Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Bishop
I'm curious, Ken, with the options/choices you have at your fingertips, why would you choose the lower-end of your product?
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Well for one, that's all that I have available that is not company stock for one and second, it works! Usually, this stuff would be played with a Fender or similar bass. The Burner is in my opinion, miles above to start with.
The point I was making was that I can get by and do the job with ease playing the Burner. More luxury would be better but for a pit gig, I will have less of a liability than if I pulled a brand new elite from stock. One scratch or ding and I will have to re-finish it to sell as new. I do not want to take YOUR new potential bass out on a gig and take that kind of a chance.
If I was playing more full time on the electric, I still might just play a bolt-on. I remember taking a BT4G out to play 'Cats' on Broadway in NYC in the late '80s. It was Bubinga T/B with Mahogany core. While warming up the house engineer runs back stage to the Pit area and says to me "what bass is that?". I tell him and he replies, "that's what a bass should sound like". I was just subbing that night as I was the 1st sub by conductors choice. The regular played a '65 Fender that "I" used to own and sold to him years back.
The Burner was originally copied from a BT5G with the same woods as that 4, Bubinga/Mahogany I had sent over to Japan. After we started the Burner project, I got the name of the Maple supplier from them as the wood was so 'clean', I just had to have that stock for my own basses. That was back in early 1989.
Like I said, the Burner works. The Smith basses we make are better but the 4s on the Burner are the same spacing as the Smith models. The 5s and 6s were 16mm as opposed to the 18mm we use. The 4s get the job done but if I had more work on the outside, I would prefer something at least like the 5M Walnut my son sort of 'permanently borrowed', lol.