The Arsenal Pt. 4 - Bruce

Sometimes the comedy of gear gives way to applause.

OK, so this is Bruce. I mean, just look at this fucking thing! Some factory went way out of their way to make an entry level bass look *very* high end. The brand name is TCM.

My guess is that this is early Korean, maybe circa '82-83. The peghead isn't scarfed onto the neck, and has a heavy volute. One piece of mahogany for the entire neck, cut at a cacked grain angle. Body is the same mahogany with stripes of maple. The countering is a real tell tale sign: rounded back edge, with a fairly square top , and a ramped arch. The Japanese had moved on from such building techniques in budget instruments like this by this era: usually this sort of level of detail at a cheap price point was simply impossible except from Korea.

And how do I know this was low budget to begin with? Well, check out the cutaways: asymmetrical. And it's clearly a mistake, since the lower cutaway is 1/2" longer than the top one. Bolt on neck, with misaligned holes. But the best is the peghead:

Hey, let's check out that E machine head from the back:

Yep, left the factory with the E bored out 3/8" lower than it should have been! And those tuners: 80s skate keys, which scream budget. Usually I'd chuck those in a heartbeat, but these work well enough...

Another $100 Kijiji find. So why did I keep it? Well, 2 reasons. The bridge is one *honking* chunk of metal, like a BadAss II with weight gain, so oddly the sustain is really great. And the other thing is that P pickup. No markings on it, medium output, but it's got this upper mid ring to it, total Tejas tone. The J sucks, as I always find they do, so I wired it out. 

Strung with flats, slammed with a pick, total 70s punk rock tone. Which I love. Sometimes the crudest gear set up can get the coolest tones.

Again, this is the 28.8K bass, same rig as above, but with a 15" and different mikes. This beast is a keeper for use. And the neck's solid, haven't had to set the action after I got it, maybe 7 years back. Sure, dead spots galore, but that's bass for ya...

And any piece like this needs a righteous name. So, since the odds of me finding an SD Curlee on the Canadian Prairies are pretty well nil, that's about as close to this as I'll ever find: