Wednesday 11 August 2010

On the Rails. . . . . . .

Westone Rail Bass.

I have two of these fascinating basses, looked for ages to find one
and then another
one turned up, so I thought I would grab a spare.
Medium scale, so you can whizz up and down the board with ease,
if you are used to playing a 34" scale bass.

The neck and the two body components are made from Maple and
give it a good solid feel.
The sliding pick-up really does show how important pick-up positioning
is, and without any electronic trickery, a lot of different tones can be
eased out of this bass, simply by moving the pick-up.
Anything from sort of a Jaco bark to a Reggae dub and loads in between.

The centre component hold the pick-up, volume control and output socket.

Clever, eh??


I'm sure there are others out there that do the same thing - the Gibson
Grabber being one of them.
I also have a Quantum Bass, which is part of the family - I will come back
later with that one.
There is a great site dedicated to Westone instruments.
I also came across this a few months ago - some interesting reading from
a man who was very much involved with Westone.http://forum.westoneguitars.net/general-f1/westone-us-design-development-history-t971.htm

A fun thing that is a very serious instrument.

Back with some more another day.

Cheers. :)

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2 comments:

Dana said...

Thanks for a great blog - keep up the good work!

I had one of the '85 black Quantums - it was my first bass, and still my favorite for overall feel, sound, and playability. Will you be posting yours on here anytime soon?

Flat Eric said...

Hi. Nice to hear from you.Yes, seeing as you have mentioned it, I will get onto the case. The Quantum is a great bass, so I will try to get some good shots and an accurate description. Cheers. :)