Doug Rauch' Jazz Bass

[Pekka]

In the hands of Carlos Santana:

[nofi]

poor thing has been totally santanatised by now. may as well give it to sheryl crow.

[godofthunder]

 I really think I need to put a muddy in my Jazz

[Iome]

A Jazzbass with a mudbucker a spilt coil and a jazz single coil? i like that. Can you run all 3 p.u.'s together without loosing lowend from the mudbucker?

[Pekka]

The pic is from "Love Devotion Surrender" sessions, Doug probably took the pic while Carlos fooled around on his bass. It was his main axe during his days with Santana, David Bowie and Billy Cobham/George Duke band but the mods were probably done by his predecessor, David Brown, who is seen playing it on Soul To Soul festival in Ghana, 1971.

I wonder where it is now? Doug Rauch died in 1979.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Call me crazy, but that body looks a lot more like an Ibanez Black Eagle than a Fender Jazz. The horns look more curved inward.

[Pekka]

Call me crazy, but that body looks a lot more like an Ibanez Black Eagle than a Fender Jazz. The horns look more curved inward.

Maybe it is Carlos' black sleeve that does the trick? Here's another pic:

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Yep. It's the sleeve.

[hieronymous]

The pic is from "Love Devotion Surrender" sessions, Doug probably took the pic while Carlos fooled around on his bass. It was his main axe during his days with Santana, David Bowie and Billy Cobham/George Duke band but the mods were probably done by his predecessor, David Brown, who is seen playing it on Soul To Soul festival in Ghana, 1971.

I wonder where it is now? Doug Rauch died in 1979.

Very interesting that Doug Rauch may not have been the one to do the mods.

The wikipedia article on Doug Rauch makes an interesting claim - that Alembic did the electronics modifications. I started a thread at the Alembic Club to see if anyone over there knows anything. Pekka, had you ever heard this? It's certainly possible - Carlos himself had a custom Alembic from 1973.

[leftybass]

Call me crazy, but that body looks a lot more like an Ibanez Black Eagle than a Fender Jazz. The horns look more curved inward.

You're crazy. 

[exiledarchangel]

A Jazzbass with a mudbucker a spilt coil and a jazz single coil? i like that. Can you run all 3 p.u.'s together without loosing lowend from the mudbucker?

I guess not if you don't make some improvements on the circuit, like bass cut cap on the bridge/middle pups. Also you must use fairly hot pups (high DCR) to compete with the MUD! Maybe your best shot would be to find an Epi mudbucker (those are 12k) or wire a true mud in parallel to get a 7,5k-8k pup.

[Pekka]

Very interesting that Doug Rauch may not have been the one to do the mods.

The wikipedia article on Doug Rauch makes an interesting claim - that Alembic did the electronics modifications. I started a thread at the Alembic Club to see if anyone over there knows anything. Pekka, had you ever heard this? It's certainly possible - Carlos himself had a custom Alembic from 1973.

I've heard that the bass had LEDs when Doug played in Billy Cobham's band with George Duke and John Scofield so maybe it was modded by Alembic in 1974 or 1975? He also had started to use McIntosh poweramps at that time, this was verified by John Scofield.

David Brown plays that very same bass on Santana's concert in Ghana (the "Soul To Soul" festival early 1971) and Doug Rauch is seen playing a different Jazz Bass with The Voices Of East Harlem:


Michael Shrieve befriended Doug on that festival and invited him to San Francisco and Doug eventually took over from drug-riddled David Brown as Santana's bass player. Shrieve said that Doug was very interested in technical stuff and electronics so who knows that those mods could have been by him anyway?

He played a sunburst post-CBS Jazz Bass in Buzzy Linhart's Music. Great band with Doug Rodrigues on guitar and John Siomos on drums. Fantastic bass playing from Dougie on this:

[tore00]

I have two projects running now: one is a Berry Oakley Tractor replica; one BadSonic done by myself at neck, and two Jazz single coils (also done by myself) at bridge.

Second one is the Mel Schacher mud jazz replica: a mudbucker at neck and the single coil jazz (powered with neodymium magnets) at bridge.

However this is also quite interesting but I would try one more variation: a tele bass (farth in the bathtube) pickup at neck, one mudbucker at usual jazz neck location and two single coil at bridge (like the Tractor).....maybe too much....

[hieronymous]

I've heard that the bass had LEDs when Doug played in Billy Cobham's band with George Duke and John Scofield so maybe it was modded by Alembic in 1974 or 1975? He also had started to use McIntosh poweramps at that time, this was verified by John Scofield.

David Brown plays that very same bass on Santana's concert in Ghana (the "Soul To Soul" festival early 1971) and Doug Rauch is seen playing a different Jazz Bass with The Voices Of East Harlem:


Michael Shrieve befriended Doug on that festival and invited him to San Francisco and Doug eventually took over from drug-riddled David Brown as Santana's bass player. Shrieve said that Doug was very interested in technical stuff and electronics so who knows that those mods could have been by him anyway?

He played a sunburst post-CBS Jazz Bass in Buzzy Linhart's Music. Great band with Doug Rodrigues on guitar and John Siomos on drums. Fantastic bass playing from Dougie on this:

Thanks - yeah, maybe Alembic put in the LEDs and that became part of the lore, read back onto the electronic mods. Or maybe they did mod the electronics. The Gibson mudbucker doesn't seem typical of Alembic...

Also, I finally picked up the Welcome album - I always assumed it was an early '80s album but it's around the time of Love Devotion Surrender and Lotus - two of my favorites! Carlos plays bass on one of the tracks on Welcome, I wonder if maybe that could be related to the pic at the beginning of this thread?

[Pekka]

Thanks - yeah, maybe Alembic put in the LEDs and that became part of the lore, read back onto the electronic mods. Or maybe they did mod the electronics. The Gibson mudbucker doesn't seem typical of Alembic...]

Yeah, I'd like to think they would have swapped the pickups too. Never seen pics from the Cobham/Duke band era 'though. In 1974 the bass still had the same look, judging from a couple of pics from the David Bowie tour he did in September 1974 (also in "Cracked Actor" documentary).


Also, I finally picked up the Welcome album - I always assumed it was an early '80s album but it's around the time of Love Devotion Surrender and Lotus - two of my favorites! Carlos plays bass on one of the tracks on Welcome, I wonder if maybe that could be related to the pic at the beginning of this thread?

Carlos plays on "Mother Africa" and who knows, the pic could be from those sessions too. Some fantastic bass playing on that album.