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Old 09-07-2013, 04:13 PM
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Ken Smith Ken Smith is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Hochberg View Post
My new bass is kind of an oddball with highly flamed ribs, mildly flamed back, a dovetail mortise and, an integral bass bar. My luthier told me the dovetail made it more Czech than German school.
Many many basses from Germany were made with dove-tail joints.

In talking about Czech basses, there is a HUGE difference between the ones made and imported here and the real in-land Czech basses from Prague. The basses here are all Germanic in style made on either side of the Eastern German border or from down in Mittenwald.

The only big factory in the Czech area was the Lidl factory that 'was' in Brno/Moravia, way east of Prague but later moved up to the German border area. After the War sometime it was moved to Luby and combined with Strunal, Dvorak and Lidl. Josef Kreutzer was one of the masters in the original Lidl factory. A bass of his that I have looks to be a mix of German (construction), Italian (model) and Germanic-Czech (scroll).

The Bass I mentioned that looked like a Morelli with a different label has similar internal construction to my Kreutzer whom also trained in Germany. So it seems as if these basses vary mostly by model and grade of woods. The construction varies less than does the models they produce. It is all basically Germanic in style and make, a-la-shop/factory production.

I have owned a few older and possibly more hand-made Germanic type basses in my time and they sound only slightly better. But, re-graduate and restore an old German/Czech factory-type bass with good wood, figured or not and you will have a fine bass made with German wood. We have done this as well with excellent results.

On the neck, the dovetail is the old guitar method once again. Better than blockless but not as good as a mortise.
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