8-String to 12-String Bass Conversion with Low B
Hondo 8-String to 12-String bass conversion
This bass started out as a Hondo 8-string bass. It was converted to a unique 12-string bass configuration that includes a Low B string; to our knowledge it is the first 12-string bass to ever be configured this way. The conversion was done by Michael Marino of Mike's Custom Guitar Works in California and was completed in June of 2020.
The story behind this bass is best told by the man who was inspired to make it a reality, Odell Robinson of Suisun, California. “I have a love for 12-string bass, and I also have a love for 5-string bass. I was thinking, it would be kind of cool if I could just go a little lower. A couple of years ago, I was thinking, what if you just reconfigured the 12-string bass, took out one of the octave E’s and added the low B string?”
“I thought about my buddy Mike Marino, the guy who built my Bird of Prey 12-string bass, the white one with the quasi-destroyer body and the Klingon glyphs on it. I told Mike about it, he said, “That’s pretty crazy, Odell!” He was intrigued and so he built it. We gave it the old body of an old Hondo 8-string bass that I owned, and essentially he just took the neck off and gave it a new neck.”
2020 custom 12-string bass with Low B from Mike’s Custom Guitar Works.
Odell: “My mom did the custom artwork, she calls it ‘Event Horizon’. One of the figures is supposed to me and the other is Frank Garay, my friend from the band Super Mega Everything. The star represents Star Cannon, SME’s singer.”
In addition to the ‘M’ logo of Mike’s Custom Guitar Works, the headstock also includes a Mandala stone. Odell told us, “On the headstock, the Mandala stone made by my friend Jeanine Herani, who has appeared in a couple of my music projects. She’s a very talented musician from Italy. She makes these Mandala stones, I think she gets them from a nearby river. She made me a choker and I told her if she sent me another one I’d put it on my guitar.”
Odell: “This bass has a custom made bridge, the foundation for it is wood, it’s all handmade. The tailpiece is aluminum. The bass is 32” scale which makes people wonder about the Low B string. The Hondo had all 8 strings going through the body, but now only the B string goes through the body so we get that extra couple of inches on it. The other string are in the tailpiece.”
Other details: Gotoh tuners, brass nut, EMG pickups with Volume, Low/High pass filter, Mid Boost and Range controls.
Odell: “The neck is made of 7 pieces – two maple, two Purpleheart, two more maple, and Wenge down the center. That Purpleheart and Wenge are in there for strength. This neck is just butter, man it just feels mapley - it’s a ringing machine! Fingerboard is ebony with ‘12’ inlaid at the 12th fret.”
“Some of you know I’ve had some difficulty with my eyesight, I’ve had several operations on my eyeballs. I’ve seen basses with illuminated position markers. Mike looked into illuminated fret side markers and he pulled it off. They change colors: blue, red, and green. They work perfectly. Right now it seems like green works perfectly for me.”
“There is a second control cavity on the back for the illumination electronics, batteries for the pre-amp and optical fiber controls. The markers are fiber optic cable, not LED’s.”
Odell: “You can see that this headstock is just humongous! Mike said he made it that way to give room for tuning, which is great. The tuning space on the Hamer headstocks is pretty cramped.”
Odell sums it up this way: “I’m trying to do something different, not be a Tom Petersson or a Doug Pinnick. This bass is the first of its kind - it’s a beast! I’m actually still getting used to this configuration because it is a little different.”
Editor’s note: Very different and very cool! This is one of those basses that makes me think, “Why didn’t anybody think of doing this before now?” Congratulations to Odell and Mike for another job well done!