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Soviet Tonika Bass - Exploded (Pic Heavy)

#41
sps500 said:
WoW! And I thought it was the Chinese that were the first to make crap instruments! :)
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china didn't even get into the crap instruments game until the 80's. they're latecomers. but i'll tell you what...the chinese make damn good crap instruments. wouldn't trade my chinese danelectro longhorn for love or money.
 
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#44
Well, as a lover of communist guitars, one soviet electric 6string guitar from late 70's came into my possesion some time ago. I must say, they were all built with same logic as yours.

4 pickups with square magnets, undecipherable (radio-meets-tv like) electronics with 9 switches and 5 pots, really funny tremolo, mute system, 6din jack, "stereo" splitting system and on and on.

But what baffles me most, is the finish - looks much like yours - some gooey, plasticy, unsolvable with modern chems, black stuff that just doesnt get off but with hammer and sickle (<-- soviet joke there).

It has similar neck plate with price (in rubles, 210 to be exact) and azbuka writing. Yours is quite funny also, i can read a bit of azbuka - the large word on your says: 'elektrogitara "tonika"' and the price (middle row on right bottom) is 180 rubles.

Love the photos, thanks a lot, its a piece of history and madmanship of late CCCR, leave it as is, as far as original stuff goes. I changed only the tuners, coz they are really bad, but i found similar ones, so it still 'as original'.
 
#46
To be fair to our Soviet comrades...

The body shape is odd at first, but the weird cutouts at the bottom nicely nestle against the thighs when sitting, propping the neck at a comfortable angle, so it's the most ergonomic bass to be played while sitting you will ever find.

The deep red glitter pickguard and headstock, and the mother of toilet seat inserts in the pickup cases are awesome appointments.

I had an old Airline 6 string that wasn't much worse off in some ways. It had a minimally adjustable bridge, like this one. The pickups were also broken cheap bar magnets in metal cases which were screwed down on top of the pickguard, although they were more traditionally wrapped.

5675616590_696c40c418_b.jpg


A lot of the Japanese guitars (Teisco Del Ray, etc) had similarly overdeveloped and incomprehensible switching and knobs, although I haven't seen quite the same giant rotary switch before in a guitar.

While this bass is a testament to ineptitude, and there has been a long history of political acrimony between the East and West, please don't get this thread locked! Not speaking to anyone in particular, or any post already made.

If I were to have an Eastern Bloc bass made, it would have to be the Orfeus Rocket from Bulgaria.
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Jimmy, you should check out the Orfeus Violin Bass, complete with painted-on tiger striped sunburst back!
http://www.cheesyguitars.com/orfeus_plovdiv_bass.html
 
#50
Couldnt you hide some "real" single coils inside the pickup housing? A pair of Fenders, DiMarzzios or Duncans under there would help a lot.
And for the neck-would it be possible to have a luthier shave the fretboard and have a fret job done? This way you keep it as original as possible.
 
#53
Look, all I'm saying is that the usual knee-jerk American response to anything on the other side usually ignores some pretty basic facts. They got into space first, they commercialised getting people into space first, they essentially hounded NASA into getting onboard with the international space station. And for all their lower grade of tech, they kept the other side of the curtain going strong for nearly half a century, even though much of that side didn't want to be there. Obviously, there was something to them, even if it's not a system any of us would have like to live under.

As for us up here, we didn't have to do it first: After the Avro Arrow was cancelled, a couple dozen of our best aeronautics engineers went and got NASA to the moon.

I'm not bringing any of this up because it's important. I just figured that an ignorant statement needed a shot back. I'm not interested enough to really explore this. Especially since this is a thread about a bass.

I happen to think the bass is pretty cool looking, if not exactly pretty.

EDIT: Just thought of something. Doesn't one of the Flight of the Conchords dudes use a cheap Russian bass as well? I remember reading that somewhere.
 
#54
JimmyM said:
china didn't even get into the crap instruments game until the 80's. they're latecomers. but i'll tell you what...the chinese make damn good crap instruments. wouldn't trade my chinese danelectro longhorn for love or money.
Click to expand...


+1. It's almost disheartening to see so much good stuff coming out of China these days. Same thing's been happening in mountain bikes for a long time. To the point that they're just better at the carbon fibre stuff (for instance) than we are these days. When I first saw that even Rocky Mountain had changed the 'Handmade in Canada' to 'Assembled in Canada' on some of the frames, it felt like the end of an era.

But the consumer wants a good axe/bike/amp at a good price, and I guess that just means far-east factories.
 
#55
Margus Alviste said:
Hey guys, you can laugh at all that ... but I had to play these!!! I even owned one that looked like the one on the picture. Luckily it was impossible to play it so I sold it and got soon a Germain made Musima DeLuxe bass. BTW, it happened only because my friend knew someone in the state owned shop for cultural facilities.
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What were the necks like when new? Were they straight from the factory and warped easily after that? How about the frets, were they set in the neck completely, or were they messed up from the start?

Also, the strings... did they have bulges and uneven places in them, or were the ones on my bass damaged?

I feel for you, having to play one. There were some cool looking guitars and basses made in that part of the world, but the reality of playing one is kind of a nightmare. Even that Musima had a 2 bolt neck.
 
#56
From one Canuck to another, brother, let it sleep. You'll only get more frustrated if you travel that road. It's like a federalist debating a separatist, nothing good can come of it.

That bass is way cool in it's cheesy-ness. OP get that thing working! Find a bar magnet and get those p'ups rocking through a tube amp! Whip it out for that special song where you need a dull thump mojo.
 
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#58
Bobby B said:
What were the necks like when new? Were they straight from the factory and warped easily after that? How about the frets, were they set in the neck completely, or were they messed up from the start?

Also, the strings... did they have bulges and uneven places in them, or were the ones on my bass damaged?

I feel for you, having to play one. There were some cool looking guitars and basses made in that part of the world, but the reality of playing one is kind of a nightmare. Even that Musima had a 2 bolt neck.
Click to expand...

Yeeaaahhh, these basses were not mentioned for playing. They just produced these to keep the factory's 5-year plan fulfilled (try to find the backgraound information in Wiki or anywhere in internet). The necks were very bulky and sometimes they even didn't have truss rods or these rods didn't work at all. All the necks were warped and frets were uneven and sometimes installed in wrong places. The strings were also like somebody had taken them from a piano. And as you already saw the pickups and electronics were even worse. So they only look like they were basses. Poor crap from the start to end. :)
 
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