Harmony Two Pickup Short Scale Bass

I got this korean bass in 1984 as my first instrument along with a holmes amp (Well, first if you don't count the crappy acoustic guitar I got when I was 12). It had a short-scale with a strat shaped headstock and a body shaped like a Burns bison, two gibson style pickguard mounted pickups, on/off slide switches for each pickup, two-saddle bridge, volume and tone controls and a tabacco sunburst finish. I've seen quite a few of these basses with different pickups and headstock shapes, but none that looked exactly like this. You may still be able to get one in the JC Penney or Fingerhut catalog, I saw one in there a few years ago. The quantity of the features was somewhat canceled out by the over all quality.

When I got it it had flatwound strings which I soon repplaced with a cheap set of roundwounds. This improved the sound immensely. I was just learning so I spent most of my time playing along to records or following the lessons in the Mel Bay beginner's bass book. The pickups looked like humbuckers but I think they only had one coil because the thing hummed like crazy. When I asked the guy at the store why it did that he said it must be the wiring in my house (Uh, yeah, right). Overall it had a rubbery, "thunky" kind of tone.

I never messed with the truss rod but I did adjust the pickups. I thought the tobacco sunburst finish looked better than the black/red/yellow sunburst you usually saw on these instruments. It didn't have any particular flaws, other than the fact it was cheap.

It seemed pretty solid. the pickguard was thin and was starting to warp when I get rid of it. the only time I ever took it out of the house was when i went to my grandmothers' in the summer, and she always said I sounded good, but It was probably just because she was my grandmother.

One of the switches broke shortly after i got it and I fixed it myself. My parents bought it used so there was no warranty.

I've playing for about 20 years, with bands for about 17. I'd been bothering my parents for months about getting me a bass, and they finally agreed to do it if I learned 3 songs on the afore-mentioned crappy acoustic. I learned "Michael row the boat ashore" and "Kumbayah" and they let me pass me on the third one. Looking back at it, the Harmony bass and Holmes amp probably weren't all that good, but at the time I thought they were the greatest things in the world. They helped get me where I am today, and you can't really put a rating on that. But on an objective standard, I'd give it a 6.