I want to say one thing. In a world where bass guitar is the last thing on someone's mind today,with the Saddam news ,etc. ,here we are talking bass,so i got love all you guys.
jarred ,i get confused by your questions. Things evolve in a logical order.
i re strung my Stick in 1975 to play in 4ths tuning . It's bassically the same as a 9 string bass or 10 string low F#-to Eb.
I messed up some 6 and 8 string basses trying to make an all round wound string bass with as many strings as i could get. it turned out to be 7 without going to a plain steel string. i was in my early twenty's and didn't have money to do things like we do today.
I called a number of luthiers. My bass teacher in 1981 played a Smith bass and reffered me to Ken. I called him and told him about my home made 7 string s and sent him a deposit because he had the insight to take on the job.
After this didn 't work out ( no blame to anyone here) I went on several South Pacific gigs. I ended up in Hawai'i and in 1984 purchased a Smith pass II from Easy music. I have a copy of the warrenty form I filled out and sent to Ken SmIth basses limited.
a bass player I knew in Hawaii was trying to get some custom work done and talked with Ken ,and Ken told him to remind me he still had my deposit for the 7 string and asked my friend to ask me if I would be interested in a 6 string. I was still trying to get a 7 made but was touring and had to put it on hold .
No one had come out with a 7 string by 1986 ,so i walked into the 450 club in Northridge ,CA one night and saw a guy playing this beautiful bass. He told me it was a Tobias and that he worked there at Tobias , and Tobias would probably be able to build a 7 string for me . I went down the next business day to Tobias on Cahuenga blvd in Hollywood and we started designing a 7 string bass. I have a 1987 receipt somewhere for the bass.
I heard Brian Brombergs basses that had Rick Turner's bridge saddle pick ups and took my extra Tobias bridge to Rick Turner at Westwood Music in L.A.. i left it with him for a year and at the end of a year,he told me the spacing was too close for his pick ups to work.
About 6 months later , Alembic offered custom 7 strings and in bass Player Magazine in the August 1993 issue on page 16 ,there is "Win the Astounding Conklin 7-String..."
it goes on to say " it's no surprise that this limited-edition instrument was stopping basses in their tracks at the 1993 NAMM show , because there's nothing else like it '
well see ,there was something else ' like it " . my Tobias. I wrote a lettter to the editor (jim Roberts?) and said 'you can't print that ,there is something else like it " I had sent in a photo of my Tobias at an earler time .
The response I received was something like " we've seen dozens of 7 string basses,people send in photos all the time ". yes ,somewhere i have that letter.
So how it looks from my perspective is ,i went to Ken Smith first,and now he denies ever doing any busineess with me. Then I found Tobias and he built the bass. Then a photo shows up on a magazine "winter 1989" with a bass thhat has close spacing like mine ,carried over from my Fender Bass VI turned VII . no one has yet found out who built it or where it went.
Then I visit RIck Turner around 1990 ,then Alembic and Conklin start making 7 strings . I
called Bill Connklin after seeing the Bass player contest and asked "why did you make a 7 string bass ? " . I also asked who did his electronices. he replied 'Rick Turner ".
Now I am not saying one bad thing on this post,or trying to imply anything other than this i the time line i saw taking place.
so show me a custom 7 string predating my Tobias 7,#975 ,ordered in 1987 and i'll shut up.
I am going to post the Ken Smith stuff shortly.
