jack and the versatone 1992!

[mellowgerman]

Figured this would be most fitting to post in the bass section. Wooden Ships in 1992, camera stays on jack for the majority. Fantastic playing as always but he really puts the versatone to use in the peak, coaxing out some great resonance/feedback.
Must say I've never been the biggest fan of Slick Aguilar's guitar tone/style or the twinkly sounding electric pianos of the 80's/90's, but it's a real treat of a video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6OiZZMEryo

 

[bassmyf]

Cool video, Mello, but doesn`t that date have to be wrong. I didn`t think the Casady Epiphone was released till much later. Maybe around 2000? :?

 

[fronobulax]

It's not a Starfire so my motivation intensive video analysis is low, but...

Les Paul Signature bass which Jack says here was his main bass from the mid-'80's through late 90's. Did I miss something in my 30 seconds of review that makes the video bass a Casady signature and not a Les Paul signature?

 

[bassmyf]

Did I miss something in my 30 seconds of review that makes the video bass a Casady signature and not a Les Paul signature?

I`m sure you are correct,Jaime. Was listening more than paying attention, and just assumed it was an Epi..Thanks

 

[twocorgis]

It's not a Starfire so my motivation intensive video analysis is low, but...

Les Paul Signature bass which Jack says here was his main bass from the mid-'80's through late 90's. Did I miss something in my 30 seconds of review that makes the video bass a Casady signature and not a Les Paul signature?

The bass Jack is playing definitely appears to have the Gibson headstock, but appears to have the later Casady Signature pickup. Note the decidedly rectangular shape in this fuzzy screen grab

Combination of the two? Prototype of sorts?

 

[mellowgerman]

Those Gibson Les Paul basses had at least two different pickups, the second one looking more or less identical to Jack's signature pickup. The image frono posted is one of the original incarnations, which I've only ever seen in promo photos and old Gibson ads.
check out this 1972 (more like jack's) that sold on gbase some time ago:

 

[mgod]

Jack spent a day here in 93 working towards an article for BP. He had 3 LP sigs at the time.

 

[twocorgis]

Those Gibson Les Paul basses had at least two different pickups, the second one looking more or less identical to Jack's signature pickup. The image frono posted is one of the original incarnations, which I've only ever seen in promo photos and old Gibson ads.
check out this 1972 (more like jack's) that sold on gbase some time ago:

Well, that just goes to show what I know about LP basses!

That one looks quite a bit more like my Casady signature, but the back is a lot nicer. Was the pickup pretty much that same as the ones you get now?

 

[mellowgerman]

Those Gibson Les Paul basses had at least two different pickups, the second one looking more or less identical to Jack's signature pickup. The image frono posted is one of the original incarnations, which I've only ever seen in promo photos and old Gibson ads.
check out this 1972 (more like jack's) that sold on gbase some time ago:

Well, that just goes to show what I know about LP basses!

That one looks quite a bit more like my Casady signature, but the back is a lot nicer. Was the pickup pretty much that same as the ones you get now?

I remember reading or watching an interview where Jack said that some minor adjustments were made to the pickup design.
The last time I was in Germany I got a chance to check out a Frankfurt Gibson bass collector's bass room. He had pretty much every model that existed to his knowledge. I got to play a Casady and an original 70's LP bass side by side. Both great instruments, but the LP felt more comfy (like a well taken care of vintage instrument often does) and sounded better in my opinion, but not by a whole lot.... certainly not $1000+ better :wink:
Also, I've read that a number of the original LP basses had construction issues; something to do with the neck and proper resonance if I remember correctly

 

[twocorgis]

Also, I've read that a number of the original LP basses had construction issues; something to do with the neck and proper resonance if I remember correctly

Kind of like their Epiphone counterparts, no? I know that the one you got was a clunker, but I'm glad that mine isn't, and it sounds noticeably better with the Hipshot bridge on it now. Of course, wildly variable QC is pretty typical of Gibson.

 

[mellowgerman]

Also, I've read that a number of the original LP basses had construction issues; something to do with the neck and proper resonance if I remember correctly

Kind of like their Epiphone counterparts, no? I know that the one you got was a clunker, but I'm glad that mine isn't, and it sounds noticeably better with the Hipshot bridge on it now. Of course, wildly variable QC is pretty typical of Gibson.

Good point. Never thought to relate my Epi experience to the reported issues of the old models... I wonder! Although I've never heard of anything like my experience happening with another Epi model; I just wrote it off as a one-off lemon.
But now you've got my gears a turnin

 

[mgod]

I had an LP Sig. A better bass then a Casady Epi (maybe due to age), but the pickup in the Casady was better I thought.

 

[twocorgis]

I had an LP Sig. A better bass then an Casady Epi (maybe due to age), but the pickup in the Casady was better I thought.

I've got to agree with you as far as the pickup goes. I think the pup in my Casady is about as good as it gets. I'd love to try an LP Sig some time, but they're not that easy to come by.

 

[fronobulax]

Was the pickup pretty much that same as the ones you get now?

No. The interview here which I also linked to above :wink: discusses some of the changes that were made to the LP PU to get the JC PU.

 

[Happy Face]

Also, I've read that a number of the original LP basses had construction issues; something to do with the neck and proper resonance if I remember correctly

Kind of like their Epiphone counterparts, no? I know that the one you got was a clunker, but I'm glad that mine isn't, and it sounds noticeably better with the Hipshot bridge on it now. Of course, wildly variable QC is pretty typical of Gibson.

I recall that at least one of the LP Sig basses that sold in the last year had "second" or something like that stamped on the back of the headstock

 

[twocorgis]

Was the pickup pretty much that same as the ones you get now?

No. The interview here which I also linked to above :wink: discusses some of the changes that were made to the LP PU to get the JC PU.

Oops, missed the link!

Now that I read the interview, I can certainly relate to Jack's statement that most guitar company's QC was awful in the '70s. My luthier, who's distinctly a Martin guy, pretty much admits that Guilds were the high water mark of quality in the '70's, and I owned a '76 D28 whose intonation was so bad (and basically unfixable) that it would prove his statement correct. The Norlin era Gibsons have earned a well-deserved notoriety for being pretty much uniformly bad.

 

[Hangman]

I had an LP Sig. A better bass then an Casady Epi (maybe due to age), but the pickup in the Casady was better I thought.

I've owned a LP Sig too and two Epis and I agree. The Gibson was a better built bass, but the pickup in the Epi sounder better to me.

Epiphone with Versatone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRv2BqMPJsA

I recall that at least one of the LP Sig basses that sold in the last year had "second" or something like that stamped on the back of the headstock

Gibson stamped a lot of basses as 2nds, at dealers requests, not because anything was wrong with them but because bass players' weren't buying them at all (until Jack did). There's a music store here that had a lot of them hanging on the wall back in the 80s, tagged around $200-300.00 or so, and still no one was buying them. Makes me think of the line: "I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger"

 

[jte]

I find this hard to believe. When I was a Gibson dealer (1977-1988) Gibson's policy on seconds was that if the instrument had a finish flaw but was otherwise good, they'd put a "2" under the serial number on the headstock, and ship it out as a second. They didn't charge the dealer any less, but we had the right to return it without any penalties (the only other reason they'd accept a return was if there was a definite manufacturing problem- you couldn't return a guitar just because it wasn't as good as a $1000 guitar in 1983 should have been).

So the dealer had to sell it as a second, which meant a lower price to the customer, but the same price to the dealer, squeezing an already short overall margin. Why could they do this? When it routinely took 6 to 14 months to receive a specific instrument, most dealers didn't want to return a second, and wait a year to get a new Les Paul in. Besides, in my experience, the seconds all had necks that I found more comfortable.

John

 

[Hangman]

Your post sounds reasonable, but I'm just relating what a dealer told me long ago.
I remember the 2nds for sale with absolutely nothing wrong with them. I don't remember seeing cosmetic issues, but it was 30 years. The neck on my LP sig. 2nd had a nice neck on it

 

[jte]

It was very difficult for us to find the reason any particular instrument from Gibson was labeled a second too. Sometimes it looked like the binding in the cutaway of a Les Paul wasn't scraped well enough, and we did fine one very tiny spot on the back of a Les Paul where the stain wasn't even on the wood- about the size of a pencil diameter.

John