Need info on "Basses Loaded" 5 String

[duke2004]

If anyone can give me info on the lineage of a very sweet 5 string bass that ive owned for about one year, please let me know. bought it from a local guy in Boston but lost the link he gave me.
Its a wide neck high quality 5, the name does NOT come form the bass store called Basses Loaded, rather that is the name on the headstock. All i remember is that the luthier did a few of these Sadowsky-esque models and now he builds custom upright basses in New York.

 

[klocwerk]

If anyone can give me info on the lineage of a very sweet 5 string bass that ive owned for about one year, please let me know. bought it from a local guy in Boston but lost the link he gave me.
Its a wide neck high quality 5, the name does NOT come form the bass store called Basses Loaded, rather that is the name on the headstock. All i remember is that the luthier did a few of these Sadowsky-esque models and now he builds custom upright basses in New York.

Duke, the red one that's for sale at the Cambridge Music Center shop? If you have another one in Cambridge that'd be quite the coincidence...

I played it in the store a month or two ago, it was still there last week. It seemed like an ok bass, it's got a very wide neck and is in dire need of a setup. One big gouge (quarter sized iirc) in the finish on the bottom edge.

I posted on these forums back then for more info on it because i was curious, someone gave me a link to some info on it. I'll try to scare up that thread.

 

[klocwerk]

here's my thread on that particular bass.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=202041

so do you have another basses loaded bass?

 

[duke2004]

hey there,
that is in fact the bass. i dont remember the action being weird but i believe you. thanks for the link, for some reason it didnt come up in my TB search. btw, if interested, i can cut you a deal on that bass. what did you think of the sound? i remember it being pretty solid

 

[klocwerk]

hey there,
that is in fact the bass. i dont remember the action being weird but i believe you. thanks for the link, for some reason it didnt come up in my TB search. btw, if interested, i can cut you a deal on that bass. what did you think of the sound? i remember it being pretty solid

I didn't plug it in, so I can't comment on the sound, sorry.

The action just needs a setup, quick tweak on the truss rod ought to fix the fret buzzing. The string spacing was much too wide for my personal tastes, but if someone wanted wide spacing I don't think you could go wrong with it.

 

[winston]

I remember seeing Joe Jackson's bassist with one in the '80's, too. I wrote away and got a Basses Loaded catalog from Bill Merchant back in the Reagan years.

A couple years ago I was doing sound at a Baltic music festival at the Russian Cultural Center in San Francisco. There was a crazy-tight band there called Top Dog Run whose bassist, Bill Lanphier (who played with Madonna in the '80's) was playing a white Basses Loaded 5 string. It looked like he used a PC spacer at the B string ball end to get a little more length. Bill plugged the bass right into a little GK MB150 and played astoundingly intricate, funky, odd-meter grooves all night. He sounded GREAT.

 

[MattFoxx]

PICS??????

 

[Moo]

I remember (somewhat) when Bill introduced these about 20 years ago. He was one of the first to offer a wide 5 in the era of 5 strings being squeezed onto a 4 string neck.

He used the same neck for his 5's and 6's which made the 5's pretty darn wide.

 

[duke2004]

got some shots of the red beast. bartolinis, active/bypass switch, active eq adds treble only, adds bass only.

 

[duke2004]

dark rosewood board is 3" at 20th fret, a wide 2-11/16 at 12th fret and 1-7/8" at nut. Pretty much 3/4" spacing at bridge, but this neck feels wider than any ive played. also, the B string is as reported. quite the beast.

 

[conebeckham]

I know this is an old thread....
I have a Basses Loaded Six String, made in 1988...I had the neck shaved and a refret job done, and eventually pulled an amateurish "Jaco" on the thing--the neck is pretty shot, truss rod is maxed, and I've shimmed the neck so it's playable as a fretless.

I'm thinking of having a new neck made, and maybe putting a new bridge on it, so I can have a six string fretless.

 

[conebeckham]

...mine has Barts as well, and an "add-only" two band 9 volt Bart preamp, with a bypass switch, two vols. and a concentric two knob tone control.

 

[winston]

Interesting, pics would be great!

 

[conebeckham]

Will try to take some pics and post them...

 

[conebeckham]

 

[conebeckham]

LOL, been a few years.....I am looking to have a new neck made.....