Yamaha BX-1 Headless Bass. . . . .

Right, back to the job in hand!
Sorry there has been a lack of content, in recent weeks - a lot to do,
at the moment.

So, inside this case. . . . . . .

. . . .is quite an unusual bass!!

The Yamaha BX-1 Headless bass, I think the only one that Yamaha ever made.

There isn't a great deal of information about these rare birds.

Very well made and a delight to play - well balanced, with a lovely neck.
Two powerful pick-ups, with a std Jazz type set-up with the controls but. . . . 
with a difference.
There is a switch on the tone control, which selects Humbucker or single coils,
on both pick-ups, at the same time.
So, you can go from a hard rocking thump to something a bit more funky.

I looked for one of these for ages - and I mean ages!
I have only had it for about 3 years and in that time, I haven't seen another 
one up for sale, in the UK.
They are a little more common in the USA but still command a fair price, due
to their rarity.
Regular readers with know that I have had Westone Rails and still have a 
Quantum, as well as a Hohner B2A (not done that one yet) but this is by far, 
the better proposition.
It hangs a lot better, due to the design and therefore plays more like a 
conventional bass.

The other good thing, like the Westone, you can use standard strings and not
the double ball end, which means you can string it up with your favourite
brand and away you go!

 

Lovely neck joint, that blends seamlessly into the body. Nice!


















Yamaha BX-1. Very Nice!

Back with more, next time.

Cheers. :)

   

Eric, What Happened To April??

Hi to all my regular readers - including a good friend with a very nice
Jazz Bass and a liking for proper beer - you know who you are!!! LOL!

So, for those of you who have found a lack of content and been in touch
over the last 4 or five weeks - all I have to show you is this!! :)

 

Yes, I know - hardly bass or guitar related but I have been so busy, over the

last few weeks, the time has flown by and this is by way of letting you know

that there is plenty more to come and I am still very much here!

A friend brought this back from the USA, during a recent trip - Thanks James!

Must try harder. . . . . I will be back, with lots more interesting stuff, as soon

as I can - hopefully my rare ish, Headless Yamaha Bass.

So, I'll be back to you. . . . . .  as soon as I can.

Cheers. :)

 

Chris Squire's Electra Outlaw. . . .

For the time being, I am done with the Peavey "T" feature and will
come back to it, with shots of my "T"'s that haven't been seen yet.

So, having come across this shot, I thought it would be nice to show it.



This one is the same as mine and although I know he had a much modded one,
I didn't realise he had and gigged an original Electra Outlaw.

Many thanks to Allen, who kindly gave me permission to use his shot.
To visit his very interesting site, go here:
http://www.artistxposure.com/ 

This is my feature on the one I have. 
Electra Outlaw 1
Electra Outlaw 2

Back next time with something that I have not shown before.

Cheers. :)

 

Peavey T-40 and T-60 users and literature. .

Peavey were keen to let it be known that their guitars were being used by 
major artists, at the time - perhaps the most famous, was Ross Valory of
the band, Journey.

There was also Leon Medica of Le Roux and Banner Thomas from
Molly Hatchet.
Leon has been a long time Peavey user - through T-20, T-40 and later using
a Peavey Zodiac.     

                                                                                                        

Johnnie Copeland was a T-60 user, as were many studio players - one guitar,
for various tones.
One of the pics below, show Carl Perkins, with George Harrison and Eric Clapton,
wielding a T-60.      

 

          

















     
Some of the earlier literature that Peavey produced.

I asked Chip about the other T series guitars and basses but I think it is
perhaps best left alone and leave this feature as a T-40 and T-60 only.

Chip closed with these words.

I designed the T-15, T-30; hardware that I designed, and neck patents of mine 
were on those instruments.
I haven't been curious enough to really look into the 20,25-27, or the T-45 
for my input.
I'm honoured and surprised that anyone is interested to that depth.
Warm regards,
Chip

I would like to thank him again, for all of his help.


That about wraps it up on this one - I will be putting up shots of some of my "T"'s,
along with a pic of my unusual early case, with the blue interior.

Cheers. :)

One Hundred Thousand Visitors - Thanks for dropping in. :)

Today is Saturday February 23rd and today my Blogspot visitor counter shows
the all time number of visitors to my Blog as 100058 visitors!

So, Hi to all those who have dropped in and out over the last few years and
welcome to any new vistors :)

The counter also shows the most visited posts, since I started - it is quite interesting
to see what has been the most popular.

The most popular today are listed below.

Yamaha SB500 

Westone Quantum X850 

Ibanez Blazer 

Ovation Magnum III 

Peavey T-40 

Ovation Magnum 

Jon Lord 

Ibanez ST824 

Ibanez Musician MC924DS 

Peter Cook - Gibson - Mighty Mite 

The most popular of all time are listed below. 

Fender Urge 1 

Ovation Magnum Bass 

Peter Cook FenderBirds 

Peavey T-40 

Peter Cook - Guitar builder and Musician 

Ibanez MC924DS 

Ibanez 2459B & Greco

Ibanez Old & New 

Ovation Magnum III 

Gordy Headless Bass 

Strangely, I no longer have the Fender Urge and yet despite being hardly
mainstream, it has had the most hits! I have no idea why!

The feature I did on Peter Cook has always been very popular and I'm
sure he will be pleased that his posts have been well read. :)

The Ovation Magnum has also had a lot of readers, I think mainly due
to the pics that I took of mine, which I am very pleased with.

Peavey T-40, always popular.

The thing that I find very pleasing, as a big fan of Ibanez, is how high some
of those have come on the list.

The Yamaha SB500 has had quite a few hits, as there is not much out there
about these fairly rare basses.

The Ibanez Destroyer/Greco has been well vistied - not many of either
of these around!

Well, hope you enjoy browsing through the most popular ones - I will
be wrapping up the Peavey T Series feature, over the next few weeks and
then I think I will do a few more of the Guitars.


So, to celebrate this 100000 milestone, I am going to make a blatant plug 
for one of my very favourite guitarists!
Yes, I play bass but am a great lover of guitar and love everything from 
Classical, through to Hard Rock, traveling through Funk, Prog and Blues.

For me, this guy just does it so well and I never get tired of listening to his
music and guitar playing.
He has played amongst so many of the great players and his piers and yet
is still relatively unknown.
His last album, "Coming up for air" was produced by no less than the very
talented Peter Frampton, another one of my favourite guitarists.

Coming from the Isle of Man and only around 25 years old, he is now living
in Chicago and spreading his music, mainly across the USA - although I have
been lucky enough to see him live, twice - a truly moving experience.

Readers, please give a big hand for Mr Davy Knowles!





Playing alongside Paul Reed Smith - Davy, is pretty much welded to a PRS guitar, these days.



Davy's album traveled around the the word, in a NASA spaceship - over 5 million miles!



Hope you enjoy watching these and check out his other work.
Any existing fans out there, drop in and say hi on the comments section.

Once again, many thanks to all of you readers out there - here's to the next 
100000 visitors.

All the best.
Cheers. :)

 

 



 



 

Peavey T-60 and T-40 Cases, Part II. . . . .

I asked Chip a couple of questions - How did the moulded case design come about, 
in order to conclude this piece about the cases and just get get an insight into the 
musical side of him, what his musical experiences were and did they influence the
design of the T's.

These cases show the two piece handle, so when it is picked up, it can't fall open.
There were also some unlined cases, as shown above. with one of my old 
Forty's in it.
So, there were three official cases - the Original Vac formed case, that was dropped in 
favour of the one Chip designed.
The earlier ones had three clasps and the later ones had four, adding another one at the
end, to ensure a tighter fit.
The Fender type ones, with the Olive coloured interior, I have seen with early T-40's
but never with the T-60's - these don't seem to feature as a factory option, so I can't
say how they came about.
One thing is for sure - there are enough of them about, all the same, to say that 
somewhere down the line, these were sold from some dealers in that case.
Perhaps they fancied the stronger cases for themselves??
Who knows?

Chip continues. 


"When I was a kid, I built several rifle cases for my father and designed the handles 
into it so that he wouldn't ruin the guns if he picked it up without remembering the 
latches. 
That was back in the early 50s, and Ive never made a case since then that had only 
one handle, except the vacuum-formed early Peavey cases. 
Hartley was quite impressed with the safety of the integral handle although it was 
done in other industries in the late 70s".

"I have not been a musician since I was about eight years old. 
I played violin well enough to be in the city's (adult) orchestra, but didn't take up 
music until I was 29 years old, when I went back to college for my mechanical 
engineering degree, ( I had a BS in Commercial Art). 
I repaired instruments the entire time I was in college and only learned guitar 
while in college the second time. 
I only learned finger-picking in the folk style because I was impressed with 
finger-picking. 
I was told to learn with a pick or I'd never do well with a pick. 
They were right.  
I'm not a musician at all. 
Because of a botched left hand operation to install two carbon-fiber knuckles, 
I can't chord the most simple chords, so I don't play anymore. 
I have taken up the short-scale basslets that I build and am having a good time 
with it. 
I don't play bass patterns; I play harmony to the lead and love playing. 
I have no desire to play on the stage or with a group.

The acoustic guitar was my only real guitar playing, so it had no influence on 
my designing the Peavey guitar. 
During my college days when I was repairing instruments, I did build a bunch 
of electric guitars, so learned what players wanted most.  
Hartley told me, "If you and I don't know what guitarists want, we shouldn't be 
getting into the business". 
This was in reference to having a marketing department. 
Even after he finally hired a marketing man, Hartley and I still made the guitar 
decisions until I left to go to Fender.

Back next time with the tail end of the story.

Cheers. :) 




 

Peavey T-40 and T-60 Cases. . . . .

Happy New Year.

Sorry for the delay on this - been a bit busy! :)

More interesting stuff from Chip Todd

This one is all about the cases that came with the T-40 and T-60.















 

 The official first cases were the Vac formed ones, with the brown interior and 
then later came the moulded cases.
The images above show one of the collection and the later moulded case, with
four catches.
Throughout the production run of both the basses and guitars, there were changes 
in the cases.  In the collection, I have one of each, plus an odd one!
 More questions to Chip. . . . .

I have a Fender type case, with the Olive coloured interior, the square Peavey
cases with the brown interior, the Peavey shaped cases with 3 clips and the last
of the series with 4 clips. That covers them all, as for as I know.
I also have an older Square case, which from the outside looks the same as the
others but this has a deep blue interior. I have never seen another one.
Any ideas? Looks factory made!

The original cases were vacuum-formed and we had quality problems with the 
vendor. 
They also rushed their shipments enough that the glue holding the velour cloth 
hadn’t had enough time to out-gas fully before we were putting guitars in the 
cases, thereby ruining the finish on lots of guitars. 
The aluminum edging wasn’t crimped properly on many cases, so we introduced 
the blow-molded cases to the market. 
We never authorized the other color than the bronze.  
I’m sure that the shipping of a case with the blue interior was a mistake.


No T-series instruments were sold without cases. 
The cases kept us from having to insure the shipped instruments.  
The first type cases were rectangular vacuum-formed cases with suitcase 
handles and aluminum valances around the mating edges. 
Those cases didn't work out well due to delivery, quality, and sturdiness. 
Hartley and I visited a blow-molding vendor and that convinced us to switch 
to blow-molding. 
I designed the cases, (guitar and bass), which had handles that were integral 
with the body of the case and were thicker and without the vellure lining.
The cases were almost indestructible; we pitched one out of the back of a 
truck driving about 80 mph and the guitar suffered no damage. 
The case held together, but had abrasions and dented corners. 
The latches held fast, but we added another latch to the bigger end of the cases.  
The bass and guitar cases were alike, differing only in the length. 
We operated on the JIT system, (just in time), so we wouldn't have to keep a 
large quantity on hand. 
This required a lot of faith in the vendor so that they didn't fail to have cases to 
us as we needed them.
That's about all I can tell you about the cases.To my knowledge, we never had to 
hold up production for want of cases, at least, as long as I was there.

 








I  also asked Chip about the Fender type cases but for some reason that doesn't
seem to be part of the history of the cases, as according to Chip, from memory,
it went from the type shown above, with an 8M bass, to the moulded ones.
I have seen quite a lot of them and as I said at the start, I also have one but I 
am still not sure how they came about.
Mine was with a very early bass and all the others I have see are, as well.

Part II on the cases, next time.

Cheers. :) 

Edit:
No matter what I do - I can't seem to remove the white background on
Chip's answers - sorry if it's a bit hard on the eye! :(

:) 

Peavey T-60 and T-40 story and a Happy Christmas. . . . :)

Well, another year almost gone by again!
Christmas is almost upon us, the shortest day of the year and  tomorrow the 
days start to get longer. Yippeee!

The next set of questions I asked Chip, were as usual, answered in great detail.
Above and below is my '79 Toaster, with a "Slab" body and the smaller switches.
The story continues. . . . . . 

As sales progressed and years passed by, there were some subtle mods.
The body became contoured - was this to be in line with other brands
or a natural progression in design?

The body contouring was increased because the wood shop had proven their 
ability with the stroke-sander, the machine which took the steps out of the 
domed top and we had introduced the guitar with less contouring than I wanted. 
It was also a subtle way to reduce the weight, albeit very little.  
We took very little notice to what others were doing, with the exception of the 
individual saddles on the bridge. 

There was also the deletion of the white index dot, on the scratchplate to indicate 
what position the control knobs were - was that to make a cleaner look or just took 
away another op' on the machining?

It was another way to reduce the cost of the pickguard, as the pickguards were 
built for us by an outside vendor. 
The ¼” counter-bores on the body’s face were to accommodate the protruding 
of the plastic from stamping the countersink for the pickguard screws. 
The stamping of the screw holes saved a costly secondary operation for the 
stamping house, so the index dots were eliminated at the same time for the same 
reason.

The biggest change must have been from the Toasters to the Blades.
The original pick-ups must have been more time consuming to make than
the later ones? Part of ongoing mods?
The Blades also are wound a little hotter?
They have an extra brightness - more noticeable on the bass than the guitar.
The toasters are "Warmer" and offer great tones - do you have a favourite?

The original pickup design had a plastic plate that filled in the oval openings in 
the pickup cover but the plate was eliminated to save cost, being the only injection 
molding process.
The blades were introduced to allow the pickup to be closer to the strings 
without having the main body of the pickup in the player’s way.  
It also strengthened the magnetic field and eliminated one of the magnets.
The blades allowed us to keep the same number of turns around the bobbins, 
(which is where the power comes from), while reducing the resistance at the 
same time.
This kept the same power while allowing the option of more treble overtones.
All of the tones available on the original pickups were there on the “blade” 
pickups, but the reduced resistance from the total length of wire also allowed 
more treble overtones to be reproduced.   
I greatly prefer the exposed blade pickups.

The last of the series went on to change the switches - can you remember
the reason for that?

The switches were changed when I realized that the musicians didn’t treat their 
guitars with the care that I had hoped they would. Instead of admitting that they 
were not avoiding the microphone stands, it was easier to blame the switch, 
so we changed to a beefier switch.

Towards the end of production, the nut - which had been the same from day one,
was changed to a nylon one. Another effort to watch the $$$ in production?

The group following my leaving Peavey to go the Fender felt that they had to 
change things for little reason than to show that they were busy. 
They didn’t realize that they were changing from not having to file topnut 
grooves to the expense of setup time. 
They didn’t save money, as the die cast topnuts were in a family mold and 
were just cut off and thrown back into the melting vat!

Below are shots of the last line of the series - Contoured Body, Bat Switches
and the Nylon Nut. This one is a beast of a bass, in every sense!!!!!                                                                                        

Well that's all for this year, Many Thanks to Chip, who has a lot more to say - which
I will do next time.

I would like to thank everyone, around the world, for dropping in to read my blog.
As of this morning, I have had over 90300 visitors drop in for a look, since I started
this winding story of intruments and some of the people involved.


Over the last few years, I have had e.mails from all over the world - literally - from
people who have one of what I have got or would like to know something about
a particular instrument - always great to hear from you.
I will be attempting to rationalise the collection, over the next year - thin it down a 
little, make a bit more room and let someone else enjoy a few of them.
This, of course, means that I will have a bit more room for . . . . . . . :) :) :)

I would like to wish my readers Seasons Greetings and look forward to coming back
to you in the New Year.

All the very best.

Flat Eric. :)