Why Slab Basses? Can a tort guard save them?

[engedi1]

Ok. I am 100% mystified why anyone would ever, under any circumstance, get a modern custom bass like Nash or Bluesman in the form of a slab precision. Can't we all agree that the slab precision was simply an earlier, and lamer design that was perfected when the contoured precision models came out later in the decade? Now, I fully understand the awesomeness of owning an original '52 P bass, but to pay a luthier big buck to make a reproduction of a bass that will give you carpal tunnel and tennis elbow and is uncomfortable sitting or standing makes no sense to me.
Of course along with the tonal improvements, as well as automatic boost in funkability and mojo, that accompany installing a tort guard on your bass, perhaps the tort also makes the slab bass less likely to give you repetitive stress injury?

 

[40Hz]

Looks, and to a lesser extent 'feel,' sometimes takes a backseat to sound. Or at least it does with me.

I don't care too much how a bass looks most times. I'm very interested and a little fussy about how it plays. But even with that, if it sounds great when I play it - and I'm in the market for a 'new' bass, I can put up with almost anything. Even a slab body.

YMMV.

 

[engedi1]

Looks, and to a lesser extent 'feel,' sometimes takes a backseat to sound. Or at least it does with me.

I don't care too much how a bass looks most times. I'm very interested and a little fussy about how it plays. But even with that, if it sounds great when I play it, I can put up with almost anything.

YMMV.

I don't care about looks so much either, but discomfort yes. Especially on a 4 hour gig. Comfort is almost more important than tone once over 35 lol.

 

[2saddleslab]

Could not disagree more! Slab is where it's at. Hope this doesn't get your shorts in a bunch.

 

[engedi1]

My shorts don't bunch easy. Your basses have so much mojo I can hear it through the screen! Different strokes and all that. I don't like hollowbodies, slabs, or bridges with only 2 adjusters. But if it works for you I am happy. What year is the black one?

 

[2saddleslab]

My shorts don't bunch easy. Your basses have so much mojo I can hear it through the screen! Different strokes and all that? What year is the black one?

I hear ya. Guess I'm ticking lots of boxes. It was originally built in 1996.

 

[DigitalMan]

Calling any bass ugly (deserved or otherwise) is against the rules. Every bass is somebody's baby.

 

[40Hz]

I don't care about looks so much either, but discomfort yes. Especially on a 4 hour gig. Comfort is almost more important than tone once over 35 lol.

I guess once you go way over 35 like me (I'm 60) you lose some of your sensitivity.

More seriously, when I think back on some of the crap we "old" bass players used to put up with because "that's just the way it was" with electric basses back then, I'm amazed my hands and shoulders are even working at all anymore.

It's a good time to be a bass player. Even today's budget stuff will blow the doors off half of what I grew up with.

It's also good the newer generations are demanding- and getting - better.

Good work guys!

 

[engedi1]

Calling any bass ugly (deserved or otherwise) is against the rules. Every bass is somebody's baby.

I never said they were ugly. Where did you get that from?

 

[engedi1]

I guess once you go way over 35 like me (I'm 60) you lose some of your sensitivity.

More seriously, when I think back on some of the crap we "old" bass players used to put up with because "that's just the way it was" with electric basses back then, I'm amazed my hands are even working at all.

It's a good time to be a bass player. Even today's budget stuff will blow the doors off half of what I grew up with.

It's also good the newer generations are demanding- and getting - better.

Good work guys!

truth! I have been playing for 25 years, and I am amazed at what is out there today for $1000 that would have cost you $5000 in the early 90's, or didn't even exist. Especially in amps and speakers. But its ridiculous how good a Mexican made fender for $595 can be.

 

[Luckydog]

Nobody in an audience can see the sharp edges and lack of smooth contours, so even if there was supposed to be a "coolness" factor to it, the whole concept of it being about the "looks" are specious. Builders who make them get to skip a multitude of manufacturing steps, saving them time and money...steps that many of them probably dont even have the skills to properly execute in the first place. That may be why they try to market them as somehow "special". So they try to create desirability by promoting the "design" as tied to a well-known bass player like "the Ox".

 

[Lowendtech]

Could not disagree more! Slab is where it's at. Hope this doesn't get your shorts in a bunch.

drooldrool

 

[engedi1]

Nobody in an audience can see the sharp edges and lack of smooth contours, so even if there was supposed to be a "coolness" factor to it, the whole concept of it being about the "looks" are specious. Builders who make them get to skip a multitude of manufacturing steps, saving them time and money...steps that many of them probably dont even have the skills to properly execute in the first place. That may be why they try to market them as somehow "special". So they try to create desirability by promoting the "design" as tied to a well-known bass player like "the Ox".

This makes sense, except for builders like nash or bluesmans who are outstanding in their skills. They doing slabs as vintage repro's and outside of nostalgia I don't get it. Unless it has a tort guard of course, then I get it.

 

[40Hz]

Nobody in an audience can see the sharp edges and lack of smooth contours, so even if there was supposed to be a "coolness" factor to it, the whole concept of it being about the "looks" are specious. Builders who make them get to skip a multitude of manufacturing steps, saving them time and money...steps that many of them probably dont even have the skills to properly execute in the first place. That may be why they try to market them as somehow "special". So they try to create desirability by promoting the "design" as tied to a well-known bass player like "the Ox".

There's probably some truth in that with some makers. But I don't think that's universally true.

Of course there's also those players who swear a slab body is what gives these basses a distinct and superior tone over that of their contoured cousins. So I don't think it's a complete scam on the part of the bass makers.

Besides, there is such a thing as the importance of giving the buyer what they want (or think they want) when you're in business.

 

[Luckydog]

There's probably some truth in that with some makers. But I don't think that's universally true.

Of course there's also those players whoswear a slab body is what gives these basses a distinct and superior tone over that of their contoured cousins. So I don't think it's a complete scam on the part of the bass makers.

Besides, there is such a thing as the importance of giving the buyer what they want (or think they want) when you're in business.

Dont discount the likelihood of strictly marketing propaganda unless someone can provide any evidence that shows that leaving sharp edges on a bass body contributes in any meaningful way to tone. But of course as long as some people want something, there will be a market for it.

 

[40Hz]

Dont discount the likelihood of strictly marketing propaganda unless someone can provide any evidence that shows that leaving sharp edges on a bass body contributes in any meaningful way to tone. But of course as long as some people want something, there will be a market for it.

Absolutely agree.

There's likely to be at least some marketing propaganda behind everything from brand names and mojo all the way out to tone woods, pickup winding wire, and magnet formulation.

But there's also people who sincerely believe in those things. And since the hard data is still sorely lacking in order to definitively say around half of that is (or isn't) true, I just reserve judgement and go with my ears - and try very hard not to pee on somebody's pop tarts - unless they get exceptionally insulting with me about it.

But yes…there is a lot of hype out there. No two ways.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Of course some of it is "mojo". But for anyone who thinks that the slab body is not workable as a modern instrument, I present to you...

The Telecaster. Nope, no one using this.

 

[engedi1]

Of course some of it is "mojo". But for anyone who thinks that the slab body is not workable as a modern instrument, I present to you...

The Telecaster. Nope, no one using this.

Point! But not set or match. The much smaller size of the guitar minimizes the discomfort a great deal, and it's not really an issue on guitar. There is reason Fender still makes tele's as slabs but abandoned this for bass in '57

 

[Gaolee]

Tort saves nothing. It can ruin anything. That pattern should be saved for salami. This is absolute, irrefutable, scientific truth, not just my opinion.

 

[Lowendtech]

Ì

My photos will never be as good as @ASATMAN but I do love me some slab.