Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Michael Manning playing the ZON Hyperbass....

Michael is one innovative bassist! I have seen him a couple times and have a few of his CDs.

Simply amazing.....kinda puts a new twist on the "Drop D" tuner doesn't it!

zon used to have a factory here in buffalo as well as moog. a customer of mine was one of his workers. gave me a whole gross of zon pics from different eras. that vid is sick !!! to remember all those tuning changes during a tune...

Joe Zon is from Buffalo. I still have two of the three Zons I got from him.

my customer told me today, most of joe's production goes overseas. (probably japan,i would think) they talk frequently. though i'm not into furniture style basses like alembic,vigier,etc, the zon has interesting mechanical and sonic qualities for jazz and fusion...or jazz/fusion,lol. the fretboard on the hyperbass looks to be plastic like graphite or a high gloss laquered ebony. i'd like to see jeff berlin grind on one of those, but what he gets out of his j-bass is just fine...(bruford tapes !)

used to be a band named "zon" from toronto late '70's early 80's. (astral projector album) have it.

The necks are carbon fiber with phenolic or "phenowood" fingerboards. The glossy ones (fretless) have a finish on them to give them a brighter tone. My first fretless Zon, a Sonus 5 Special, had a glossy fingerboard, my current one is a matte (unfinished) phenowood fingerboard, that still sounds great.

BTW...jim samson from zon used a 4001. will look for the album sleeve for pics.

I wonder if Joe knows about that band.

here's a pic of joe zon and bono at namm sent to me by my customer that worked for him here in buffalo in the old days....i'll send it to jps for posting.

I was there at Zon's booth a few times, also. Here is BR's photo:

Here is one of many photos I made of Michael, performing at the Markbass booth with his Sonus Hyperbass.

For those into E-Bows:

he's a sick, sick bass player ! thanx, jeff fer posting the bono pic.

Never seen an Ebow before, and what's the deal with the RAMPS?

What do they do actually?