[TRADED] Tobias GR-5 "Growler" 5-string

[edwardofhuncote]

This is a Tobias GR-5 "Growler" made around 1995 under Gibson ownership in Nashville, Tennessee. It's a 5-string, ash body, maple/purpleheart neck, 34" scale, pau ferro (I think) fingerboard. Measures 1.75" at the nut, 19 mm spacing at the bridge. Very light, very ergonomic, excellent balance. It does have the asymmetrical neck people tend to either like or hate. 18v preamp, just put in two new Duracell Quantum 9v. Strung with fresher rounds. (Marcus Millers, maybe?) Very light play wear, hard to picture on satiny, oil-like finish. Comes with a nicer Access gigbag. Also the truss rod adjustment tool... it'll be in the case pocket. Everything works great, and it plays nice. I wouldn't really know what to compare the sound to... of all my non-Alembic basses, it comes the closest, intuitively at least. I even thought one time about designing a Custom Alembic Excel that worked like it.

Anyway, It's been a faithful backup/rainy-day bass for the past few years. Time to let it go.

$725 shipped in the U.S. of A.

[edwardofhuncote]

If you're interested in reading, here's more info on these things...

This particular Growler of mine is a first generation model, with each half of the Bartolini quad-coil pickup functioning independently, separate volumes, two-band eq tone controls, and mid-range contour switches for each side. Later models had a Volume/Pan setup. Eventually the contour switches went away too. Mine also has an odd perk... it came with a push-pull volume pot that switches the output to stereo. From what I understand, only the first few came this way... I found an explanation for this in a discussion thread, as described by the guy who designed the Growler, beginning with post #182 here:


https://www.talkbass.com/threads/official-tobias-growler-club.805279/page-10

[gearhed289]

Thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole!  Interesting read about the Tobias guy. $7.50 an hour??? 

That's a great looking Growler you've got there, with the cool early features too. I was thinking about one before I finally made the plunge into Alembic-world.

[edwardofhuncote]

Mods, please mark this thread as a done deal... I traded this fine bass for a Mesa D-800.


Yeah, that was an interesting read on several angles.    I particularly enjoyed the Van Halen Michael Anthony connection.


*edit for accuracy.