Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Smith
When was that David? Please, when you get a chance study our Factory Tour pages which give only hints of how hand-made and hands-on we actually are from the raw lumber to the finished product.
I don't think any Factory Basses were ever made in this fashion regardless of how good some think the 'old ones' were. We are actually more like old school Violin makers but making solid Body Electric Basses employing some of the transferable techniques used in the centuries past. |
I didn't mean to imply that the level of care was as great as what you give, just that there was more individual attention given than the current state of affairs. I guess the time I was talking about was "in the days when Roger Rossmeisl worked for Rickenbacker ...." that was in the sixties. Before that he worked for Gibson, after Rickenbacker he worked briefly for Leo Fender. Probably he should have never worked for anyone but himself or his father Wenzel who founded Roger guitars in Germany. In that time, no, there was no company in America that did it how you do it. But we are talking about extreme attention to detail when we talk about your methods and philosophies and I have taken the "tour". But there was a time when at the factories of Rickenbacker, Gibson, and even to an extent Fender, that individual makers ideas and building philosophies were more important than corporate bottom lines. For instance at Rickenbacker, Rossmeisl did the set-ups and dressed frets as well. He wasn't just at the drawing table. Of the surviving legacy American companies, Rickenbacker is definitely not Ken Smith. But in my opinion, there is still more care there than in many others, possibly because the business is still family owned. I can see it and hear it in those instruments.
But more importantly, what would you think of a true custom bass guitar maker's trade show? Perhaps a more intimate thing than NAMM where a small shop like Jim's could visit instead of wading through all the ___ at NAMM.