http://cgi.ebay.com/GIBSON-20-20-Steinberger-Bass-Guitar-JMJ-Beck-NIN-/170683578720?pt=Guitar&hash=item27bd88b960 (http://cgi.ebay.com/GIBSON-20-20-Steinberger-Bass-Guitar-JMJ-Beck-NIN-/170683578720?pt=Guitar&hash=item27bd88b960)
This might be the first bass I almost bought, I thought about it too long. By the time I was ready to bite, I was told that it was purchased by Beck's road manager. A little music store in Bloomington MN. It's the first 20/20 of the few we've seen that was produced in 1988 & the first one to surface in about seven months.
Who'd have thought we'd see the day these basses are no longer met with derision?
I was the prophet. 8)
It's the flying V of basses, it's just taking twice as long to catch on! :o
Good relevation Brother Uwe! ;D
I'm tempted but I want something else the same seller has on eBay (GK 500MB head) more.
Great looking bass, love the styling.
The 20/20 generates more interest on this forum than it ever did while it was in production.
The members of this forum just have the hindsight or the foresight to understand the vision of past bass designers and the essence that they were trying to portray with their artform. (How's that for crap!) ;D
I always figured Bo Diddley had an influence on the whole 20/20's Steinberger thing.
(http://www.bo-diddley.com/diddley.jpg)
Be there or be square............
Yeah, 20/20 players of the world rise!!! One Volk, one Reich, one paddle. We're through ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_HH_jher3c
Quote from: Grog on August 18, 2011, 05:49:51 PM
The members of this forum just have the hindsight or the foresight to understand the vision of past bass designers and the essence that they were trying to portray with their artform. (How's that for crap!) ;D
I feel like Oracle Jones in the old western "The Hallelujah Trail"...take a big swig of whiskey and gasp, "THERE!...now I see it!!!!"
Yeah, we gots lotsa vision here. :o
Quote from: Pilgrim on August 19, 2011, 09:24:01 AM
I feel like Oracle Jones in the old western "The Hallelujah Trail"...take a big swig of whiskey and gasp, "THERE!...now I see it!!!!"
Yeah, we gots lotsa vision here. :o
Wow. Another fan of The Hallelujah Trail here.
From foresight to foreskin is only a hair's breadth as the fate of this thread unravels.
Wedding-tackle rears its ugly head all to quickly round here... :mrgreen:
At least he didn't say anything more about hindsight.
Quote from: Dave W on August 19, 2011, 09:47:31 AM
Wow. Another fan of The Hallelujah Trail here.
Dave, I'm a taxpayer and (used to be) a good Republican!
One of my favorite movies. Given the mind full of trash and old movie quotes I'm burdened with, you should be very concerned that you recognized that quote.
Donald Pleasance as Oracle Jones just slays me in that movie - completely different role for him, and he nailed it. I love the scenes where he's hunkered down behind the rock and you only see his eyes to and fro move as the indian and cavalry horses charge back and forth.
Donald Pleasance was great. And Lee Remick was hotter than Pamela Tiffin.
Let's not forget Martin Landau as the blue eyed Indian Chief Walks Stooped Over, a/k/a sky eyes because of a "discrepancy in his ancestry." :)
Quote from: Dave W on August 19, 2011, 06:35:50 PM
Donald Pleasance was great. And Lee Remick was hotter than Pamela Tiffin.
Let's not forget Martin Landau as the blue eyed Indian Chief Walks Stooped Over, a/k/a sky eyes because of a "discrepancy in his ancestry." :)
Absolutely. One of the more interesting pieces of intentional mis-casting in a Western.
And Burt Lancaster was simply magnificent! He was the perfect officer, beset by gadflies.
Quote from: uwe on August 18, 2011, 04:27:50 AM
Who'd have thought we'd see the day these basses are no longer met with derision?
I was the prophet. 8)
Not so fast. Damn thing looks like one of those big foam "fan" fingers you get at the ball game.
Quote from: lowend1 on August 19, 2011, 09:56:06 PM
Not so fast. Damn thing looks like one of those big foam "fan" fingers you get at the ball game.
Would that make the neck look'in thing the middle finger?
Quote from: Grog on August 20, 2011, 08:56:52 AM
Would that make the neck look'in thing the middle finger?
That'd be a pretty mighty flip o' the bird
Quote from: lowend1 on August 20, 2011, 09:41:37 AM
That'd be a pretty mighty flip o' the bird
That would make this, "Two for your Horse"
(http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/Grog_03/2forHorse.jpg)
20/20 Hindsight.................... :sad:
How many 20/20s did Gibson make during that short lifespan?
I asked Walter Carter just short of two years ago, This was his answer.............
"My guess would be a dozen or so. I think I've only seen two."
My gut feeling is somewhere around 25, after keeping track of all of the basses I've run into for the last ten years or so.
The concensus of this board was less than 100 back when I posted Walter Carter's answer. I've only come across three Ferrari Red basses.
This JMJ 20/20 is the first one to pop up since I bought the red one in January. Might be the only one that was celebrity owned.
Judging by what has been for sale online over many years, I'd guess more than 25 but less than 100. What you see for sale is typically only a small part of the total made.
The number I once read was 600, but that is probably too much though I think 100 is too low, more like 200-300. They do crop up in the strangest place, i.e. Australia, Germany (where it got a glowing review comparatively recently as a "cult bass" and "the ergonomically best engineered paddle bass") and Italy which speaks for the fact that they were made in a number not just sucked up by the US market.
In any case, there is only one person on earth mad enough to own two!
Quote from: uwe on August 22, 2011, 04:36:37 AM
In any case, there is only one person on earth mad enough to own two!
I don't mind being the only person mad enough to own two, but I think I also hold the record for most paid for a 20/20.
I paid $1,280 so I'm hoping that the JMJ 20/20 goes for at least $1,300 to get me off the hook for that catagory. :P
For your love of paddles
The group here owes you medals!
This Roland bass from five years earlier made the 20/20 inevitable.............
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/msg/2557446061.html
JMJ is selling one of those Rolands also...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/190567096274?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
They look like a more ergonomically correct paddle design, not that ergonomics was much of an issue in 1982.
The aforementioned review in a German mag said that there are only two ways for an ergonomic paddle design: 1. Live with the fact where the body hangs and make it medium scale for comfortable reach. 2. Do what Ned did with the upper horn of the 20/20 and retain the long scale. Just quoting.
Quote from: Grog on August 22, 2011, 05:29:49 AM
I don't mind being the only person mad enough to own two, but I think I also hold the record for most paid for a 20/20.
I paid $1,280 so I'm hoping that the JMJ 20/20 goes for at least $1,300 to get me off the hook for that catagory. :P
I only need it to go up another $170.00 & I think it will surpass that easily. To think I could have had that exact bass for $350.00, I dragged my feet too long...............
I think you should have at least three. 8) Madness without method is nothing.
That would be an Oargasmic Trilogy :P
There must be one in another fin out there somewhere!!! Weird they never did a black one, would have gun, errm, gone well with the machine gun shape of the thing. Maybe Ned was a pacifist or non-NRA-member! :mrgreen:
BTW, do you play them too? And is there a - I hasten to add: of course non-finish-influenced - difference in sound between them? I do take mine out and tweak the mids of my SVT to take some of the inherent 80ies-ness of the 20/20 sound out of it. Upper register access is of course great, it's a bass to get acrobatic with.
The Luna Silver bass has some paint peeling in a few spots on the back of the neck, almost as if the wood wasn't prepaired properly before painting. I haven't played it much, hoping not to damage it any more until I can decide what to do about it. I just finished putting new strings & adjusting the Ferrari Red bass a few months ago, it's close to mint. I haven't had it out to really test it live yet, but I love the baseball bat neck. My hobbit is still my weapon of choice.
Quote from: Grog on August 22, 2011, 05:29:49 AM
I don't mind being the only person mad enough to own two, but I think I also hold the record for most paid for a 20/20.
I paid $1,280 so I'm hoping that the JMJ 20/20 goes for at least $1,300 to get me off the hook for that catagory. :P
This bass did go for more than I paid for the Ferrari Red one last January, but only by $40.00. I thought that it would have gone for a bit more, since it was celebrity owned. There was a lot of interest in it up until about two days ago, it didn't get that big bidding frenzy at the last minute.
(http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af119/Grog_03/2forHorse.jpg)
Just a modern extension of the EB1 really, aren't they? 8)
Felix would have loved them!
:o ;D
I always thought of them as the Martian version of an UFO-abducted EB-1 myself: "Earthlings, we return to you this instrument herewith after some modifications on our home planet...".
Those two of them together just look great. I'm jealeous.
Quote from: uwe on August 29, 2011, 05:04:53 AM
I always thought of them as the Martian version of an UFO-abducted EB-1 myself: "Earthlings, we return to you this instrument herewith after some modifications on our home planet...".
Those two of them together just look great. I'm jealeous.
Different way of saying the same thing really 8) ;D
(I wunder wot a Mudbuck'r wood sound like in.... nah... just finking alahd... :vader:)
What it would probably need is one of those cheapskate, middish sounding Grabber pups because if there is one thing this bass really lacks then it is mids.
Quote from: uwe on August 29, 2011, 05:04:53 AM
Those two of them together just look great. I'm jealeous.
All good things come in pairs! :P Most of my pairs are matching guitar & bass sets, (335 & EB-2). Unfortunately, nobody had the balls to make a 20/20 guitar. I have a Les Paul Deluxe Goldtop, that I hope to someday pair up with the new Les Paul Bass Goldtop. The Deluxe was my first Gibson & the bass will most likely be my last.
Playing it yesterday during a rehearsal it struck me that the electroncially enhanced bass frequencies are very much in sublow territitory, geared to deliver short signals (read: slapping) with a maximum of authority. Kind of like the Kubicki Factors which were popular around the same time. Trouble is that if you are more a steady signal melodic player like yours truly, it's all too subwoofish, yet dialing that subwoof away leaves you with too thin a sound as the bass lacks low mids (to combat that effect the Kubickis had an extra setting with enhanced mids which I used mostly when I was still mainly a Kubicki player).
I'm sure with a nice graphic equalizer solid state amp - Trace Elliot - you could probably correct all that if you took the time, but it's not really something an SVT is aimed at correcting as ole heavyweight is not accurate enough in signal shaping and delivery. My bandmates liked what they heard, but I found the subwoof not focused enough, even a raging mudbucker is more shaped in its sublows. Perhaps over a smaller rig the 20/20 would have worked better as my rehearsal room SVT + 8x10 fridge + 1x18 cab is not exactly the most focused rig on earth, it kind of unobstrusively fills the room with bass frequencies everywhere! :mrgreen:
Or maybe I should just take up slapping! :-\
Uwe
Quote from: uwe on September 01, 2011, 03:54:04 AMI'm sure with a nice graphic equalizer solid state amp - Trace Elliot - you could probably correct all that if you took the time, but it's not really something an SVT is aimed at correcting as ole heavyweight is not accurate enough in signal shaping and delivery.
...pssst mid frequency selector switch to 220Hz; boost mids to three o'clock. Now wash your mouth out with soap for such blasphemy!
Ampeg rules, I know. With one sound only.
I played it today with my 500 W Markbass combo - a much better combination!
Ampeg has its place though, but just like Marshall versatile it ain't.