Ovation Magnum II

I bought my Magnum II brand new in the mid-seventies (yeah, somewhere around there) for about thirteen hundred Cdn at the time. (Yeah, I know.) The looks are what hooked me. Ovation was making some interesting looking solid body guitars at the time (remember the "batwing" electric guitar?), and this thing just oozed "cool". (Imagine Gene Simmons with a dwarven battle axe.) Reading up a bit, I found out the Magnum II was a real high output active bass and the Magnum I was a passive model (two volumes, two tones with stereo output capability... I believe I saw the bass player for Journey with a Magnum I on TV once).

My Magnum II is made from a great huge honking slab of British Honduras mahogany. The extra-long (36") scale and the extreme mass of the thing (try wearing two Les Pauls all night) make it possible to do this one song with my old mates in which I only play a handfull of notes but I'm the loudest thing in the room for the whole song!

I've always loved the control layout on this thing. A three-position toggle for the two pickups, a single volume control, and a three-band onboard eq... perfect. There are a total of eight operational amplifiers in this instrument, all powered by two nine-volt batteries. I've noticed two inaccuracies in the reviews I've read. The fretboard is, indeed, ebony and not rosewood, and the bridge pickup is not single-coil, but rather two coils end to end. The bridge pickup arrangement does exhibit humbucking characteristics and I've never had problems with extraneous noise (although with all the preamps, there is an underlying hiss, especially if one or more of the eq controls are well above 0db). This pickup is my "rock n' roll machine"! It has bite, it has meat, and with the three-band, it has a world of flexibility.

The neck pickup has four small circular coils, one for each string, underneath a slick-looking, perfectly square, chromed metal cover. Each coil has a potentiometer accessable through the front of the cover with a fine screwdriver to balance the pickup (or overdrive it). The best way to describe the sound of this pickup is that it sounds like the world's oldest tree.

The pickups are mounted in a cast aluminum frame mounted flush to the wood. There's a comfortable place to rest your right hand thumb that runs from the bridge to the neck join. Playing with a pick (which I do most of the time) is also very comfortable. The bridge assembly is also cast aluminum. All saddles are individually adjustable for length and height. Restringing is a breeze as you need merely slap the end of a new string into a slot rather than thread it through something.

The headstock is the classic Ovation "carp" (the only reason some people have been able to identify it), and the Schaller tuning machines have remained silky smooth for thirty-odd years.

The sound of this bass is endlessly adaptable. The combination of the two pickup configurations and the three-band onboard eq make practically anything you can envision attainable. Though again, if you're pushing two or three eq bands, you'll make some background hiss that could put some recording engineers in snit mode. I use mainly the bridge pickup, and more often than not, the eq control I'm playing with the most is the low end. It makes the least perceptable noise, and has some dramatic effect! Most of the time it's DI'd straight into the board, studio or live, and I've never run into a soundman who didn't like it or took more than ten minutes to get what he wanted.

Action is funny for basses. It played like a pig when I bought it, but was easy to get where I like it very quickly. Besides individual height and length adjustment for each bridge saddle, the entire bridge assembly is mounted at three points; two at each end of the bridge on the front, and one on the back edge of the bridge accessable via a hex wrench on the back of the bass. You can get this bridge to sit anywhere you want it to.

After thirty years, all the original stuff is still there except for the damper assembly. The felt wasn't terribly durable, and I just took out the lever after it fell off. Never used it much anyway. The plastic eq faders, the toggle, and the volume knob are all still there and quite pristine.

I think a huge improvement (at some point, there's time) would be to replace the black plastic pickguard with a chrome one to match the neck pickup cover, and to polish up all the cast aluminum hardware (originally painted black, but worn to quite a nice sheen in places).

I've lived with this bass for thirty years and it's never let me down. In that time I've naturally experienced lots of changes in my musical environment, but for one. It's always the bass that manages to plop itself down in my lap!

It's an absolute tank! And it will last longer than I will. I've played a few basses that I liked a lot that were easier to wear for a two-nighter, but never one that slaps people around like this one.

I've never once dealt with the company, never had to. Never had to find parts because none have ever failed. (I can imagine the hoops to jump through, though.)

This bass is obviously irreplaceable. If it was ever lost or stolen I could carry on (I've got three others), but life wouldn't be the same, or nearly as loud!

I wish it was lighter, there've been some gigs where I wish I had the "P" instead. But with this bass you can actually see people feeling it in their bellies.

1970's active bass made from a whacking great piece of mahogany, this means that the instrument fits extra long scale strings and sustains forever.
I've removed the original toggles from the three band graphic equalizer to reveal that each toggle has two sliders underneath as a simple antidote to maintaining the volume level as you adjust the graphic. This means a range of tone from extreme overdrive distortion, rickenbacker rasp to very deep bass frequencies that move your bowels for you. The damper fixed to the bridge assembly also adds adaptability to the sound allowing all styles to come across authentically.
The neck is finished with rose wood, over the years there is some wear to the lacquer finish at the join of the fret board to the neck.
The tuners are Schalle and reliable.

I bought this instrument on credit after staring at it in the music shop window for 5 years, and it has been my main instrument as others have come and goneover the last 18 years. This is totally down to the versatility of sound available. It has room at the neck to pop and slap, the aluminium bridge assembly makes finger and thumb playing comfortable in all positions.
As I said there is all kinds of tones available, it makes good Primus noises as well as Jack Bruce's warmer tones. It can also sound much more like an acoustic instrument amplified and if you have the damper just touching the strings it makes a good impression of a fretless.
The electronics are weird - 70's sci fi can be noisy and has a tendency to distort.
I love it on stage, looks good and I haven't broken it yet!

Been a long time since the factory set up - I seem to remember spending forever fiddling with it, but that's because the string saddles are all individually adjustable for length and height, the bridge pick up has an adjustment for the frame and individual pick up height adjustments. The bridge pick up has height and tilt adjustments.
I've lost all the original toggles for the pick up selector, graphic equalizer and volume control, and through a nasty accident discovered that the scratch plate is brittle after 30 years.
The finish has lasted well overall it still looks great despite scratches and dents on the bottom edge of the body - (did I say it's huge?)

Built like a tank, I take along plenty of spare strings to live performances as the tendency is to lay into it with a lot of weight.
As I've said 18 years of punk, slap, rock brit pop has merely added character to this instrument.

Couldn't get original replacement toggles from the company, became obselete by the time I got hold of it.

I'd be gutted if this was stolen or lost, I haven't found anything to touch it in 25 years playing - I guess that this is the instrument I learned to play on and that adds something.
I currently play it through a mesa boogie D180 for a nostalgic feel and fat valve sound.

This is a mid 70s made ACTIVE bass. It has a nice-formed solid mahagoni body (something you don't see every day!) and a well playable neck with the OVATION typical head.
It has Ovation/ Schaller machine heads, one BIG neck Humbucker pickup with electric adjustment possibilities for each string and one bridge single coil (?) pickup. Therefore it has one three position switch (neck-both-bridge), one volume control and a three band equalizer. The pickups and the bridge (with length adjustment for each string) are built into a solid aluminium frame, which also houses the mechanical string damper (for playing dump, stopped notes). You can easily put your thumb on that "housing", to have a better feeling while playing...

The sound of the pickups is very strong, dynamic and has a touch of its own. The neck pickup produces very deep, warm tones with enough treble parts. The bridge bickup produces a dry clean sound with less deepness.
The active equalizer allows an enormous control range (you get this bass sounding like a Fender guitar or like a thunder) but produces LOT OF NOISE, and needs TWO(!) 9V batteries for operation. I prefer to play this bass with an later added passive output, to avoid the noise and gain more dynamic! You can get warm studio sounds, but even funky slap sounds from it.

Because I bought this bass second hand, I can't tell much about the factory settings. You can adjust nearly everything, so I am fully satisfied with all of the action!
Beacause of this is a VERY SOLID, HEAVY construction some people told me, the bass ist too heavy and bad balanced, but I have no problems with that.

This bass is built like a tank!!! I don't think that there will be any problems, except from the active electronic (in fact I buyed this bass a bit chaeper because of a loose connection of one of the battery contacts).

never had problems, which I couldn't fix on my own...

This is a good looking, well sounding bass, which I use at home, in studio and on stage. I like the sound, the look and the action of this bass. The weight and the electronics are the minus points of it.