Chinese attack

[Bulwinkl]

This is probably rubbish (no truss, no adjustable bridge, no hook etc) but it looks like the first chinese attempt at doing a tap thing.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Awesome-10-String-Single-neck-Electric-Bass-Guitar_W0QQitemZ110453249221QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGui tar?hash=item19b786d4c5

[secondfiddle]

This seller has a lot of instruments for pennies on the dollar pricing. I don't think the 10 string would hold up for any lenght of time before the neck resembles something you could use it in an archery event.

[lactose]

There's got to be some sales potential for something like this. Granted, it should be structurally stable, but a carbon fiber spar or truss rod could be added for < $20. Well I guess you would want to add two.

[arsacane]

There's got to be some sales potential for something like this. Granted, it should be structurally stable, but a carbon fiber spar or truss rod could be added for < $20. Well I guess you would want to add two.

Once you have the proper design a truss rod will cost you $20 if you can buy it directly from the manufacturer (probably a guy in the same town in China). Shipping from China will cost you as much as the instrument itself though...

[rjgoos]

This is probably rubbish (no truss, no adjustable bridge, no hook etc) but it looks like the first chinese attempt at doing a tap thing.



Unless I missed something, I see nothing in the listing to suggest that it was being sold as a tapping instrument.

[HylerTouchstyle]

Observations:

-Non adjustable AND static scale bridge, inherently incorrect intonation regardless of string gauge selection
-Vertically laminated hardwood (look at the break in the middle of the instrument, back photo)
-No comment on truss (back in the earlier days, we made instruments with carbon fiber non-adjustable trusses in the neck)
-Overlapping Pickup design.... this is the most distubing. Either the stereo seperation will be completely ruined, or if it is mono operation between two pickups, the overlapping will cause the output to be extremely high in the middle strings.
-Is that a piece of scrap metal being used to cover a cavity where the electronics are and the volume knob is mounted to? Maybe that's why there's no side pictures
-That looks like the same "color" scheme that I used for a couple of the earlier Model IIs. Being maple/walnut, however I'm not sure what woods are being used here....

This is fairly sad, as in looking at some of the other work this guy is doing in his eBay store, some of it looks fairly solid. Not sure why someone with the ability to make a good instrument did not apply those talents to this touchstyle instrument. It's almost as if he had a leftover piece of laminate wood, an acoustic bridge, a couple of normal sized guitar pickups, threw them all together with some tuners frets, and called it a tapping instrument.

[lactose]

Yea I wondered about the pickup placement too. I thought, perhaps you could wire them out of phase and they might work that way ?

On my ten string I made these large pickup cavities so once I assembled the instrument, I could move the pickups from side to side so they could be adjusted to pickup all the strings well, yet reject the sound from the other set.

[rjgoos]

Now, it seems that someone else is selling this item, for about $1000 more:

http://tinyurl.com/ycga4u3

Very odd indeed.

[Noobie]

Now, it seems that someone else is selling this item, for about $1000 more:

http://tinyurl.com/ycga4u3

Very odd indeed.

And the figuring and shadowing on the back of the neck of the >$1k instrument are identical with the figuring and shadowing of the original and the relisted Chinese instrument. What are the odds?! *laugh*