Kramer 450B

[jersey bluesdude]

https://reverb.com/item/44241548-left-h ... -neck-bass

[NoXX]

I like it…..it does look like it was used as a weapon in a bar fight though….

[fivebass52]

I like it…..it does look like it was used as a weapon in a bar fight though….

Man, talk about stress fractures... someone got stressed, and fractured some skulls!

[Carmine]

I do have one of these myself, fortunately in much better condition (excuse the glare). Built like a tank- yes you could definitely split skulls with it!

The body damage on the one for sale was unfortunate... maybe the close-ups made it look worse than it was... no matter, it still sold quickly. I'm not surprised- there just weren’t many lefty “aluminum neck era” Kramers made, they don’t come up often- and in addition to the neck design, the early 450B and 650B models are of particular interest due to the proprietary pickups. Most folks mistakenly think there’s humbuckers under those embossed chrome covers (which is true of the guitar versions)- but in the basses they’re actually large single coils.

I’ve never had the covers off mine, but I found a pic of what they look like:


As was the case with the Guild proprietary single coils we discussed in the B301 thread, the Kramer single coils had their own unique sonic signature too. Combined with the Walnut/Maple body and aluminum neck, these basses sounded a bit different than anything else at the time, with a really distinctive tonal pallet especially well suited to jazz and R&B styles, and they were embraced and endorsed by many top players. Of course later Kramer started using DiMarzios in their excellent DMZ series, which were more effective as “rock” basses, but imho not as tonally distinctive as the old single coils.

If you’ve never heard a 450B, this guy does a nice job of going thru the tonal variations in his demo: https://youtu.be/ITLO9KLGkGc

[fivebass52]

I do have one of these myself...

Carmine, of course you do... of course...