Newly completed konig 15 string bass

[garth4664]

I thought the Alembic family might like the look of my new 15 string bass. This thing is a work of art by Tom Konig who personally designed and made every part of this bass except the machine heads. The Japanese writing on the fingerboard says dream catcher. The script on the body is konig. Side leds are little Japanese flags with glowing red suns. The bass is stereo with low pass filter based circuits. Sound is immensely immense. Requires some skill and effort to play Tom learned to gold plate just for this bass and the hardware is a whole new level (check out the bridge!)

[garth4664]

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[jazzyvee]

NIce looking bass.  It looks extremely close to an alternate design to the classic look that a member here posted drawings of here many years back. Is that where the inspiration for this one came from?

[garth4664]

Hello jazzy, that member may have been me if you are referring to the dream catcher thread in the dreaming for now section the bass outline started with that alternative design and evolved as we prototyped some mock up bodies.

[jazzyvee]

Nice I remember that and liked the design and I guess the upper horn grew longer for balance reasons.

[garth4664]

Thanks Jazzy, yes a combination of physical balance and visual balance with the wide 15 string neck caused some subtle changes to both horns and made the top one a fair bit longer. From the back there’s almost a heart omega in the top horn too. 

[gearhed289]

That is quite an amazing beast! Low B or high C?

[jwright9]

How does it sound? How does it play? I would love to hear it in action. Please post some audio or video.
Cool bass. Thanks for sharing.

[garth4664]

Hello Gearhed, that’s a low B. The two octave strings give it a lot of punch. I will tidy up my chops over the upcoming weeks and try to post some sound. J9 it plays really well, about as physical as a well set up double bass. The biggest challenge is muting the non playing strings and cleaning up your technique to stop stray notes coming through. It’s definitely a level harder than a 12 string to keep the groove clean. Thanks for the comments, Tom Konig is on Facebook and has a website if you want to say hello - he’s an extraordinary luthier and a very nice guy.

[jazzyvee]

Is there a reason for your choice of location of the octave strings. I notice yours are above each of the main strings and I have seen that some basses have them below and others above.

[garth4664]

Hello jazzy, I think it works better this way the plucking finger strikes the bass string first, but if you used a pick then I’m not sure it would be. Both of my 12s were also this way, so maybe octave strings on top is the conventional way to do it? I’m sure you could also learn to play the other way around though. The reality is that it’s not hard to play, it’s just hard to play well