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Official TUNE Club

Thank you for the scans! This is interesting. It seems that my (and MoonDoggy's) basses are Somnus ZiII-6WN (or PD) with Walnut wood sandwiching a mahogany core, with a maple neck and ebony fretboard. (I'm not 100% on the walnut, it could be Paduak.)

Edit: Damn, seems those four woods mentioned were not the only ones available. On the cover picture two of the basses (the one on the left and the red one) have names (FM and TD) which aren't mentioned. So it might be something else than Paduak (or Walnut).
 
My tune is a ZiII with Hawaiian Koa top and back. It looks like the six string version of the middle bass--the koa four string (HK). I'll try to take a pic of it, but photography isn't one of my strong points.

I'll take a look when I get home and see if I can identify FM and TD.
 
My tune is a ZiII with Hawaiian Koa top and back. It looks like the six string version of the middle bass--the koa four string (HK). I'll try to take a pic of it, but photography isn't one of my strong points.

I'll take a look when I get home and see if I can identify FM and TD.

FM is probably Flamed Maple, as can be seen here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

According to this page http://www.flickr.com/photos/26493078@N05/4433679869/sizes/l/ there are models called "T" for "transparent", and if you look at the bottom of the left column there's some text missing, so perhaps the TP is specified there. I don't know.
 
"FM" means, I think, "Flame Maple"--which isn't listed as one of the options on the back of the flyer. Also I think the "TD" is a typo-it should be "PD" for Paduak. That looks like Paduak to me......
BLK means opaque black finish. PSW, I'm guessing, is an opaque white, maybe pearlescent?
 
FreeWilly, I'm with you....TP may mean Transparent Paduak.

TP means toilet paper! :hiding:

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Tune has offered MANY different colors, woods, and finishes over the years and the coding isn't totally consistent. I actually have a lovely Japanese Tune catalog from 1997. I'll have to get that scanned for you guys.
 
I've finally received an answer from the guy I bought my bass from, and he tells me this:

He bought the bass in 1990, and in 1992 he decided to spice up the sound (the original pickups "were noisy and lacked punch") so he changed the pickups to EMG:s and added an active EQ.
The pickup selector switch was added since the balance pot was changed to tone (and the tone was changed to EQ level), which explains why I haven't seen it on any other bass.
I've recently experimented with changing the knobs to gold dome ones, but I'm still not sure whether I like the result (see last image below).

Here are some more images of the beast. Since I don't have studio lighting in my living room I had to use maximum aperture which gives a rather shallow depth of field. Thus the images are a bit more "artistic" than informative.
Also, I've had difficulties rendering the color correctly. In most of the images the wood looks redder than in real life. I'm still not sure what kind of wood it is, but having searched google for images of both walnut and paduak, I can at least say that it's probably not walnut.
These two guitars are apparently paduak, and the similarity with the wood in my bass is high:
paduak_035767.jpg

paduak_custom7.jpg


Here are the images of my precious:
IMG_9025.jpg


IMG_9037.jpg


IMG_9045.jpg


IMG_9040.jpg


IMG_9049.jpg


IMG_9393.jpg


IMG_9026.jpg


IMG_9027.jpg


IMG_9047.jpg


IMG_9400.jpg


Schematics from the inside of the cover of the electronics compartment
IMG_9395.jpg


Experiment with gold knobs
IMG_9386.jpg


The album:
http://s835.photobucket.com/albums/zz278/WillyAlbum/

EDIT: An album with larger versions of the images is available.
 
Looks a lot like mine..imagine that, in Koa, and with 5 knobs and a switch--and Barts.

(I put an 18 volt Bart 3 band, w/ switchable mid freq, in, along with the pups, in the mid-90's).
Alas, one half of a pot shaft broke, so my "bass" knob is missing it's knob. Eventually I'll have it fixed.

I really need to get some photos up.....don't I?
 

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