Resonator basses

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Hi guys! I have recently rediscovered resonator basses while shopping for an acoustic bass. I now, I have my eyes on a Dean resonator bass. It has always been one of my dream basses(besides a Ricky and CT), because of Les claypool. So, I looked online for info and did not find much at all…have ya’ll tried a resonator? do some of ya’ll own one? I’d love to know!

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I would love to get my hands on a resonator bass!

I’ve never come across one in the wild and I’ve never heard of anyone on the forum getting one.

I want you to get one just so I can hear what you think of it.

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there’s a few on reverb now. edit: ah sorry you are looking for a specific make (dean). i can’t pull up the link online at work, but it looks like musician’s friend may have one. and you still may be interested in these.

https://reverb.com/item/86975515-regal-rd-05e-resonator-bass-2010-s-sunburst?utm_campaign=US-Shop_unpaid&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google

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Thomann has plenty of resonator guitars, but this was the only 4-string resonator, the Kala KA-RES-BRS Tenor Ukulele.

Kala KA-RES-BRS Tenor Ukulele
Kala KA-RES-BRS Tenor Ukulele542×1485 128 KB

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that would be fun

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I kinda like those weird things.

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For all of you Mississippi Delta Blues slide bassists out there. There must be millions of you right? There isn’t? Oh.

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It’s the Mississippi Delta Blues that got me into the blues. I lived in St. Louis in the early '60s when Gaslight Square was a really happening place. Several bars had live delta blues bands almost every night. I wasn’t a teenager yet, but I would take the bus there, buy a slice and a coke and walk up and down the street listening to the blues through open windows. It was great!

We moved up to Wisconsin in '64. During the summer of '65, the Chicago PBS station aired a one-hour music special. The first 30 minutes was Mississippi John Hurt, sitting on a chair, alone on stage, playing his resonator and singing his delta blues songs. That took me back to St. Louis. The second half hour took me to the future. It was a young Buddy Guy playing a new kind of blues (for me) on an electric guitar at Formula One speed. I was hooked!

I moved to Chicago after the Army and university, and frequented the numerous blues clubs around town. I got to know several of the artists and even hired Eddy Clearwater to play at my second wedding reception. That only cost me $800. Oh, and 7 grams. :wink:

Still a fan of the delta and Chicago blues all of these decades later.

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As am I Chicago born native that I am. If there had been no Delta Blues there would have been no birthing of rock n’ roll.

My comment was based on how Delta Blues is synonymous with slide on a resonator guitar but before this I had never heard of a resonator bass and I wonder how many other have as well. I’m trying to figure out it’s purpose.

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Actually come to think about it…me too.

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Thanks. I’m getting up there in age and while I’m very proficient in all things blues I thought there was a new trend I hadn’t heard of yet. Slide Bass. I dunno. Maybe there is. :thinking:

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I think the idea is that it’s an acoustic bass that’s actually loud enough to play with other acoustic instruments.

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Thanks for posting this. I guess I get what he’s saying about it’s usefulness as far as cutting through a mix of other acoustic instruments. But my God it’s acoustic tone seems too far away from how a bass would typically play in that mix that I’d find it unusable unless it was amplified and EQ’d to take out it’s brash harsh tonality.

IMHO he’d be jumping right into the middle of the sonic spectrum other instruments are in. He may be playing an octave below them but at in a frequency band that steps right into the middle of them instead of getting below them tonally.

FWIW I’d be looking for a very mellow woody tone from an electric bass (fretless or fretted) that would get as close to the sound of an upright as possible. That bass is way on the other side of that. I’ve used an amplified electric bass every time I’ve done an acoustic jam or an unplugged gig and it works so much better.

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i’m thinking it’s all about les. as the op even said. the guy is just so hugely influential (btw i have no problem with this either, i think most of us have wanted to be imitate our music heroes at some point).

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