The Trio on a gig

[LHBASSIST]

Three of my 11 electric basses, photographed by Michelle Lafromboise at The Beacon restaurant- an incredibly beautiful gig- right on the water at South Lake Tahoe, California.

Left to right: Fender Japan alder '62 reissue jazz bass, ocean turquoise body. Allparts 20 fret neck, headstock painted to match the body, allthread bridge, reverse wind Kluson pre-CBS style tuners, stack knobs, Samarium cobalt pickups (now replaced) and Schaller straploks. I fabricated the mint green guard. Strung with medium gauge D'Addario Chromes. I love playing any Joe Osborn parts on this, it gets it, totally. Killer bass.
Next is a Fender Japan- Ishibashi web shop bass, in Lake Placid Blue, retrofitted with the same pre-CBS style hardware, a Seymour Duncan vintage p-bass pickup, and another one of my mint green guards from scratch, with a full tin ground plate and vintage location thumbrest. This also has the medium gauge D'addario Chromes on it. The headstock is signed by Nokie Edwards of The Ventures!
The bass on the right is one of my basses, that I build once in a while. This one, circa 1994. It has 3 Alembic WMXY pickups, two pan pots, and the Stanley Clarke tone circuit. It's all highly flamed maple, with an incredibly stable Martin truss rod in an aluminum channel- and an ebony fingerboard with Dunlop 6105 frets, and a large brass nut. It is finished with amber tinted nitrocellulose lacquer. It has gold Sperzel locking tuners and a Schaller roller bridge. It is currently strung with D'addario stainless steels, 45- 130. It is an incredibly versatile, articulate sounding bass, and it fits me like an old pair of jeans. I love it.

[funky42]

a beautiful trio you got there,VERY NICE! i love the pre cbs mods you made,very cool.also did you actually make the 94? super cool.

[LHBASSIST]

a beautiful trio you got there,VERY NICE! i love the pre cbs mods you made,very cool.also did you actually make the 94? super cool.

Thanks for the nice comment! I am a luthier and bass repairman in Reno, Nevada. I moved from Brooklyn, in 1993. I do a lot of basses, and am known for my upright bass work here.
Yes, "Old Yellow" as I call it, was completely scratch built, and my design. It is a bit unusual for it's time- it has a 2" nut width, and 3" at the heel- at the time I made the neck- 1983...yeah it sat around for a long time waiting for me to finish it- there were no standards for multi-string basses, like Music Man and Fender using 1-3/4" nut spacing- I hate that squeezed together feeling...so I made mine wider. I have one 5 string that is 2-1/4" at the nut.
I am making my fifth one of that design now. It'll be 2-1/8"- at the nut. I used to hang out circa 1976, at Carl Thompson's shop on 'Court St. in Brooklyn when he was making me a bass. He was a huge influence on me. I'm sure you can see a fair amount of his influence in my design, although it really is significantly different. The unseen headstock is totally unique, and it's design was stolen by ESP, along with my name, with the 'Horizon' bass, and "Edwards" guitars. Moral: NEVER let Japanese guys with cameras photograph your bass designs! LOL! The headstock can bee seen in full in the my instruments section on Arni's site, if you're familiar with it. look for 'Dave Edwards'...USA.