Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Kent, specifically, what has your experience been with the Turser violin? Was it the fit and finish (which in Chinese guitars has been very good recently especially when price is considered) or sound?

I've gotta say that the spaghetti tailpiece would have to be the first thing to go. The newest version has chrome pup surrounds and a different burst than your pic.

If it's the pups, those can always be modded.

yea.......I do have one......I took off the squiggle....darkened the pickgaurds, although alot of that wore off since there are no pores to retain any stain. It has flatwounds.....tuning knobs changed to smaller hofner-esque ones....I also had the headstock redone in black and a Hofner raised logo put on. Sounds excellent, actually......Plus....Myne has a finish that looks nothing like that well more hofner looking.

oh, and I flipped the truss rod cover

wait a tick.......I thought it was impossible to mod the pickups of the Hofner to fit in the turser....explain

Not impossible, just too much work for the average tinkerer. I wasn't referring to that (why not just buy a Hofner?) but the possibility of some other pickups in the Turser cases.

>>> Kent, specifically, what has your experience been with the Turser violin?

didn't mean to imply I had experience with the Turser violin bass. By "other turser" I meant this one:



Which I found to be marginal at best in sound feel and construction quality. But I guess you get what you pay for. At the time I was in the middle of a a guitar collecting mania. I've since come to my senses and sold the cheaper guitars (Turser included) and kept the good ones (Ric(s), Gretsch, Fender, Ibanez(s), a very cool Epi, and a Daion, and an old Yamaha hollowbody bass).

>I've gotta say that the spaghetti tailpiece would have to be the first thing to go.

yup

>>>If it's the pups, those can always be modded.

This is very true. I didn't mean to come off as knowledgeable about the Turser violin bass..... I just wanted to point out that in my limited experience Turser is a cheaply made guitar and certainly the general retail price is in line with that cheapness. Who knows?... a modded Turser violin bass could be a good alternative to an expensive Hofner.

Is the Epi Viola that much better than a Turser? This thread is going everywhere but where it was intended..lol.

Kent, your recent experience replicates mine...

After years with just a very few choice guitars after being a collector in my youth, I got GAS last Fall when I brought my '59 Duo Sonic back from S. America and cleaned it up. My mania resulted in my first acquiring a bunch of Asian guitars of various brands and enjoying playing and evaluating them as my ears grew back on, so to speak.

Then I got the heck out of all of the cheapies and got into Rickenbackers. It was like growing up all over again, and realizing the difference between genuine brilliance and copycat mediocrity.

yea.... interesting.... what has surprized me over the years is that I've never found a Gibson that I really like.

I know, I know... I can hear the howling already starting to build. I suppose there are some out there, and I've played some decent LPs, but I just never liked the feel (and in some cases the weight).

One of my Epiphones is the Sheraton II which is a Gibson 335 copy. Pretty nice... I had a piezo bridge and stereo jack put in and run it out to the VOX AC15 amp and a small Marshall acoustic amp for a nice acoustic-electric type of sound.

Paul... duo sonic as in....



??? looks nice/different. A MusicMaster? How does it compare to a strat or tele?

hey... what was this thread all about? oh yea, the bass for a Beatles tribute band.....

When my Beatles trib band started in 1991 we were very casual about the instruments, only caring about getting the music right. In the beginning I played my 4003LHFG, the guitarists played Strats, and the drummer had some POS kit. About a year into it the rythym player got a Ric 320. That's when things got a bit more serious as far as guitars. I got a Vox violin bass, which was nice but it had active EQ and went thru batteries like crazy. Then Epiphone came out with the Viola bass. I sold the Vox and bought a righty Epi. Sounded like **** with the factory rounds but slap on some flats and it was damn good. Then about a year later Epi came out with a lefty, sold the righty, bought a lefty. After a couple years like that the lead player got a Ric 12 and a Gretsch! The drummer got a '66 Ludwig Oyster Pearl kit. OK, time to get real. Got a Hofner, and yes it did sound better than the Epi but not 3 times better. But we were very serious about "the show" now and started doing later period Beatles, so I got a lefty 4001S, painted it MMT, and painted the lead's Strat like George's "Rocky". I kept the Epi for several years, using it for gigs that involved airline travel. The Hofner just seems so fragile. But I sold the Epi about a year ago, and the Hofner hasn't been broke by baggage handlers yet.
So....if I were you, just starting out with a Beatles band I would get the Epi and you'll be happy with it and it will be a nice bass for you and most people won't even know it's not the "Real Thing".

Just for giggles, I bought a Jay Turser violin bass for $299 about three years ago. Like the Epi Viola, it sounded horrible with the factory round wounds, put as soon as I put some GHS flats on it, it sounded a hell of a lot better. I knew that it wasn't a Hofner, but for $299, it has more than served its purpose. Ronn is quite right, most people don't even know that it's not a real Hofner, unless I say something.

I have a '68 500/1 for sale, $1,200 takes it. It's in perfect shape.

Kent, it is identical to the Musicmaster you posted, but of course two pickups. I just fished it out of its case on Sunday and I cannot believe how well it plays! The action is the lowest of any guitar I own (including my just-set-up new 381, which is already excellent) and the neck is super-straight--after 37 years and one month. The sound ranges from surf to snarl. Very nearly Jaguar sounding on both pups and snarl like a Doberman on mostly bridge with a skosh of neck.

It was modified for the previous owner (Ry Cooder, from whom I bought it in '81) by Lloyd Baggs, who installed an out of phase switch, which actually puts the pickups INTO phase, as from the factory they were wired in reverse as you would wire the two coils of a single humbucker. So it's a humbucker guitar with one pickup with the coils 4" apart, or a guitar with two single coil pups. Tapped in phase, it's thin and even snarlier.

It's mint and gorgeous. I posted a good pic of it in another thread awhile back. Don't have one handy right now...

Holy Moley! Ry Cooder?!? That's fabulous...did you get to know him? A lot of people I talk to don't know about him being in Beefheart's original Magic Band...I think he was like 16 years old on Safe As Milk.

Forgive my opinionated nature, but this is a damn site more exciting to me than anything ever co-owned by R. McGuinn and H. Axton...

Did not get to know him. I was looking for a DS, because I had heard about the sound. Early 1981, as I remember. Stopped into Cal Guitars in the Valley (long gone) and asked if they had any. There was a quiet guy in there talking to the proprietor. Noticed he had a lazy left eye (actually, found out later it was glass). I asked if the proprietor had any DSs. The quiet guy smiled. Proprietor pulled out a case. Talked to both of them and bought the DS after trying it out briefly. Proprietor said "it's his--he just consigned it". I shook hands, mentioned my name, he mentioned his. Not too many guys named Ry. I played it very low key while telling him that I'd been a fan for over a decade. He was flattered. Very low-key, nice guy. I still have the receipt with his 1981 phone number on it! He left the MB on the eve of their '67 Monterey Pop gig. Russ Titeman (his brother-in-law) was also briefly in the MB around that time.

The DS was tuned to open E6 or some damned thing (as he would say).