4005 6-STRING...BASS OR GUITAR?

[jingle_jangle]

Found this picture on a German website. Appears to have a bass headstock with 6 Grovers, but strings look awfully light to be bass strings. Anybody want to fill me in on this?

[weemac]

4005 barritone?
emac.

[sloop_john_b]

I always assumed it was similar to a Bass VI, which IIRC was traditionally strung .025-.095, but that low E does not look like .095.

[rickenbrother]

Hard to see the headstock with the text in the pic, but it looks like it has bass tuners. A custom light bass 6 string set maybe? It wouldn't be easy to find a standard gauge guitar string set in long scale bass length.

[sloop_john_b]

Another photo:

[sloop_john_b]

And more photos at Jeff's site, here: http://www.3dentourage.com/425/4005.htm

[leftyguitars]

John, that is a different bass.

[sloop_john_b]

John, that is a different bass.

Well, same idea anyway.

[danomar]

The neck appears bass length, unless there is some sort of extremely long guitar scale I don't know about.

The fellow in the picture does appear to have just strummed it, though.

Odd.

[antipodean]

I always assumed it was similar to a Bass VI, which IIRC was traditionally strung .025-.095, but that low E does not look like .095.

Agree!!! The most common of the "baritone' style 6 string basses are Danelectros (and their Jerry Jones analogues), followed by the Fender VI. The 4005/6 is a lot rarer, but probably not as rare as the Gibson EB6, which looks like an out-of-proportion SG. The vast majority of these basses are short scale. I believe that the 4005/6 is a full-scale bass, which makes it rather unique, and more difficult to use as a baritone unless you have enormous hands.

Due to the narrower string spacing, the strings on this style of 6-string bass can often appear to be lighter in gauge than they really are. That said, the strings in the picture do look a lot lighter than they should. The bottom 4 could be octave strings from an 8-string set, but I'm not sure about the B and high E. Maybe they're custom made????

[leftybass]

That is a 4005/6 LH.

Or rather THE 4005/6 LH....

Had a chance to get it 5-6 years ago, might as well be 5-6000 years ago...

[leftyguitars]

I was offered it two years ago John, probably for about ten times what you were offered it for!

[wints]

The old one about supply and demand I'm afraid, and the southpaws get squeezed again...

[jwr2]

The 4005/6 is pretty much a pick players bass ...

http://www.3dentourage.com/425/4005.htm

[jingle_jangle]

OK, so it's the only 4005/6 LH ever made, and it's running some sort of weird string setup (how do you intonate it with strigs that are so far off? Note all the guitar strings on the wall in the background... at least there's something there that'd fit.

Any other info as to who has it? Provenance, maybe?