Tobias Trio

If nothing else, I am a man prone to obsession once something sparks my fire. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately?), I tend to have many obsessions. I have cab obsessions, amp obsessions, bolt-on bass obsessions, and neck-through bass obsessions, to name a few. But, very near the top of my list has been my longtime love affair with the basses made by Michael Tobias. It was only long after the dreaded "G-word" came into play that I was able to even consider buying one of his basses, but the thought that I might be able to find one of Mike's early basses was never far from the surface.

So, in typical Tom Bowlus form, once I found myself a nice pre-Gibson era Tobias, I quickly had to jump on two more! I keep telling myself that it beats a drug addiction... Right???

At any rate, I am lucky enough to now own three of Mike's early basses. The red one is a Basic 5 (#766), and this was my first score. It has birdseye maple wings, and a pao ferro fingerboard. Mike tells me that this is the unofficial "Jimmy Haslip model." The next one I picked up is the Classic 5 (#602; in the middle). It was actually made for one of Michael's employees, Richard Oblinger ("Obe"). It has a highly figured koa body, purpleheart top, and some serious flaming in the maple in the neck. My latest acquisition is the bubinga winged Basic 5 (#1353). This was made in Burbank by Mike and his crew, and Mike claims that this is one of his favorite wood combination for these basses.

Here are some shots:









Here is a closeup of the inlay at the 12th fret on Obe's Classic 5:



And a better look at the killer koa body:



I have nothing but respect and admiration for Michael Tobias and his work. Truly, I consider it an honor to own even one of these "mythical pieces of wood." Given that these are somewhat hard to come by nowadays, I just wanted to share the images of these beautiful instruments with my TalkBass brothers and sisters!

Of course, Michael's contemporary work is pretty darn nice, too...

Take care, Tom.

 

Thank you for the clarification!

 

That is, indeed, the problem! The koa Classic has probably the best midrange that I have heard in a bass. The bubinga Basic has a very powerful, yet clear, low-mid. The maple Basic has the strongest low B and the most aggressive overall tone. But, the setup on the red one is such that its strings are a good bit closer to the bridge pickup than on the other two. Ideally, I'd like to spend some time tweaking the setup on each bass to make the most fair comparison between the three. As they are now, they all play great (no fret buzz, decent action), but somewhat surprisngly, they are all set up fairly differently (differing amounts of neck bow and differing bridge heights). There does not seem to be any warping problems with any of the necks, so I think it's just a matter of tweaking them so that they are all set up more or less the same.

Tom.

 

It is there, hiding in the shadows.

 

What amazes me is that Michael used that for a body wood! You just don't see that done much anymore. A luthier could get much more money out of a nice chunk of wood like that if they only used it for top woods. Same goes for the birdseye maple in the red Basic.

Tom.