Other Instruments

8-string, serial number 6-24-94. Photos courtesy of The Low End, www.thelowend.net

The one and only 7-string fretless bass, serial number 4-20-94. Owner Brian and Andrew Marvin are pictured.

This 8 string bass is owned by a gentleman named Shahzad, who also owns a very rare 1977 Carl Thompson guitar. This instrument is tuned B E A D G C F Bflat.

Also pictured is Clint playing the bass.

An amazing 10 string bass/guitar made for Mark Yaskoweak of Namticoke, Pennsylvania. It has 3 bass strings, 7 guitar strings, and is meant to play guitar and bass parts simultaneously. This marvel was designed by Mark, and took almost two years to complete.

The one and only Carl Thompson double bass guitar, serial number 11-30-84, made for Craig Nelson. The bass has a fretted top and fretless botton neck, both with ebony fingerboards. The fretted neck has a 1.5” wood and bone nut, and the fretless neck has a 1.5” wood nut. The Carl Thompson logo is burned directly into the headstocks. Electronics are two sets of EMG J’s with the option to have top, bottom or both sets active at the same time. Controls are volume/volume/tone, along with neck/both/bridge pickup selector (forward-most switches), on/100nF tone/off (center switches), and pickup phasing (rear switches). Weight is 15.0 lbs.

Pictured are Craig Nelson, Mike Parisi and Dave Moore. Craig Nelson shared updated photos, as well pictures of his other CT, 2-28-80.

1980-era 8-string bass.

“In this photo Carl holds a 4-string curly maple fretless bass. In the foreground, he is flanked by two of his 6-string basses. Note their starkly original body-bridge extensions. In the rear, an early maple scroll-body 6-string and a maple left-handed 8-string. The bass Carl is holding is the one he uses for his gigs.”
Wheeler, Tom. American Guitars, an Illustrated History. Harper Collins Ny, New York: 1992. Page 362

The bass Carl is holding is 2-5-80, while the curly maple 6-string is 2-5-77. The foremost 6-string is a padauk bass likely made in 1988 or 1989 (‘1988_1’ on the 6-string page), while the left most one was made in 1988 (‘1988_2’ on the 6-string page).

This entry in the photo gallery is also a placeholder for the left-handed 8-string bass.

This octave 8-string bass, serial # 3-27-78, was purchased by David in Montreal some 20 years ago for $400. The nameplate had been painted black and the store owner thought the bass was a LADO. David didn’t know what he had until he spotted Les Claypool on the cover of a Bass Player magazine. After a few phone calls to Carl the pieces fell into place and David realized he had an extremely rare instrument that was made in Carl’s apartment. Having experience building and repairing instruments, David set out to restore the instrument which had since been stained and given a polyurethane finish . After about 4 months of hard work David had the bass back in excellent shape and a new nameplate courtesy of Carl. Amazing work, David!

The one and only double neck Carl Thompson guitar, this is a 12/6 string was originally made for David Sancious and is now owned by Mike O’Shea. Pictures were taken during it’s restoration. The guitar was orignally spec’ed as a maple body and necks, Ibanez pickups and hardware, and gold Grover machines.

The screenshots submitted by Scott with the message, “Here are a couple of pictures- not sure who the guitarist is (I think he has played with bowie- notsure)- anyway- the pics are from Jack bruce and friends. I think these were lifted from the old ROCKPALAST show- either the airing date or the show date was OCT 18 or 19th 1980. Venue was Grugahalle, Essen.”