The Last Bass Outpost

One can always donate mags to the local library.

You might be surprised. When I moved 7 years ago my local library didn't want any.

I still have a slide rule. Still know how to use it. But I rarely even use my calculator anymore. I just use my computer's calculator, and if I need any function it doesn't have, there are plenty of websites that can do it for you. Hell, you can do most of it by just entering your terms in Google.

Anyway, Open Office does everything I need and more.

I think I recycled mine.

Print media? What's that? 

Gibson Bass History began in 1953 & that is the year my EB was made & it also happens to be the year I was born.  

Gibson solidbody bass guitar history began in 1953.

Gibson made an electric upright bass in the late 30s and mandobasses as early as 1910.

I know we discussed Tutmarc back in the Pit days, and we've discussed the Gibson uprights here.

Bud Tutmarc (who passed away about 3 years ago) tells an interesting story about the origin of the pickup, but there were a number of people working on the idea independently in those years. And Barth and Beauchamp got theirs out first. It's possible that Paul Tutmarc actually made a working pickup first, but there's no proof.

I was recently watching an original Tutmarc Audiovox lap steel on eBay. I thought for sure it would sell since the opening bid was $999. This is a historical piece. Yet no one bid.

One item not mentioned in these articles is the "App Guitar" built by O. W. Appleton, who IIRC was a music salesman from Iowa. It was a one-off solidbody built in the early 1940s. He built the body and used a neck from a Gibson archtop. He presented it to Gibson with the thought of selling the idea to them. They turned him down. But what's interesting is that the guitar looked amazingly like the Les Paul they came out with about 10 years later. Not much about him online, I read this in a print article in the 90s.

Where's my Flux Capacitor?

I have been thinking the same thing in my quest for finding a decent standard humbucker sized replacement for my epi lp std bass,  just finding somthing that is wound for alot of bass and low mids i thik would probably work out great under as smooth chrome cover.

I don't know that there's any special formula to wind for a lot of bass or low mids.

There are so many variables. Shape of the coil, size of magnets, polepiece or magnet configuration, etc. The amount of wire on the coil is only one factor.