show your multiple bass pictures!

[chromium]

...more Hamers.

Ah so you snagged that natural B8S... looks great with the extended family!

That green one with the A-style headstock is a looker too.

[gweimer]

...more Hamers.

[mc2NY]

Ah so you snagged that natural B8S... looks great with the extended family!

That green one with the A-style headstock is a looker too.

That green one is actually a medium scale B8M.

Yeah, I've owned around 50 Hamer 8-strings (plus maybe 40 Hamer 12vers.) The absolute BEST playing 8 neck I ever ran across was on a white B8S from 1987/88. Traded it to Baz, who had to have it cuz it was a white one....but he traded it in a couple days later, got up the next day saying "Oh no, what did I do?" And went back to the dealer to get it back but it was already gone! 

So, I was hoping that natural B8S with the OBLs would have a similar neck profile being an '88 model.
I lucked out. It is!!  I originally wanted the white one back so I could send it to Hamer to match the neck profile for a custom order.

Here is a pic from 10 years back of my Hamer 8-strings. The "Holy Grail" white B8S is the one on the left.

[mc2NY]

Here's a cooler shot of the green B8M, with two other green Hamer 8-strings....a short-scale V8 (only V8 ever made) and a long-scale Chaparral 8.

[chromium]

Nice!!

Your cherry one in front looks similar in year to that one I bought from Peter.  How do the late 80s 3-pc single-truss maple necks compare to the 1pc maho in terms of feel/profile? 

Mine has what I'd describe as a flattened-out C profile... the back contour extends from the headstock and is very flat up to the 6-7th fret, and then it rounds out slightly.  1.5" at the nut, 2.25" at the body.  Very, very slender - especially compared to the old 12ver, which has more of a true C profile (beefy; they left more meat on that one for obvious reasons).  The latter really resonates, especially the roots - guessing because of the extra mass.

I love both of those necks, and I was just curious how they evolved...

[slinkp]

What are those pickups? They look like the old DiMarzio X2Ns, which as I recall were designed for crazy loud output.

[chromium]

What are those pickups? They look like the old DiMarzio X2Ns, which as I recall were designed for crazy loud output.

You are correct.  Actually, I'm not sure if they are technically X2Ns or X2NBs (or how'd how I'd go about determining that).  I see people refer to both of those models in discussions of the early Hamers...

Either way, I like 'em!!  These are right up my alley, and sound especially nice on the octaves... they chime out without being brittle, great mids that cut thru in the band setting, and they take well to overdrive and distortion.

[mc2NY]

Most Hamer guys just refer to this a X2N's....so I don't know if they used bass specific ones back then. Plus I've had a Hamer long scale bass with an X2N at the bridge where the blades barely covered the string spacing...but the high output still covered it OK. So I think they were just X2N's.

That Cherry B8S in the photo is a real early one....SN in the 200 range. The neck is probably closer to your B12S. I've had several others in the 100-200 SN range. That natural one next to it in the photo is close to it in SN as well.

That red one was something like the 12th B8S Hamer had made. They had checked the factory logs for me at one point. Guitar dealer Ed Roman had a black one that had a later SN and changed parts on his site that he was pushing as "possibly the FIRST Hamer 8 string....all original." I knew Ed and had dealt with him in the past and told him that his bass was more like the 20th or later 8-string....but he never changed his BS....eventually sold it so someone.

The earliest Hamer 8- and 12 short-scales are mostly like that....chunky C shapes. A few were V profiles. my Quadbass 12 is a V carve and Baz had a B8S that was a V also.

Then in the mid 80s the necks got more toward how you described the red 8 you have.

Then late '87-88 there were some amazing fast/thin 8 and 12-string necks. Maybe they started using a better truss rod of something that allowed that. But these were the best single-truss coursed necks Hamer did IMO. A friend of mine had one with a bad truss rod that Hamer repaired for him.....DUPED his neck profile but did it as a dual-truss rod one!!  So.....they CAN make thin, fast dual-truss necks, if they wanted to.

Then around 1990, when they switched to dual-truss rod necks, they started off with some VERY nice neck profiles for the first few years. Sort of like the neck on your red one but faster and able to be set up really low with the two rods.

In the mid-to-late 90s, the necks started chunking up again. My biggest gripe was that it seems that they were no longer using separate 8-string profiles. Instead, a lot of the necks seemed to be 12ver necks with four less strings on them. Weird. But they vary...I've seen ones like a bat and other pretty sleek during the 2000s. Part  of the reason I wanted to have a sample bass with a perfect neck profile to send in for them to match if I placed a custom order.

I also happen to like the early mahogany necks on mahogany bodies for coursed basses because I think the octave strings are less harsh. Same thing regarding the PUPs/electronics.....I think passive sounds warmer/less harsh on the upper end.

[Dave W]

You can't tell by looking but the X2N has an advertised DCR of 15.83k. The X2N-B is 37k.

[chromium]

Thanks for the detail on the necks, Jon.  Interesting to know.

You can't tell by looking but the X2N has an advertised DCR of 15.83k. The X2N-B is 37k.

Based on that, the pickups do look to be X2Ns.  The ones in my B8S measured close to that.

[jumbodbassman]

]hey boys and girls.  been a while ,  computer failures and other life  stuff.  nothing physical as my health is still great.  no signs of the dreaded C word.      work still none.....           bad excuses but

for you boutique lovers out there.   just me  maybe   




3 basses built by Bruce Johnson  -  AEB,   AMB  and SSB  all obviously updated and improved clones of the original Ampeg models



is cataldo considered  a boutique  builder

couple of JAEbirds flanking a Bachbird  sorry for the glare  need to get a picture of the green 5 string also...







cowpokes



i kind of collect scroll basses.  this is just some.   65 and 66(fretted)  couple of custom built bodies (one with neck) by a guy named dave in indiana years ago  and a few wishbasses which I couldn't resist because they were scrolls nbut they live up to there rep.....




very few collection shots as most are single basses shots.  i guess i have time now to shoot new ones being unemployed nd the weather is turning better.  although had frost and snow kast 2 nights and pretty much wiped out my tomatoes and such...,

[mc2NY]

Yeah....pretty sure Hamer just used X2Ns and not the X2NB in the 8- and 12vers.  The "B" versions was crazy hot, as noted above like 35k.  Plus they are darker sounding, which is not what you would want in an root-octave bass sound.

Plus Hamer commonly used a Bogue preamp/overdrive circuit with/toggle and LED. Overdriving the already hot 15k range X2N is one thing.....trying to overdrive the insanely hot X2NB with that setup would be useless and just cause problems.

Also....Hamer had previously used DiMarzio Model G pickups on the earlier 8-strings, which was replaced by the X2N.  In the late 80s Hamer began offering OBL blade pickups as an upgrade, although that was fairly short lived due to supplier Bill Lawrence licensing his OBL name to Gibson and Gibby screwing him by making cheap Asian knockoffs.

But Hamer still used X2N's on custom order basses, by request, even until recent months ( yeah, yeah....Hamer is dead, blah, blah.....but they still have not finished churning out the last of the back ordered custom orders from when they announced they were not taking more new orders in 2012 !!
Plus, there is a new head of Fender coming....so maybe that guy will tell Hamer to start taking orders and stop building friggin Guilds up at the CT shop?!?!)

[gearHed289]

I have a pearl white B12S that I bought from Baz a few years ago. I believe it's a '92. I fell in love with the neck on that thing. Super flat, and it just feels right. Maple, dual truss rods. Also, the intonation surprised the hell outta me. Prompted me to spend a bunch of money on an 8 saddle bridge for my Ric 8 (no regrets there!).

It had the stock EMG HB pups, which are actually a EMG P bass pup in a humbucker-sized housing. I sent an e-mail to DiMarzio inquiring about the X2N versus X2NB. Steve Blucher replied and advised me to go with (2) neck position D Activator X pups. Same dual blade design, but they apparently have a better low end. They worked out great with a similar vibe to a Gibson TB+.

If there's anything I don't like about the bass, it's not so much the short scale, as it is the way the neck is set so far into the body. I'm not concerned with upper fret access, but it makes the bass feel "cramped" to me. I'm sure it's a concession to good balance with that giant headstock/12 Schallers, but I kinda wish it joined the body closer to the 20th fret or so.

[ilan]

3 short-scale hollowbodies.

[4stringer77]

I sent an e-mail to DiMarzio inquiring about the X2N versus X2NB. Steve Blucher replied and advised me to go with (2) neck position D Activator X pups. Same dual blade design, but they apparently have a better low end. They worked out great with a similar vibe to a Gibson TB+.

That's interesting that he recommended two neck pickups. Do you miss the extra power on the bridge pup? I wonder if they would make the D activator X in cream. Could be a good match for my Epi LP. Speaking of LP basses, my custom LP build with Stambaugh is heading into final shaping and should be going out for finishing within a couple weeks. Between that and the return of my old P, I'm swimming in basses. I'll get some good group shots together when I have a chance. Maybe I'll get some of the girls from the newly opened "Tilted Kilt" located a few feet from my condo to pose with my basses. Should make for some exciting pics if I can pull it off.