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Veillette-Citron Owners!

Twocan

Twocan

Living the Dream
Supporting Member
Oct 5, 2009
1,885
2,186
New England, USA
www.instagram.com
#1
Joe Veillette and Harvey Citron made these basses between 1976 and 1983 primarily in Upstate, NY. The craftsmanship of of the instruments is truely amazing. I believe all parts aside from the tuners were made in-shop, including features such as an Ebony thumb rail, brass nut, brass back-plate and a two-piece brass bridge. VC was one of the first, if not THE first to build neck-thru basses. Premium woods were used and the finishes are beautiful.

I was wondering if there are any other TB'ers out there that own one. Here's an opportunity to post any pics you may have as well as to share some information.

I've found little information on these basses across the web. According to this article ( Link Removed ), there were approx 250 VC basses built.

I picked up my first VC from a used instrument store in Upstate, NY (I do not recall what the # of it was). It had a horrible de-fret job and the pickups were switched out. I took it to Harvey Citron in the late 90's and he did some work on it for me - really nice guy. Like an idiot I sold the bass a few years later, not knowing what I had. Last week I finally was able to secure another one: #201, dated April, 1980. I'll make sure that I never let this one go!

My New VC:
Bass.jpg


My First VC:
MyBassTeenYears.jpg
 
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#2
The bass in the bottom picture of the article was mine. It was on their brochure cover in, if I remember right, around 1980. I was lucky enough to be at NAMM as a performing artist for St. Louis Music that year, and got that bass for 'half price' on the floor of NAMM ($800!). That was BIG money for me. I played that bass for almost 10 years.

It was a beautiful 4 string (I guess almost all basses were still 4's back then). It had an amazing rosewood top. For better or worse, I had Hi A (now Bartolini) pickups and the original Bart preamp installed in it in the mid 80's (I kind of feel bad doing that now, but it really sounded good).

Fantastic instrument, and seeing that brochure picture (the one again in the article shown in your first link... with the bass positioned in a four corner mirror image) really brings back memories.

I was very good buddies back then with a fellow St. Lous bass player named Al Caldwell (who went onto much bigger and better things than I did!), who still comes around this site a bit. I hope if he sees this he will post up. Since this was one of the first 'hippy sandwich basses' most of us had seen in St. Louis at that time, I remember it showing up and Al and I literally just looking at it in the case.. like a Spinal Tap moment... 'that one is not for playing... just look at it':D.

Thanks for posting that up. The guys at the company gave me a bunch of those brochures and I had one framed in my office for years.

Cool! Sorry for the nostalgia, but you don't hear about these much any more.

I wonder who has that bass now. It was KILLER!

K
 
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#3
The only picture I have of me playing that bass is part of a montage on Jan Shapiro's website. (I played behind her for years... she is at Berklee now heading up the vocal department).

Probably not worth it, since you have to suffer through a bunch of pictures, but you will see the neck and headstock about a minute into the montage... and skinny me with a beard.

http://www.janshapiro.com/

If anyone knows how to extract that picture from the montage, I'd love to have a copy. :)
 
#4
I used to own one, serial # 118. I know I have some old black & white photos of it somewhere around the house, but it'll take me days (literally) to find it...maybe over the weekend I can do some rummaging.

My favorite innovation of theirs was the metal serial number plate embedded inside the body laminates, "for x-ray confirmation"!

I think I was the third owner. There were some things about that bass that were really cool...but a lot of things about it that were wretched. For a swanky neck-thru that was informally known as the East Coast Alembic, it was surprisingly bland sounding. Then again, I had at least two clients who insisted I use that bass on sessions precisely because it had this big fat pillowy sound with no sparkle...almost Old Skool. Eventually the truss rod on mine broke; I tried contacting both Harvey & Joe to see if they could offer some tips on the instrument's construction, but never got a response from either. Wound up trading it in 1994 for what has become my main #1 you'll-never-pry-this-out-of-my-cold-dead-hands bass, so I guess it was a happy ending.

yeah, I'll go look for those pics & scan them if I find any. [edit: see post #13 below]
 
#5
Hoover said:
I used to own one, serial # 118. I know I have some old black & white photos of it somewhere around the house, but it'll take me days (literally) to find it...maybe over the weekend I can do some rummaging.

My favorite innovation of theirs was the metal serial number plate embedded inside the body laminates, "for x-ray confirmation"!

I think I was the third owner. There were some things about that bass that were really cool...but a lot of things about it that were wretched. For a swanky neck-thru that was informally known as the East Coast Alembic, it was surprisingly bland sounding. Then again, I had at least two clients who insisted I use that bass on sessions precisely because it had this big fat pillowy sound with no sparkle...almost Old Skool. Eventually the truss rod on mine broke; I tried contacting both Harvey & Joe to see if they could offer some tips on the instrument's construction, but never got a response from either. Wound up trading it in 1994 for what has become my main #1 you'll-never-pry-this-out-of-my-cold-dead-hands bass, so I guess it was a happy ending.

yeah, I'll go look for those pics & scan them if I find any.
Click to expand...

I remember that 'xray plate' thing. Cool! I always like mine, but when I hot rodded the electronics, I ended up loving it. Those old Barts/Hi A's and that original Bart pre with the treble boost voicing switch, etc. really was cool.

K
 
#6
I don't have a V-C, but I do have a Joe Veillette Mark IV fretless that I bought from Joe at his shop in Woodstock in summer of 2008. I have a house near there and gig up there. I've been to Joe's shop a few times - he is a good guy. Now - on Jan. 10 my band is appearing right before his at a benefit gig. So I am going to play the Veillette bass on as many songs as it works for (I am not sure of our set list yet). I am very psyched about playing the Veillette bass when I know he'll be there. :hyper:

I will try to post a pic of that bass this weekend.
 
#7
I used to have a nice 2 pickup one without the thumb rail. It also had a nice top figure. It had yanked frets out and the finish stripped off it and EMG's put into it. It was a great bass that I stupidly traded away many years ago. Great quality instruments for sure.
Dirk
 
#8
I actually emailed them (Citron Guitars) after seeing their bass in BP magazine.Was really impressed but did not got a reply from them..till today and that was at least a couple of months ago.
 
#10
not to shift gears on this thread, but I also play a little mandolin in one of my bands, and I am seriously GAS-ing on what Joe V. calls the Gryphon - a 12 string tuned at the D a whole step below the E an octave over a conventional guitar. Holy mackerel on this instrument:

acgrymaplenc-002.jpg


[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
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#11
I have a 4, 8, and a 6 string (guitar). pics at Link Removed under "music stuff".

the 4 is on "killing it " & "wanton", some 8 volume swells on "king", and "mujer malvada" is just the 8 (plus vocals) with slide at the end.

yeah, I like Veillette-Citrons.
 
#17
There used to be a distributor of musical instruments across the street from where I worked in about 1981 that had a few VC basses. I used to go there at lunch time to drool in the window. I always wanted a VC bass but could never afford one. Now that I can they are hard to find and way more expensive.
 

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