Got a bass with a slotted headstock? Post it up! 
Let's see those slotted headstock basses! I wonder if there will be more than 10? 
Let's see those slotted headstock basses! I wonder if there will be more than 10? 
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Slotted Headstocks?
- Thread starter Beej
- Start date
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- slotted headstock
I only have a picture of this Utria. Note that the headstock is closed in the back, so string changes are that more fiddly.
Had this one until about two weeks ago...
1970 Gibson EB-0L, where "L" stands for "long scale". I just don't play long scale anymore, and my bass-playing-son is more into FSOs, so off it went...
1970 Gibson EB-0L, where "L" stands for "long scale". I just don't play long scale anymore, and my bass-playing-son is more into FSOs, so off it went...
Here are a couple I've located, but aren't mine.
Custom build by David Higham (TB Member)
Stambaugh, but I don't know anything more about it...
Anyone got any others?
Custom build by David Higham (TB Member)
Stambaugh, but I don't know anything more about it...
Anyone got any others?
Stambaugh, but I don't know anything more about it...
View attachment 3592238
Anyone got any others?
Stambaugh has done it a few times. I think he didn't like doing it and no longer offers it.
I have an acoustic with a slotted headstock. Slight pain to restring. I generally don't order that on steel strings. The acoustic I own was already built with that. No pics since Photobucket is being a punk.
Ampeg’s “scroll” basses qualify for slotted I’d think.
IIRC Eastwood did one of their knockoffs on these too.
IIRC Eastwood did one of their knockoffs on these too.
That's a Classic Series GRJ, by Greg Rupp in California. GR looked promising back in about 2000, but the website at GR Basses apparently hasn't been updated since.
The Riverhead Jupiter deserves a honorable mention for going half the way:
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I don't really consider the Ampeg Scroll Basses to be "slotted" style headstocks. They are Scroll style, with full flat-sided pegboxes and curled heads. To me, a slotted headstock is basically a flat or tilted headstock, with slots or an opening cut in the middle, and the tuners mounted on the edges, keys down.
The Eastwood sorta-copy has a simpler headstock that qualifies as slotted.
By the way, that's my picture, and those are my basses! I like them.
Then you’ll be pleased to know they’re the first picture to pop up on a google search fir: “Ampeg scroll bass.”
It's a beautiful picture. I had it taken in 1997 by a local pro photographer, Don Hagopian, in his studio. I dusted off and posed the basses. I sure got my money's worth. It's become the classic Ampeg Scroll Bass photo.
Uh, symmetry issues aside, wouldn't the opposite arrangement have made more sense?
The problem with conventional headstocks is I have to raise my elbow to reach the bass-side tuning keys and turn them, while the treble-side ones are groundward-oriented, ergo comfortable to reach, as is; having (only) the bass-side slotted would make those keys easier to reach and operate at a non-awkward angle.
Then again:
if the bass being tuned is long-scale and hanging by a strap - typically onstage - the bass-side key-turning is done while holding the neck horizontally, keeping the elbow straight and having the hand, fairly comfortably, above the headstock: in that position, it's the treble-side tuners that become difficult to reach. So yeah, now that particular half-slotted headstock (as opposed to its opposite which I was advocating) is starting to make sense.
The abg at left has slotted headstock, movable saddle, string through bridge, internal soundhole ring, and elevated fingerboard extension. It's also the size of a 4/4 cello.
