The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Other Bass Brands => Topic started by: Max Soren on January 15, 2008, 01:03:37 PM
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Does anyone know how good one of these is supposed to be? All I know is that they are supposed to be associated with Sears and Silvertone. When I was young, Silvertone was the cheapest thing around and not highly regarded at all. Yet, the bassist for Golden Earring has played Danelectro a lot through the years. I'm just curious how these basses are rated now. I'm speaking of the vintage ones, not the reissue basses.
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I've heard nothing but great things about them. I think long horns are medium scale (32") ?
Entwistle played one and was rumoured to be used on My Generation- I also read it was a Fender Jazz.
A nice bass for the money
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I had almost forgotten about that. He used it on "My Generation," then something happened and he had to record the song using something else, but said the Danelectro sounded better. I'm not very informed on the Who, but I think this is correct.
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I've heard nothing but great things about them. I think long horns are medium scale (32") ?
Entwistle played one and was rumoured to be used on My Generation- I also read it was a Fender Jazz.
A nice bass for the money
The longhorns are short scale. The "short horns"--the ones that I've only seen in copper, are ultra-short scale. The reissue longhorns are nice basses for the money. However, the original longhorns are priced way above their worth as player's basses. If you want a bass that has most of the vibe, then I would go with a reissue or a Jerry Jones longhorn.
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I had almost forgotten about that. He used it on "My Generation," then something happened and he had to record the song using something else, but said the Danelectro sounded better. I'm not very informed on the Who, but I think this is correct.
I remember reading about this. Here's a quote from thewho.net:
“I played that solo on a Jazz bass with tapewound strings through a Marshall 50 watt and 4x12. Interestingly, the bass solos on the earlier takes were much more complicated, and played on a Danelectro which had a much more piano-like sound. It was a medium scale bass with a two-octave neck. The trouble was that the strings were so thin that I kept breaking them. We’d record during the day and, to finance the sessions, we were playing gigs nearly every night, and inevitably I’d break a string. None of the music shops had any replacement strings and no string manufacturers made replacement strings thin enough for Dano basses then, so I had to go down to Marshall’s and buy a new Dano for £60. I ended up with three new Danelectros, all with busted strings! In the end I busted my last string at the third attempt and there weren’t any more in the country. I thought, ‘f*** it’, and went and bought myself a Fender Jazz bass and a set of La Bella strings, and played the solo with that. But it was a different sound and a simplified, slowed-down version of the solos on previous takes.”
I've always wanted a longhorn. Probably won't be getting an original at this pont, though. A local GC had one for a mere $2200 USD, or thereabouts. I'd go for the Jerry Jones version before I'd spend that on an original...
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Another Longhorn player is Jack Bruce. He's been said to have used it on the Disraeli Gears album and on White Room off Wheels Of Fire..
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I suspect that the re-issues were built a little better than the originals from Neptune . The first batch of Korean copies were remakably true to the originals . The later versions have slight improvements , better bridges and tuners . The original vintage Longhorns are not that easy to find and can be expensive .
The Jerry Jones copies are great little rigs .
I have one of the first batch of Korean re-issues . I only paid $200. Cdn for it new when a local store was blowing out the last of their inventory . Might have been the best $200 I have ever spent .... I love the cheap little thing . It weighs next to nothing , is a lot of fun to play and sounds great .
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A friend of mine has a Danelectro Long Horn (not a reissue). They even named the band (http://www.drizzten.com/blog/2003/06/the_longhorn_devils_rock.html) after that silly little bass made of masonite (sort of compressed cardboard fibre). It sounds real cool.
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Bob Reed of the Trashmen played a Longhorn on Surfin' Bird and their other early recordings. The band still plays occasionally and Reed is still bassist but I have no idea what he uses today.
I was in high school back then, and nobody I knew wanted one. We wanted Gibsons, Fenders or Gretsches. But Dano and Silvertone guitars and basses have certainly been used a lot over the years. It's the tone that counts, even if they are primitive.
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i had a friend who had a Hondo copy that was surprisingly nice.
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I've seen a couple of Hondo copies but they were solidbodies in the shape of a Dano Longhorn. Did Hondo make a copy with Dano-type construction?
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The Dano Longhorn is a fun, little bass. It's about as flimsy feeling as you can get, but those lipstick pups are just great, and I love the body style. I had one for a few years when my son started playing. I may just get another one. Jerry Jones made a copy for a while, with a better bridge on it.
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I've got one (the early Korean reissue) and though it feels like a toy it just sounds great and grown up. Very responsive with lots of fundamentals and balls.
Uwe
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Uwe,is there any bass you don't have?
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One of my main interests in this board is because of the Gibson section. When I posted this topic in the other basses section, I was doing so because I was so curious about this Danelectro. I was also skeptical about it. But I have seen so many positive comments about it, now I actually want one. I've looked and I can't find these sold anywhere. Does anyone know where one might be found?
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I've looked and I can't find these sold anywhere. Does anyone know where one might be found?
I see them on Ebay regularly, usually selling in the $3-400 USD range.
Theres a nice-looking cream-colored one up there now:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=180208003596&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=008 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=180208003596&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=008)
(http://i12.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/d3/7a/b095_1.JPG)
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Thanks. I try to avoid EBAY, but it's beginning to look like that's going to change. It seems 99% of the basses I'm interested in are either vintage or discontinued. This is no exaggeration and it's getting very frustrating. I also seem to have an uncanny ability to try to find a bass just after it has been discontinued.
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I should have known better than to pop back in here. I told myself I wasn't buying anything else. :o
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I had a copperburst RI, and it was very good. I just can`t get used to short scale basses.
The RI`s also came in black, in redburst and blueburst.
I don`t think it`s worth the money to get yourself a vintage one. The RI`s are probably better in the way that they don`t have so much wear that they fall apart.
Ther is a Hondo copy now available on Evilbay, but it has a Pbass style pickup, you should go for the lipstick pickup imo.
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That cream one went pretty high - $500?
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$555 for a Korean reissue Dano? Wow.
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Well, at least we now know where the money is to be made in a down economy! :o
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I had a shorthorn years ago, and have played a few long horns, and Corals. And one Dan Armstrong Modified. They are great giggable guitars and basses. They sound unique. They were great for a beginner, and also if you had chops. Masonite glued up to a pine-stock frame, and the edges finished off with wallpaper. Kind of like a VW bug for musicians. I used to see them typically in the $100-250 range, so I only bothered with the one. I actually miss it.
They are starting to make them again, so I don't understand people forking over $500 for the ones from 5 years ago. But I never get people.
You can still get old parts/freak versions from Fat Dog.
Entwistle, Jack Bruce, Paul Samwell Smith - lots of your favorite Brit bassists have gigged with the dang things.
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When I first started playing, I got the catalog for Coral/Danelectro. That's where I first saw them. I think The Who used to buy crates of Coral guitars to bust up.
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My Jerry Jones Longhorn Basses 6 and 4-string:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/iamthebassman/longhorns.jpg)
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Having gone to high school about a dozen miles from the old Dano factory, I have been a longtime fan of the instruments - and I've wanted a Longhorn since around 1979 when I first heard about the Entwistle connection - though never found one I could afford - they were always a bit high priced in the Jersey area due to the local lore.
So some facts on the construction:
- scale length is the same as the Shorthorn Dano bass - a tad over 30 inches (same scale length is also used on Dan Armstrongs)
- fretboard is longer to accomodate 24 frets
- came in both a 6 string and 4 string bass version
- same circuitry with two pickups and concentric controls as on the two-pickup amp in case & doubleneck danos.
- as stated above, pine-block frame with masonite front and back, poplar neck with two fixed truss-bars and rosewood board
- cheap kluson open backed tuners, same as on Shorthorn bass and Harmony H-22 bass
Another player was the Welsh guy in the Jimi Hendrix experience - I think he used the 6 string bass version. Also, the Boston band The Lyres played matching longhorn basses and guitars back in the early 80s - though I believe they were actually copies labeled as Dynelectron - maybe Italian ??
I actually prefer the Korean reissues to the Jerry Jones models - and not just because of price ! I think the "improved bridge" on the reissues is a major mistake - the old Dano bridge with a rosewood saddle is a key element of its sorta non-sustaining sound. I also think that the old necks are VERY stiff - which contributes to the overall feel and sound - not sure the reissues with adjustable truss rods capture the same feel.
My two cents.
Krishna
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Thanks for the specs. I always wanted to try one.
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My Jerry Jones Longhorn Basses 6 and 4-string:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/iamthebassman/longhorns.jpg)
Man, those are pretty basses!
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... I think the "improved bridge" on the reissues is a major mistake - the old Dano bridge with a rosewood saddle is a key element of its sorta non-sustaining sound. I also think that the old necks are VERY stiff - which contributes to the overall feel and sound - not sure the reissues with adjustable truss rods capture the same feel.
My two cents.
Krishna
I don't think there's anything wrong with either the new style bridge or the adjustable truss rods, but I do agree with you that they both make the reissues and JJ basses feel and sound different. Not bad at all, but not the same as the originals.
Stiffness on a short scale neck is critical to me, because it makes the strings feel stiffer even though the actual tension doesn't change. Most of those old Danos and Silvertones were very good about this.
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Re the neck stiffness on Dano's - most of the models have two steel bars that aren't quite parallel.
I also seem to recall looking at an x-ray of a neck once, and seeing that the two bars were of unequal length - maybe to prevent the neck from having one dominanting resonant frequency - if you think of the two bars as acting as big tuning forks, they would tend to dampen each other out at their respective resonant frequencies ( similar idea to breaking step on a bridge).
I think that even though Nathan Daniels was primarily trained as an electrical engineer, he was a good all around engineer - having actually built a sorta-longhorn from scratch, it becomes really apparent why certain features of the instruments were important from an industrial design point of view: these guitars were fast and easy to build, yet stable and consistent in playability and sound. Even the way the copper-finished bodies are painted ensured that little or no masking was required during the painting process and very little skill operating a spray gun - yielding a big savings in time and labor costs.
So I think the stiff yet non-resonant neck on Danelectros is not simply a happy mistake - pretty sure that was the attribute Daniels was going for - and part of the reason the old ones play and sound the way they do. Out of the dozen or so Danos I've owned, I've never had one with a bowed or warped neck - not even the 12-string Bellzouki model !!
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I had never heard about the rods being unequal, but I have the same impression about the instruments. Everything was carefully considered, including the body shapes that were designed around the wood frames.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJnNdixQqu0
Rinus gerritsen from The Golden Earring.
And he also has a custom double neck which marries the short scale Dano neck and lipstick pickups with a Longscale Fender and humbucker pickups from a Gibson T-bird.
(http://www.persfoto.com/database/albums/wpw-20040731/normal_20040506_018_Golden_Earring_013_Tilburg.jpg)
The short scale dano neck also has a Kahler vibrato
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYtI3j52Nnw
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I'm still trying to get in toiuch with Rinus for a Gibsonbass.com interview....
Also search for 'Frank Kraaijeveld'. He's from a 44 year (!) old Dutch band called The Bintangs. He always plays two Dano's through some big Laney tube amps wit three 15" speakers. He has weared holes in his lipsticks because of using it as a finger rest!
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A Danelectro Longhorn 90's reissue was my first Electric Bass, though not my first bass. I've always loved the unique way that the lipsticks sound. Couple that with the short scale and you can really move around on the neck easily. And one of my favorite things about it is the fact that it weighs so little, and doesn't take up much space (which makes it very good for a 'backup gig' bass). The only downside I ever had with the bass was the tuners, especially the E string, refused to keep tune very long. So I was constantly retuning whenever I wasn't playing in any part of a song. And being a short-scale made out of ridiculously cheap 'woods' it doesn't have much sustain.
I have heard good things out of the Jerry Jones copies and also out of some of the new reissues. I've thought for a while about taking it out of service and perhaps trying to get some new tuners and perhaps a different bridge for it, but haven't actually started any work on it yet. And as someone mentioned before, I'm not sure that taking the rosewood saddled bridge away would be a good idea.