Kay K162 reissue available on MF

Wow, its certainly not your average Fender knock off!

 

Bet it sounds freaking great - I predict it will be popular Bass.

 

This bass was award an Editor's Award in Bass Player Magazine. Review said it had mojo to the hilt, great sounding bass.

 

Tres cool, I've been waiting for something like that to be reissued.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll start saving my pennies.

 

i wish the black one had the cool guards!!!

 

For that price it had better sound good and be better built than the originals. The originals, like the Danelectro and others, were cheaply made and looked and sounded like it. "Vintage" doesn't necessarily mean good. Back when these were new, people bought them because they couldn't afford a Fender and couldn't wait to get rid of them and get the real deal. If you auditioned for a working band back then and showed up with a Kay you'd never get the gig.

But, if you just must have that look I suppose this is cheaper than finding and fixing an original or having one custom made.

I know I'm a cranky old geezer. But I still have most of my wits about me and my ears are still good.

 

The blonde K162 is stunning. I think I need one.

 

The originals were cheaply built, but they sound incredible. One of the most pleasant and rich yet hard hitting and usefully fat tones I've heard from any bass.

If these RIs are made well and have a more modern neck profile than the DB-like originals they deserve to give the Casady HB a run for their money.

 

Love that Kelvinator Fridge logo. I'm thinking it's priced a bit high for a repro of what was
a budget bass, yet I'm glad to see that the thud and the thump machines of the past are making a come back. Yes I really do want to try one out.

 

True. One of the very good local jazz upright players wanted to get an electric back in the early 60s for his dance band gigs (the ones he could make money from). I advised him to get a Fender. He went out and bought a Kay, found that he couldn't stand the sound of the bottom E and the short scale although he loved the fact he could be heard. He brought it back to the store and coughed up the extra money for a Fender P and was very happy.

As far as the rock guys back then, a lot of them were into the look of things, same as the rock guys today. The look they wanted was the Fender. The others were sneered at and not taken seriously.

My first bass was a new 1960 Danelectro Longhorn. I learned to play on it and kept it for a year, then got a Fender P. The Danelectro was okay to learn on but just didn't have the sound. Of course, that was through the amps available then. These days with powerful amps with their huge amounts of eq possibilities, you can coax a better sound out of these things.

For a while while playing my new Fender P I also used a Gibson short scale EB0 (can't remember the model number, but single pickup.) I had a lot of gigs going on in different clubs, including an after hours jazz gig, as well as teaching during the day and needed a second amp and bass to avoid schlepping gear around town. You could really whip around the short neck on these things but it just didn't cut it for critical things. By the way, I knew how to play and was the first electric bass player in my city that could get gigs other than 3 chord rock because I could read, play standards and had an ear and could fake or play from charts. I scared a lot of the upright players who were playing all the good paying gigs because I was getting some of their work. The band leaders loved the fact they could actually hear the bass and hear the bass parts that their arrangers had written and they'd paid for. Within a year they were all getting electrics, usually the Fender P. Most of them got a wonderful bass sound once they got used to the instrument.

I don't care if someone today wants to buy one of these retro reproductions. I just think the whole scene is a little funny and wouldn't buy one myself.

 

Fenders=apples
Kays=oranges

(and Danelectros would be, um plums, then)

 

There's a classic picture of Howlin' Wolf with his bass player playing one. Naturally, I can't find it now.

 

You almost lost me at "mega-cute"..........

Really, really cool looking bass.

 

I started a thread on this very bass a few months before this thread was started.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=460758&highlight=

In my thread, just about everyone who contributed absolutely HATED the bass!

Dunno - maybe I just caught everyone on a bad day...

Well, I still think it's a cool looking (and hopefully sounding) bass. I'd love to give one a test run!

 

I owned an original. I had it strung with Pyramid flats and it had a big fat warm sound. I used it for a jump blues band I was in. The only reason I sold it was I don't really like shortscale. I now use a Washburn AB-90. The reissues have a trussrod and a less chunky neck. If the repro pickups are the same would be a great bass for roots music, walking blues etc.and is more upright sounding than a Fender P.

 

I have one of these Kay reissue basses, it is an excellent bass, great for 50s rock and blues.

 

Does anyone have any clips?