One day...
I saw Robert C. Anderson, playing bass with his band in the subway at Times Square.
I imagined a bass
So I used what I had around to build the most compact electric bass you never saw before... with built-in amplification.
The first project turned out well but it did not have enough sound to match the power of the brass players in the band.
When I had time...
The Blackstar mini has a feature where you can connect their extension cabinet and access the full wattage and more than double the sound it puts out.
So I arranged another bass like this.
The first time he played it
Not only did it have the juice to hold up to the horns, but it also did not look like any other bass.
But we were still not satisfied.
Robert learned how to play on a classic bass, standing up. It's not practical to use these on the NYC streets, but he saw something in what we had that was practical. If we could only make it StandUp.
So I took it all apart
And added some of the parts from a junk hollow-body electric guitar, the end-pin from a classic bass, and some marine hardware.
The clip highlights how well the bass serves sitting on the lap or Standin’ Up -the way that he imagined playing it right from the start.
Once he put it on the floor, he played it that way for the rest of the set. I really like the way Standin’Up allows Robert to access certain nuances in his experiences with a classic bass which don’t come all the way through when he is playing with the neck horizontal.
Oct 20, 2020 at 9:53am
out of many, one.
E Pluribus Unum was once the motto of the United States of America and references the fact that the cohesive single nation was formed as the result of the thirteen smaller colonies joining together.
Materials:
-
Neck
Fender® Jazz Bass I never had the guitar this was on. I scored it on eBay. Robert needed a fretless, so I removed them and filled the slots. -
Beam
Stanley® Carpenter level I like to create a level playing field. -
Body
1960s import hollow-body electric guitar. -
Bridge
floating, trapeze style -
Pickup
Jazz Bass® -
Amplifier
This is the first Rubÿtone to finish with no amplifier. Well, I think it is finished on 10/23/20