It sounded "strong" and played well, too. But even back then, it was beyond any reasonable weight for me, despite that I was playing a couple fairly heavy L-1000's at the time. Never gave weight a second thought until I got that Vulture.

Weight aside, the ergos were atrocious....severe neck dive, sharp body edges, and a top strap pin on the inside of the horn. That made it hard to keep a strap in place. It was obvious to me that the Vulture was designed with "style over function". Most players don't care for those ergos IME, so Washburn basically created a "niche" bass with the Vulture. As well built as it was, they didn't sell well. Sold mine within a week.

Mine looked exactly like this one. Bought new for $250. Pretty, aint it? lol

 

[Heisenbass]

I owned quite a number of Washburn basses. Still have an 82 Force-8 and an 84 Force-8 BBR (Black with red binding). Those early 80‘s Matsumoku-made Washburns were great basses in terms of build quality. The Force-8 is like the illegitimate offspring of a relationship between a Fender Precision and a Rickenbacker. Slab body, binding, telecaster headstock. I love it. If you come across one of these, grab it. Especially the 84 with a single humbucker is a monster. Oh, and there was Bakithi Kumatho on Paul Simon‘s Graceland album doing some magic on his passive fretless B-40. Their active models (SB-40, Force-40) were also great build-wise. They had an active wiring with sweepable mids. Never got any usable tone out of it… But the Force-8s are keepers.

 

[Kevan Campbell]

One of these? This one is from about '96 and still going strong.
It came in a 5 and I got to play a fretless once as well.

There was also a very nice model one pricepoint higher that did not have the "Florentine cutaway", there is one pictured in that old book of John Entwistle's bass collection.

View attachment 7365501

Love that one!! I picked up a 5-string version a few weeks ago for acoustic trios and "full band acoustic" shows, and so far I'm pretty thrilled with it! I sold off a Tacoma Thunderchief and Warwick Star Bass this year and my Washburn seems to fill those basses' role pretty well with SIT Halfwounds.

My cat Mikey was also thrilled with this purchase, but for a very different reason!

 

[-Asdfgh-]

My first bass was a 'Force ABT' B10B. No dead spots. Dangerous pointy headstock according to the singer songwriter I drew blood from.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Their acoustics were pretty nice for the pricepoint, but they always seemed so heavily coated in poly that the sound suffered

Good for the Ramble On sound, though? (Page used an Italian-made Vox, equivalent to the EKO Ranger, and they have thick poly and sound... different. My 1969 got ripped apart by the poly shrinking and the label on the 1972 has ejected).

 

[RWRLV]

I'm a fan of their designs and always found them innovative at the price points, especially early 80s to mid 90s.
I preferred what they offered vs legacy brands until purchasing Yamaha Attitudes then eventually started building my own
since I always modified anything I owned anyway.
I still own mid 80s Samick made Force ABT models and a Bantam XB-500.
There are some MIJ models I would like to try out as well as some made later.
The Stu Hamm SHB3 Hammer is of interest along with Grover Jackson era guitars.
Other than that I really didn't see them being relevant at all since the 2000s & definitely not in the
sea of what has been available. Also, many of their specs can be found in multiple cheap brands of basses these days.
The first that comes to mind is Series 10. I don't think they will be missed in the electric guitar / bass markets.