Ok, what is this?

[Mustang Surly]

The guy in the video has obviously rewired his. On a stock one, 3 of the switches launch a barrage of your choice---katyusha rockets, RPGs or 120-PM-43 mortars while the other 3 give you a choice of pre-set tones: Tsar Nicholas II, Uncle Joe Stalin or Mikhail Gorbachev.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

"Any good" would depend on your own expectations and wants. Today this would be an extremely outré bass to play. Here is a pic of the electronics:

Just how did my control panel end up in a Russian bass guitar? Go ahead... get off my lawn.

 

[Mind Eroded]

::insert dated corny Russian/soviet union joke::: in soviet Russia played out joke tells you !

 

[AndreasR]

I had never seen a bass with a built in amp before.

 

[Warhawk]

I had a solid-body guitar with it's own amp and speaker. It was a horrid piece of junk but it ran on a 9 volt battery and looked like a Strat. The brand was Synsonics and I paid a whole two dollars for it at a local junk store in the early '90s. I'd still have it but my bandmates and I used it as a Who tribute at a show. The body was made of some good particle board so it took several of us to finally break the thing. LOL I always wondered if Synsonics made a bass with a built-in speaker and amp.

 

[madbass6]

So I'm digging through some photos on my computer and found this. I reckon I saw it online and swiped it some time ago. This screams Matsumoku but does anyone know what company had themView attachment 1053387 make it, or what it's even called?

it's a Bass!!

 

[Mustang Surly]

"You only have to look at Soviet era cars, motorbikes, apartment blocks, farming methods etc etc etc."

So maybe this bass was made by the night shift at the Lada factory.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nr3o5Bmd2uU/maxresdefault.jpg

 

[96tbird]

I had a solid-body guitar with it's own amp and speaker. It was a horrid piece of junk but it ran on a 9 volt battery and looked like a Strat. The brand was Synsonics and I paid a whole two dollars for it at a local junk store in the early '90s. I'd still have it but my bandmates and I used it as a Who tribute at a show. The body was made of some good particle board so it took several of us to finally break the thing. LOL I always wondered if Synsonics made a bass with a built-in speaker and amp.

 

[KillerEddie]

This whole thing has taught me one thing: I have to own one of these. There's one in eBay now but it's all black and I want a version with white pick guard . I'm also seeking the Jolana basses which have my interest

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

This whole thing has taught me one thing: I have to own one of these. There's one in eBay now but it's all black and I want a version with white pick guard . I'm also seeking the Jolana basses which have my interest

What color would you like? Spoiler alert... may be discontinued, but them give a holler... you never know.
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[Matthew Fisher]

But only many, many years after they moved away from communism. I wouldn't get into a car that was built in the USSR or East Germany.

Kids these days. No sense of adventure.

 

[HaphAsSard]

Don't quit your day jobs y'all!

 

[BAG]

Kids these days. No sense of adventure.

I'm far from being a kid these days (although my wife would tend to disagree at times) but if i'm going to kill myself in a car or motorbike i'd prefer it to be due to my mistake and not because Boris was too lazy to bother doing his job properly.

 

[2tonic]

You do realize that our astronauts ride their rockets to the international space station, right?

Yeah, but nowadays any Tom, Dick, or Harry with enough garage space appears capable of building an ascent stack that can achieve orbit. It would appear, as it were, that rocket science isn't rocket science anymore.
Back when Boris was building those incredibly powerful main stages the tech level was more tractor factory than cutting edge science, and re-purposed wire, pumps, and switches (some or which appear to have been used in this bass) was one of the reasons they needed such a heavy lift capacity. When they tried to apply this construction technique to smaller ICBMs that had to clear a silo anytime at any temp.......well, just nyet......thus my earlier comment.

As an aside, I'm surprised to see a bass shaped Soviet instrument that actually produces musical tones. During a substantial portion of the previous century it was widely believed that whatever Soviet factory was selected, whether automobile, bedframe, baby carriage, or instrument maker, a worker who pilfered all the parts to reassemble at home would invariably end up with a machine gun.