Framus Short Scale Bass

This bass was my first...I earned money from a paper route to buy it...It was produced in the early 60's in Germany. It had a deep reddish-orange finish on the body, with a tortoise shell pickguard. It had one Framus 4 pole pickup imbedded in black plastic, surrounded by a chrome trim piece with the Framus Logo imprinted on it. It had the famous laminated Framus neck...very thin and perfectly straight. The headstock was painted black with the Framus logo in gold. Overall, a beautiful bass. It had one volume knob and 1 tone knob. I don't know what the model number was, but at the time, Framus only made 3 basses, one was a semi-hollow body bass called a Star Bass, they made one that looked somewhat like a Fender Jazzmaster and they produced the more rounded version which was not unlike the old twin cutaway Gibson Melodymaker body.

I wish I could speak as highly of the sound as I have of the looks, but with only one pickup situated at the neck position, it was pretty thumpy. At the time I was using a Silvertone 1483 amp with about 35 watts and a single Jensen 15" speaker. Needless to say, I didn't project very far. At lower volumes, however, the two sounded good together. This bass is basically the solid body version of the Framus Star Single Pickup Bass, which can be heard on some of the early Stones recordings being played by Bill Wyman. For the era of music it was meant for, it was very good.

The bass was set up nicely by the factory, in that I didn't really have to do much to it to play it comfortably. The pickup had to be adjusted a little closer to the strings to get a brighter sound out of it, but that was about it. As I said before, this was a really beautiful bass with the contrast between the laminated neck and the black headstock and the warm red body, it was perfect, for the early 60's.

I had this bass for about 10 years, protected by a cheap fiberboard case and it took a lickin' and kept on tickin'...I mean it got it's share of dents and dings, but it never let me down. At this point in my career, I wouldn't use it on a gig, because I'm really not into the 60's thumpy sounding bass any more...my preference now is a '67 Jazz, played through a vintage Ampeg Svt with 8 tens. When I was using this bass for gigs, I never worried about it holding up...it was a solid player and I wish I still had it.

I don't think the original company is still in business, or if they are, it's a newer version of the old Framus...I believe Warwick is the parent company now...I have been to the new Framus site on the web and they aren't making these basses any more...I don't think they are making the laminated necks like they used to either. I never had to have the bass repaired in the whole time I used it, so I really can't say what the customer service would have been like. If the service was as good as the construction, I'd have to give them a 9.

I've been playing bass for approximately 40 years. I now own a '67 Jazz Bass, a 5 string no-name Bass, an Ovation 1619 Stereo Flat-top 6 string, a Vintage early 60's Silvertone Archtop 'F' Hole 6 string Guitar and a late model Dean 6 string Flat-top Guitar. My current setup includes a Vintage 70's Ampeg SVT Amp with a Vintage 8x10" Speaker Cabinet. I also use a smaller Ampeg GT-10 for practice and a 1964 Blackface Fender Showman Amp with matching Single Showman Cabinet loaded with the original JBL D-130 15" speaker with Power Ring Baffle.