Incoming Performer

[Happy Face]

Tres kewl! I've never bothered to open mine up. I'll be real curious as to what you do with it. 

[Dave W]

That looks like it's in better condition than you thought.

It only has one volume pot. It's volume, tone and TBX, according to the archived manual on Fender's website. So I looked at Cadfael's schematic. Not sure how the TBX works, but it's a double pot with two levels, with 250K audio and 1 meg linear. It works differently each side of the center detent.

[dadagoboi]

Tres kewl! I've never bothered to open mine up. I'll be real curious as to what you do with it. 

I don't think I've ever owned a bass I haven't opened up.  Had no idea what I was looking at a lot of the time!

That looks like it's in better condition than you thought.

It only has one volume pot. It's volume, tone and TBX, according to the archived manual on Fender's website. So I looked at Cadfael's schematic. Not sure how the TBX works, but it's a double pot with two levels, with 250K audio and 1 meg linear. It works differently each side of the center detent.

I knew there was a TBX in it but didn't look closely at the wiring.  It's been rewired V / V / TBX with a missing cap and an additional resistor and the V pots say MIM on them with no value.  The switch comes after the the V pots instead of before.  I had to find the current Cadfael's for the wiring diagram, wasn't in my old one. Thanks for making me aware of its existence, Dave!  The TBX works like a standard treble cut 1-5, after the center detent it's a treble boost.

There are a lot of body dents in addition to the chips and bruises and would be a lot worse if it wasn't a poly fin.  I think I'm just going to get the controls back to stock and leave it at that.  It looks and plays fine and I have too many projects stacked up.

[Alanko]

I dug out Klaus Blasquiz's book on Fender basses when I was back home over the last few days. The book has a picture of a 5-string Performer prototype, which is quite interesting has it has a third pickup, butting right up against the bridge. The headstock on it looked quite clumsy. The bass was pictured on a page of other Fender odds and sods, including a headless design that had a body similar to the Martin-18 with two pickups that look like Dimarzio Model Gs, and another model that had a headstock like a garden hoe.

The weirdest part for me is that Klaus Blasquiz sang with the French band Magma, who were like Carl Orff and Earth Wind and Fire, combined with abstract occult and Nazi-mysticism imagery, and who sang in a fictional language called Kobaian. Not the first guy I would consider up for documenting Fender bass designs.

Klaus is the long haired guy at the front:

[Rob]

Well that was interesting.
It lacked the grace of Frank Zappa but reminded me of "We're Only in it for the money"

[Alanko]

Yeah! Early Magma have a more Hot Rats sound to them. Their sound evolved until they ended up here:



I saw Magma earlier this year. It is basically a revolving cast of musicians with the drummer (of mad starey eyes) being the only constant member.

[clankenstein]

Wow i had sort of forgotten about them .Mssr Vander certainly has some chops!

[Pekka]

I saw Magma earlier this year. It is basically a revolving cast of musicians with the drummer (of mad starey eyes) being the only constant member.

I saw them in 2004 and going to see them again in October. A truly original band who created a whole new genre (Zeuhl). Bassist Philippe Bussonet has been with the band for almost 20 years and uses the same cello tuning (octave lower of course) that Jannik Top brought to Magma when he joined in 1973.
Their latest albums like "K.A.", "Ementeht-Re" and "Slag Tanz" are outstanding and could be even better than their seventies material.

I wasn't sure that Klaus was the same guy who wrote the Fender book so hanks for clearing that up. Are there any Magma -related pics in it?

[Denis]

That thing is funky! I rather like the color.