John Turner on Bass
Doubleneck 7-String Fretted /
7 - String Fretless Bass

That brings me to the doubleneck bass.  Where in the world did that monster come from?

It's the product of genetic manipulation gone awry, growing...growing...growing...soon to consume the world!  Coming to a Mystery Science theater near you.  Actually, about three months after I got my  2nd 7string bass, the fretted, I started to realize that I often wanted to use fretless and fretted in the same song, both on the long songs like Dante's Cafe, [40 minutes] and Nosferatu [20 minutes], where whole passages might be done either fretted or fretless, and on the shorter tunes, where I might want to do just a little change-up in the middle or else segue from a fretted song to a fretless song without an instrument change.  So....I thought about getting a doubleneck, long and hard.  When I finally decided the time was right, I began to take measurements of my two basses, fretted "on top" and fretless "on the bottom".  I determined a neck spacing that I felt would be comfortable, and I designed the body and the image that would become the Melted top.  When I first discussed my plans with Bill [Conklin], I think he was a little leery of the idea, but as we began to talk more about it and iron through some of the details, I think he began to get really excited at the opportunity to show off his craft in such a shamelessly hedonistic way, from his point of view [laughs].

That thing is really intense. How did you design it - I never saw anything like it before.

Click here to see the plans used and progress shots of the Doubleneck being built.

I used my two single neck Conklins as a guide, along with a 6-string bass that Bill had made that was almost all wenge, which I also really liked.  In fact, except for the top - the flames - I basically wanted the equivalent of my fretless merged with a 7-string version of that wenge 6-string fretted.  The body itself is chambered, to decrease the weight down to about 25 lbs. The top half of the body, connected to the fretted neck,  is made of wenge and the bottom, fretless, half is ash, with each half separated by a strip of purple heart flanked by an ash strip on the wenge half of the body and a wenge strip on the ash half, some of which you can see from the front, between the two "flame" designs.

Each neck is tuned B-E-A-D-G-B-E, low to high, just like my single necks.  

It was pretty funny, sort of deja-vu in reverse when I went to pick the instrument up at the [Winter] Namm show [1997].  I strapped the thing on and began to jam a little on it, and I think Bill was surprised that I could play it - even the other 7-stringers at the booth were loath to try it.  Bill kept saying "Wow, man you've been practicing."

How often do you use it?

Usually, for at least half of our 2-hour show, I am playing the doubleneck.  It is really a bear to play, not because of the weight or anything like that - it is actually pretty comfortable for me to wear - but just because the necks are either a bit high or a bit low - I  am still not quite used to the set up.  I have done the full 2 hours of our gigs only playing it, though, and it wasn't too bad. Ask me again in twenty years [laughs].

So, what's next?

As soon as I can come up with something more bizarre, I'll let you know.  Probably a back brace.

Actually, I've been seriously considering having Bill build me a 9-string Flying V-styled fretted bass. Put RMC Piezo/Synth pickups in it, 9-string wide Seymour-Duncan Music Man Style pickup, 36-fret. Shit, I'll probably just go 10 string, just to be a wiseass.