LeftyBassist.com

A couple years ago a friend of mine received his brand new Carl Thompson 4-string bass. It took three years to make, and he visited Carl in his shop in New York twice to see the progress. I took a bunch of color and BW photos of it, and I thought I would throw them up here as a treat. I know it's right-handed, but c'mon how often do you get a chance to see a CT?















It's the small details that most excite me about this bass:





Notice that even the stamp plate is made of two layers of wood:





Just look at that dot at the top of the headstock. That dot is a piece of wood! It boggles the mind:







I will post the BW images in a separate post.

Here are the black & whites, shot with my Olympus OM-1 35mm. I really like how these photos bring out the woodgrain.

That's really nice man.

Carl Thompsons are definitely stunning beautiful works of art, but...

My only experience seeing/hearing one is via Les Claypool, who's tone and "schtick" I personally can't stand. Okay, I'll go dig out the hockey mask and chicken wire fence now.

I think Les Claypool has a lot more to do with that than the way his basses are built. From my personal experience playing and listening to this one, it has a great range of tones that go way beyond the narrow scope of sounds Claypool tends to go for with his music. I've been a fan of his for many years, but I can certainly understand why you wouldn't like him. I don't particularly like his lyrics, but I've always appreciated how he's valued songwriting over showing off (unlike every other virtuoso).

But I digress. Carl Thompson's basses are meant to be more than just eye candy. Carl himself tells his customers that his basses are made to be played and played often. They are surprisingly light, have excellent balance, are remarkably easy to maintain, have simple controls, and are incredible to play. For the quality and quantity of work that goes into them, they are surprisingly cheap, usually costing between $4,000 and $5,000. That doesn't sound cheap, but compare it to another luxury luthier like Alembic, who charge that much for just their bare-bones starter basses. For something comparable in quality and workmanship from them, you could easily be spending $20,000 to $30,000. And their instruments are extremely heavy and usually jam-packed with literally dozens of useless knobs and switches.

I guess you can tell I don't like Alembic very much. But when you have a luthier like Carl Thompson to compare them to, Alembic instruments tend to appear to be status symbols and nothing more. Glossy, heavy, overcomplicated, overpriced, gaudy status symbols.

OOPS!!!



having had to use this "artistic feature" on a bass once, I know exactly how this bit of artistic expression can find its way into a bass build ... and if you need to do it, make sure you present it as a highlighted feature (like done here) rather than attempting to match the grain in an effort to blend in and disguise the fact that the wood you utilized was a little too small after all of the manufacturing prep was completed

all the best,

R

I'm not so sure it was a mistake that had to be covered up. Cat's eyes have become a staple of luthier bass-building, and you can find them on plenty of Carl Thompson basses. It very well could have been a mistake of course, but I don't think that's too likely. Carl is known for scrapping nearly done basses if even one minor element is not totally perfect.

About 5 years ago, I had the opportunity to buy an "unplayed" left-handed CT six-string for about $4000. I don't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure it had a flame/quilted/crazy maple top on it and like a 10 piece neck.

It was listed on eBay for $6000 OBO, and I contacted the guy who listed it... he said it wasn't his... it was his good-friend and neighbor's.

When I asked for details, I found out that the guy did a bunch of work (not sure exactly what kind) for Carl in exchange for the bass... according to the guy selling it, he was a bass "hobbyist" and basically went full-bore when ordering the bass from CT and picked his "dream bass," in hopes that he would begin to take it more seriously.

Obviously, that never happened.

Apparently it was valued at over $8K by CT himself... the guy had it listed locally for almost a year before listing it on eBay... he didn't want to list it there because he wanted to sell face-to-face and didn't want to pay all the fees.

Anyway... I developed a dialog with this guy and it finally came down to, "Look... I can see you really want this bass and I'm sure it would go to a good home, so if you can come up with $4500, it's yours."



I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.

I scrambled... started listing stuff... went absolutely berserk trying to come up with the dough, and it never happened... not sure if the guy sold it or decided to hang onto it, but... it's something that I'll beat myself up over for the rest of my life, more than likely.

*sigh*

WOW. That's quite a story. Lefty CT basses are rare, he's only made a handful his whole life, and I've never seen one on the market. It's unfortunate that you weren't able to pick it up, but you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. You couldn't come up with the money. That's about the best excuse a person can have for failing to pick up a rare deal like that. $4,000 is a lot of money by itself, it's a hell of a lot of money to have to come up with on the fly in a short amount of time.

The lefty six string Carl Thompson was sold five years ago. There are images posted of the bass under 6 string on Carl Thompson's web page. It is reported as the only lefty six string that Carl's shop ever built. The bass is located in the Lehigh Valley in PA.

You the owner of the lefty 6?

LOL ... maybe that's true ...
... anyways great looking bass, and welcome FOM !