BigBallz said:
I take an extra dose of my drugs whenever you post. I need it to decipher your code.
OK. If Leo had not been so self constrained to being a guitar builder, then he would not have built a 34" 4-string heavy guage guitar and we would not likely today have guitar shaped bass instruments with frets, a strange "bass on a strap" beastie.
Gibson was building lap steels anyway, which are relatives of the pedal steel, etc, all being instruments layed out in a way more conducive to a larger instrument with a longer scale. A lap steel type of bass could have easily been the "Precision" bass, since the fretlines are on the board and the steel is a fairly precise implement. Imagine, a fretless precision bass, for real, as opposed to the oxymoronic model name worn by certain Fenders.
To the above context, enter Ned Steinberger. Like Leo, a nonplayer. But unlike Leo, he is more than a persistent workman and wondrous tinkerer, he's an engineer, and fine custom furniture crafter [sculptor, really], and dabbles in aerospace materials.
I think I've decoded enuf at this point. You can extrapolate or google or scratch your ass from here.
PS. I prolly misspelled Mariacci or whatever you call those strolling Mexican street bands with the Guitarons [spelling?]. Guitarons are the unplugged immediate ancestor of Leo's fretted Precision Bass. Or maybe it's not the Guitaron but some other Mariacci [sp?] ax, but anyway, there already was a hang-on-a-strap fretted guitar-like bass instrument strolling the streets in Mexico before Leo ever whittled a stick, and, just to get back on-topic, it was NOT a Warwick.