Flying V Bass

[Chris P.]

No Gibson content, so please remove to 'Other Bass Brands' if needed, but I still thought this was the right place.

http://eastwoodcustoms.com/projects/eastwood-flying-bv/

[Basvarken]

Looks cheap (ish)

[Chris P.]

The picture is a mock up. All Eastwoods I tried were okay.

[Basvarken]

I know but the choice of components looks cheap to me. The bridge, the tuners, the pickups. None of these would seduce me to want one.

[Chris P.]

But how can you see from a mock up?

I have soms cons and pros:

Pros: It has a gigbag (try finding one will be hard) and the fact they use a Mini Humbucker & Single Coil Blade seems that they thought about things.

Cons: Fender bridges are okay, but it looks wrong on a Gibson style bass. And it's bolt-on. With a set neck it would be more ttractive, I guess. Maybe it's better with a bolt on-neck. Who knows.

[Basvarken]

But how can you see from a mock up?

A proper mock up shows the right components (not necessarily in the right dimensions, angle, light, etc). Otherwise it's just a rough idea / sketch

[Dave W]

The one Eastwood I tried was a Höfner Club copy that looked great but sounded awful. That was 10 years ago, hopefully they have improved since then.

You have to give them credit for offering "custom shop" models if enough people will commit to buying.

[uwe]

A short-scale Flying V is self-defeating. The only reason why people come up with that unholy combination is to reduce overall size of the instrument. A long scale Flying V bass case will even make an Explorer one look small. It also beats me why anybody choosing a Flying V bass - in 9 out of 10 cases he/she will be playing hard to heavy rock/metal - would want a short scale.

[Chris P.]

Amen, haha! Or Kinks fans?

[Dave W]

Amen, haha! Or Kinks fans?

Why would Kinks fans care? Because Dave Davies once used a V for a few gigs and appeared with it on an album cover? Or did Pete Quaife ever use one?

[Alanko]

I think it is hard to say how these will come out. Eastwood is just the importers, really, and presumably make use of a number of factories to produce whatever they require. Their idea of using crowd funding to have small runs of obscure instruments made up is quite cool. They've brought back some extinct designs this way. Having said that their Gibson RD recreation looks a little odd:



I've not played Eastwood stuff for a while, but from what I remember it was a bit pricey for the quality. Presumably you're paying for the fact that they bothered to get some '60s designs made up. They also take liberties with the original designs. The worst offender was an Ovation Magnum replica that wound up with a mudbucker, some sort of Burns-style single coil and a cheap Gotoh 201-style bridge:



They put the effort into making sure the bodies are sort of the correct shape, but then cut corners with the hardware.

[uwe]

Why would Kinks fans care? Because Dave Davies once used a V for a few gigs and appeared with it on an album cover? Or did Pete Quaife ever use one?

At least in TV shows you saw Dave play that Flying V a lot at the time - idiosyncratically with his strumming arm between the two wings!











I don't know whether he used it much live, but it doesn't look like he's given up on it.




Flying Vs are not per se bad-sounding guitars, sort of the Gibson Telecaster. With their thinner and snappier sound they don't clutter everything up like, say, a Les Paul would. It was the guys from Accept who said that their use of two Flying Vs was originally inspired by their attempt to get the leanest sound possible and "cut the fat" - no other combination worked as well, they said - and only by coincidence became their visual trademark later on.

[FrankieTbird]

Flying Vs are not per se bad-sounding guitars, sort of the Gibson Telecaster. With their thinner and snappier sound they don't clutter everything up like, say, a Les Paul would. It was the guys from Accept who said that their use of two Flying Vs was originally inspired by their attempt to get the leanest sound possible and "cut the fat" - no other combination worked as well, they said - and only by coincidence became their visual trademark later on.

Flying Vee = Michael Schenker

[uwe]

Zät and zöse bööts natürlich!!! Goozestep, goozestep pleeeze, can't you see ze SS I'm in?



Michael's weak bladder could not always be hidden on stage either:



But waitaminnit ... when did Pete Way turn into a giraffe?

Honorary mention: Michael's long lost twin brother KK:

[Dave W]

At least in TV shows you saw Dave play that Flying V a lot at the time - idiosyncratically with his strumming arm between the two wings!

...

All lip-synced performances, AFAIK. He picked it up midway on their first US tour and used it for several TV show tapings but it's not even certain he used it live on the rest of the tour or any time after that. He did say he used it on a couple of album cuts. But he has a list of his significant guitars on his website and the V isn't included.