For Uwe's eyes only.......Gibson Custom shop....

[Blackbird]

http://www.clubbass.ca/instock/LS.html

Clubbass is in Toronto, and Dave Freeman, the owner, is great...assuming this is of interest.

[Barklessdog]

He's got one already, but looks in mint condition.

[Dave W]

Uwe, Bob Gollihur and Jerome Gaw (a/k/a funkycarnivore) all have one. I don't think any of them paid anywhere near that price. Jerome got his off eBay for $500.

[uwe]

This is only a Gibson by coincidence. It was initially to be a Valley Arts custom model for Lee who knew one of the Valley Arts people. Certainly. if you look at what kind of basses Valley Arts make, they are closer to the Lee Sklar Sig than, say, a TBird or a Les Paul bass, they even use - horror of horrors - bolted necks and - alas! - EMGs:

http://www.gibson.com/en%2Dus/Divisions/ValleyArts/Valley%20Arts%20Custom%20Pro%20Bass/

Then Gibson, owner of Valley Arts, got a whiff  of things and wanted it to be built in their Custom Shop (with Valley Arts people working there). That's when things veered away from Herr Sklar's intentions: He had hoped for something cheap and affordable, a "working tool" for everyone, but Gibson turned it into this unaffordable "white elephant" project. While he respected the ultimate quality, I have  not found any statement by him according to which he actually ever used what Gibson "forced" on him.

Yeah, I've got one.  In black. One of those basses that takes a conscious effort to play once in a while. The charm of EMGs, Hipshot Drop-D tuner, mandolin frets, maple bolt-on neck and alder body has so far escaped me I have to say. Probably great for being noiselessly fed into a mixing console directly and then being enhanced with studio trickery. A signal provider so to say  ...  

[Dave W]

So... you're suggesting that Gibson royally screwed up something bass-related? I'm shocked!

[Blazer]

So... you're suggesting that Gibson royally screwed up something bass-related? I'm shocked!

Well why do you think that Sklar went back to being a Yamaha endorser after the deal with Gibson didn't turn out to be what he hoped it would be?

http://www.yamaha.com/Artists/ArtistDetail/0,,CNTID%25253D29353%252526CTID%25253D501401%252526CNTYP%25253DARTIST,00.html#

[Dave W]

I was being sarcastic. 

[Freuds_Cat]

Speaking of for Uwe's eyes....,

BODY         Mahogany
NECK         Hard Maple 3 Piece
FNGERBORAD    Rosewood, 22frets
SCALE         32 inch
NUT                 Bone (42mm)
JOINT         Set-neck
TUNER         GOTOH GB11W
BRIDGE         WSC BLP4
PICKUPS         (Front) Seymour Duncan SJB-1n
                        (Rear) Seymour Duncan SJB-1b




The pups intrigue me a bit. Looks like TB plus covers but states SD Jazz bass on the specs.

[eb2]

32" Scale?!!!!!

[Dave W]

Doesn't the poor man have enough V basses already?

[SKATE RAT]

does that say Edwards? thats ESP right? looks awesome.

[Nocturnal]

Looks like it says Edwards to my eyes   but I don't always trust my eyes anymore. Edwards is part of ESP. They also make that cool RD bass and did make an LP double cut bass.

By the way, wasn't the 32" scale a complaint on the Gibson V basses? Or was it just poor pickups?

[SKATE RAT]

gibsons V bass is 30.5"

[uwe]

The Gibson "V"s have all kinds of ailments, but the short scale is just one factor that only becomes malign with other circumstances. It's a short scale maple neck, weak pups, alder body, wood in the wrong places due to the constraints of the Flying V shape (the bass doesn't have real fundamentals, yet at the same time it is unfocused - I think vibration of those extended wings has something to do with it). If the same bass would habe been made out of maho with Bicentennial pups or G 3 pups, I think results would have been much better.

My 35" scale "Manowar" Dean Razorback Flying V is now the best sounding of my V basses - it approaches TBird quality (with better upper fret access), albeit active. I think the outsize Über-long scale neck  and the fact that it is made of maho and neck-thru has a lot to do with that. There is a theory that once you have a neck thru construction the body wings don't have much of an effect anymore on tone generation. So I think the Dean's neck compensates whatever drawbacks the V shape inherently brings.  Someone should have thought of that earlier though I'm sure Dean had more downtuning metal kids in mind with the extended scale Razorback than compensating the body shape.

Uwe

[Freuds_Cat]

Yes it an Edwards by ESP