If all goes well, a few more basses will be at the booth via Pittsburgh from Mike Magee's shop, hand delivered.
The 4 additional basses will be the
Uebel,
Hofner 5er,
Panormo 'copy' and an Italian bass not yet listed by Mario Bandini.
The Uebel and Hofner have been in the shop in the past and shown to customers as well as having been used by me on some gigs. The Uebel was a longer string length when I first got it so a new neck was made and the bass was restored. I personally felt that the bass should be about 1/2" longer than it was restored to so I had Mike re-set the neck. In addition to that work, he added a single E latch C-extension. The Hofner was also worked on previously, getting a new fingerboard and bridge for the most part. After re-working the bridge for personal preferences and then playing it for some time, I felt that the Neck should be moved out and re-set for optimum playability. The work on these two basses are now complete and play and sound better than before which was quite impressive to begin with.
On the Panormo copy, that bass came in at first with a severely damaged Top at the hands of Fed-ex freight. The agents for the maker in Hungry visited me shortly after with some other basses and offered to take it back to the maker and have a new top made as well as a restoration of the other areas that were damaged. A few months later they returned with more basses for me, one of them being the restored Panormo copy. So the bass made in 2011 has a top from 2012. Two years in the making actually but, being that it has never been played other than brief testing, the bass was actually just completed by Magee with a new re-set as well as all of the other needed set-up components. Started in 2011 and completed in 2013, made in Budapest 'twice' and completed in Pittsburgh. Mike also added a chromatic C-extension to this bass so it's ready for Orchestra work. The sound is awesome and it does not at all sound like a new bass.
The 4th bass possibly coming if completed in the next few days is an Italian Bass c.1980s (I forget the exact year) and just fully restored. There were a few minor cracks and splits on the Top, Ribs and Back. Most of them hiddin within the varnish and figure of the wood. The Ribs and Back are of highly figured Italian Poplar from the Lombardi region. The Lombardi is a fantastic sounding bass. So, this will be the 4th additional bass if ready in time to make the trip. That will make 10 basses which my exhibit space is actually 'zoned' for.
So, to whom ever is coming, there will be plenty of fully restored and fully set-up basses to try.
Leon Bosch is performing at this ISB as well and has reserved the Bollbach Lion as his bass of choice to play at his recital. Chris Brown will also do a performance there but I do not have all the details other than one piece (or thee piece) is written for 4 basses. I have been asked to play one of the parts and one of his students will also borrow a bass from my display so there will be 2 more of these basses on stage at on this venue.