Soviet Tonika Bass Modded to BEAD
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
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be good,
Tim
8:00 That's it, that's the tone. Sounds monstrous. Would be sick for doom metal.
This bass literally looks like the sound of the band Молчат Дома (Molchat Doma)
I love it.
can you recommend me an example track or 2 to listen to? I don't know this band
@@Muzikman127 Definitely check out their album Etazhi! The first tracks are great, but so is the whole album. I got to see Molchat Doma live in the midwest U.S. last year and they were absolutely incredible.
Strangely, I kinda like the look of this one. Being so different from the Fender P-Bass we see everywhere, it does give you the feeling that you're in the presence of something different. Too bad the pickups are not up to par though... just potting them to get rid of the microphonic effect would be a great plus.
Yea man, IMO add a third, modern pickup near the bridge and it's good to go!
@@timsway That would really make it fantastic!
That is the ugliest damn guitar I’ve ever seen. I would have to burn it in my fireplace.
the body shape is strangely close to state of texas
what do you mean buy potting them
Love projects with non-standard/more unique pickups, they always have a great vintage tone with their own personality.
I'd put flats or tapes on it. make it all woofy and stuff
There were actually 5 factories that made the Tonika. Also, I would suggest sneaking Firebird pickups under those shells, to give the circuit a much-needed boost of power.
there were that many? wow! I only found reference to two or three so far. If it were my bass, I would add a western pickup to it that goes straight to the output jack, on a separate switch with a separate volume knob, so I could toggle from USSR to the USA.
@@timsway There's a fantastic book called Electric Guitar In The USSR that can be bought on eBay direct from one of the authors--it is THE book on Soviet guitars and its mind blowing. There were 21 factories producing guitars in the Soviet Union, with a grand total of nearly 800,000 units made. I highly recommend getting the book, though the biggest caveat is that shipping from Russia these days is 19th century levels of slow. Totally worth it though if you ask me
@@timsway Back again to say I flipped through my copy of the book and it looks like your specimen was built at the Rostov-Don Button Accordion Factory. They were the only factory that produced the bass with the same circuitry as the guitar model.
@@zhiracs thanks for the info!
@@timsway This is the first mass model of serial Soviet electric guitars with a solid body. Tonic electric guitars were produced, in EGS, EGSR and EGB versions with minor differences, at four factories: in Rostov-on-Don, Ordzhonikidze (both factories - one MPO "Kavkaz" and made the same models), Sverdlovsk (Tonic of these three factories are the most common ), as well as earlier Tonics of the Leningrad factory named after Lunacharsky. The Sverdlovsk Tonic bass guitar was adopted in production in 1972, the last of the Tonic family of bass guitars, developed at the Lunacharsky factory, as a paired bass guitar to the Tonic solo rhythm electric guitar. However, in Sverdlovsk, for some reason, it is not immediately put into series, 50 thousand TONIKA electric guitars, released at the Sverdlovsk factory before 1975, were not provided, usually logical for Soviet electric guitar production, with a set of paired bass guitar. At the end of 1975, the production of the most famous domestic electric guitar URAL was launched at the Sverdlovsk Factory, whose proud name soon became a print designation for any electric guitar released in the USSR, and Tonic began to be produced as a double bass-itar, having adopted the bridge design from its new partner. The usual six-string Tonic was quickly and completely replaced by the production of URALs already at the beginning of the next 1976, and Tonic - Bass continued to be produced throughout the next 1977. Since the beginning of 1978, Tonika-Bass has been replaced by a new URAL Bass-guitar model 510G. In total, less than 10,000 copies were produced.
Спасибо товарищ!Хорошая работа,партия гордится вами,в следующем месяце можете ехать в Артек!
You know, it's shaped like a hand. Upper horn is the thumb. It has a 'wrist' at the back. Neck is an extended finger.
Huh, with the necks position, that would be the middle finger extended. What a rude instrument.
(Jokes aside, I love it)
It does have that look!
*Lee Sklar has entered chat*
I love these funky Russian guitars/basses. Personally, I've been gassing for a Formanta Solo II. If i ever get my hands on one of those, it'll definitely become a project.
No way is that bass ugly. Awesome work comrade!
I used to owe Tonika in 90ths. As I remember cons were: extremely heavy, very thick neck, the weird shape of body made it impossible to chair playing, and the electronics was poor and noisy (which always wondered me as USSR is one of the leaders in electronics industry). So it's guts needed some DIY improvement.
Pros: as wood itself with modified guts it sounded better than most of middle-budget instruments today. The plastic cover was decored with colored sparkles in disco era style, it was funny. And yes it's a legend.
На тониках струны не заземлены вроде, я вот как раз ща с тоникой одной ебусь, и вроде когда бридж заземлил, шума меньше стало
If the customer wants to keep the original pickups you could add switch or knob seating on that rotary switch that Wires the pick ups in series and I bet it would sound much better. I did something like this to my jazz bass to get fatter p bass like tones.
If there is the contest for the bass that is most suitable for post punk/new wave this would easily win. So cool.
I have a feeling most of these old soviet basses/guitars would sound more "usable" with a standard pickup toggle instead of these rotary knobs. It's like a really simple Gibson Varitone, and some people don't even say that sounds good!
I had this video here sitting for a while waiting for me to have the time to watch, and I have to say it went in a whole different direction than what I was thinking. I thought you were going to put a shorter scale and tune it an octave higher. Totally surprised! But it turned out great and it does sound great and it is an inspiration for future builds, thanks one more time, Tim, loved the video!
I made a short scale psycho tenor (BEAD up and octave) from an old Japanese student bass: th-cam.com/video/IeIo1S-end4/w-d-xo.html
Sir, you are an Artist! I struggle doing simple set ups and truss rod adjustments, and you brought this bass back to life. Bravo!
Great story and film. That bass is 100% super beef chunk. Awesome rebuild. Mahalo for sharing! 🙂🐒
Thanks man. I haven't forgotten about our project, I just have to find the time to get back to it! crazy summer.
@@timsway No worries. No expectations over here. Just let me know if I can help. Take it easy dude, you deserve it. Mahalo for the update! 🙂🤙
funny i just found this exact bass on reverb and watchlisted it. a week later im all into BEAD tuning and i stumble upon this. Cheers
Great job! In the first position, only the bridge pickup with two-stage volume control is turned on, in the second - both pickups are in parallel, in the third - the neck pickup with high-frequency filtering, in the fourth - the bridge pickup with low cutoff, in the fifth - the guitar is turned off.
Very very cool project! The Russian text was a very nice touch! 🤘🔥
Great job again Tim,,11,,option switch,,wow!
it sounds like 2 options, selected 11 times, lol.
@@timsway GOLD!
wow Tim when you hit the button on your fuzz pedal it reminds me of rage against the machine that’s freaking awesome very nice job restoring it back to its glory
This is so nice touch that you used Russian cyrillic for your brand name! and this is awesome to see, what you can do with those soviet instruments I slobbered over at my childhood! Keep up awesome work m8!
I like it. I always fancied one of these myself.
An oddly cool Bass. I kinda like the shape. Always interesting Tim! Thanks!✌️🌞😎🎸
The shape is growing on me...
So cool, I recently bought a bridge pickup from an 70's Tonika EGS-650 guitar that I've put in a modified Epiphone EB-0 that is going to become an 30,5 inch 6 string, the tonika pickup will be paired with an vintage dimarzio from the 70's to get that USSR - USA Cold War feeling.
love it!
Super cool bass Tim! Glad to see the neck swap went smoothly. That tone circuit seems very similar to the "varitone" switch used on some older Gibsons, which similarly uses notched positions to switch different capacitors into the circuit to cut certain frequencies. Pretty neat if you haven't seen it!
I have a Gibson L6s with a Varitone switch. It also doesn't work right any more :(
Bc rich used to have varitones too, their legacy models still do
the stare at the start of the video cracked me up lol
amazing work on resizing the neck; tim sway, you genius
Damnnnnnn that thing is cool. Great job.
I've looked at a bunch of these on ebay. Kinda want one, just know it'll take a ton of work to make it playable.
sometimes you get lucky. sometimes not. lol
Very cool idea 💡
I love that you did your logo in Russian.. perfect touch!
Ему угрожали КГБ за кадром!)
Wow, very satisfying to watch.
these soviet instruments are so cool in concept! if I had all the time in the world I would be fiddling around in a woodshop reworking them and trying to get them jammable
Hi Tim I have not been on your page in a while sorry bout that but I’m glad to see your content is still bad ass! Hope the family is doing well.
cheers man. we're good. Welcome back!
I'm no expert, but I've never heard a bass guitar sound worse than that one. And I have 8 of them.
That's the fault of the Soviet-made pickups. They're primitive as all hell and don't even hold a candle to the stuff on those Japanese guitars from the 60s. Some people in recent years have housed Firebird mini-humbuckers in the casings of the old pickups for a "stealth" upgrade.
What Max said, but terms like "best" and "worst" are subjective. Part of the charm of this is it sounds "different" than all 8 basses you have, so in the hands of the right person can be a useful and creative tool to create music that sounds different. Will you like it? Who knows? (my guess is no, lol) If it were my bass, I'd add a modern, western pickup so I could toggle between its sounds and a more traditional tone.
oh, that's because you don't have a tonika in its original condition or at least with its original neck.
If you're into something base-centric - definitely. Other than that, dunno... this dirty, nasally, crackling sound can have it's place if you're willing to play around it.
this was like soviet motörhead right here
Ive been playing b standard for years. It all started b/c i couldnt get used to the radius of 5 string necks. All it really took was filing the nut for thicker strings and an intonation job.
Great project!
Thanks for posting.
I love this Bass
Dude this is so cool
If you wish you can always convert it into a 5 String Bass tuned BEADG for a bigger range
I don’t know if people caught it or not, but I love the spray paint into a cup, then use a brush to apply.
oh yea, I do that all the time for touch ups. Beats masking!
I like it... I wish I had the guitars I had as a kid ..I wana cry thinking of what I had...
oh, tell me about it!
Love the headstock logo!
cool, now i want one of those
love this coolness!
Always wanted one of these! :) I hope I run into one on my travels one day
Actually love the sound too!
I have Tonika bass n Tonika electro 75' & 73' from Rostov's fabric
They re wonderful instruments because u can do with them anythin you wish n it ll be cool anyway
Btw on them u can play any music u want with the sound of Soviet times N looks the same way
I love my Tonikas)
That sounds so sick really coolman
Sounds mean! Nice job Tim!
That old Soviet made bass sounded surprisingly good! The pick ups seem to put out a good range of frequencies & does not sound like a tuned down guitar! (Unlike SOME basses I've played, esp in the bridge position!)
It works very nicely with that fuzz... And even before hearing that I started wanting one... I'd just need to form a doom-metal band I could use it in. :)
it lacks a little fullness for traditional bass tone, but with some fuzz the gates of hell open up!
Great refurb, man👍🏽
Has a really unique (weird) shape...
New pickups will do wonders for this beast.👌🏽
I'd love it if you just rethread the copper on the pickups. They look cool as f, and it sounded really cool with the distortion
cool headstock shape!
На такое надо ещё струны правильные ставить. Производства завода "Светлана". Вот где звук будет! 😁
man i love these kind of basses.. i wish i had one but i cant seem to find anything like this
here are 7 of them! But they're probably all over there so expect to pay a little more than you want for shipping. reverb.com/marketplace?make=tonika&product_type=bass-guitars&product_type_uuid=53a9c7d7-d73d-4e7f-905c-553503e50a90
Cool. Even on my phone it sounds the there’s some usable noises in there. How about some details on that neck/bridge alignment jig? Looks like it was made out of a couple of yardsticks?
yes! my buddy came up with it and I made one. th-cam.com/video/459SIFC7iqo/w-d-xo.html
That is the coolest bass - love it!
Спасибо за обзор! Этот инструмент для уничтожения врагов социалистического блока, не для музыки)))
Interesting project!
Very nice one Tim! I have some catching up to do. I've been mucking around on my second channel, making content and such. i have allot of catching up to do.
Tim, you are a True Artist: first you build it, then you play it. Your skills will be much in demand when the lights go out and the oil stops flowing. Your videos are fascinating, bizarre and educational, but I can picture you around a fire in a more primitive future teaching your tribe
members how to carry on the traditions of instrument making and musical enjoyment.
Very cool Tim! I have an old Teisco loaded pickguard on it's way and a slab of Huon pine that is not quite big enough to make a conventional body, hmmmm. Thanks for the Inspiration! Just watched a clip on Tim Lefebvre's bass collection before watching this one. I think i need some FX pedals and an interestingly shaped bass!
sounds like you have the right inspiration for a funky shaped bass on its way to you right now...
Hello Tim, I have this old style bass (thin body, shorter scale) as well and the neck is, as you were saying, 30'' (specifically I measured 766mm). So just if you wanted some reassurance in that.
Thanks Andrew. That's what I figured it would be (more like 30" than 32) but couldn't be certain. I appreciate it
Dude, that scale length diy ruler. Goddamn brilliant.
yes! I learned that from SDM Custom woodoworking on the tube.
It's fun to see how far did our instruments travel for no obvious reason except pure curiosity I guess. The main thing about soviet era stuff is that there were no commercial motives. Things should be functional, kinda good enough quality, satisfy chinovniks and that's it. That's why it's so ugly but ergonomic, nobody tryed to sell it to you in the store or something. Also many engineers had no clue what the f they were doing, when they were copying western things, that's probably why electronics are so overengineered. They were engineers, not musicians. So they thought it would be cool, so why not. _Or_ maybe we didn't had the right stuff to copy properly (we should consider that most electronics were produced for military), so they improvised with what they had. Thank you for reviving this piece of our history! Cheers from Moscow, Russia.
cheers! Were you part of this conversation? th-cam.com/video/F2n010R8e4w/w-d-xo.html I really enjoyed reading the perspectives of people who lived the era. Indeed, there is a western subculture fascination with Soviet things.Looking back now it's like an alternate universe Star Trek episode. Everything is familiar yet different :)
@@timsway no, I completely missed that video and conversation. And I think I have no place in that conversation anyway because I didn't grew up in 80's. I was soviet for 1 year :)) I'm a 90's kid, so I get what are you talking about, all that alternative universe stuff. USSR, post-soviet era had (and still has) so much impact on us, russians, and for me, a 30+ yo man, it's all layered into some gargantuan thing that I cannot even describe properly. It's like living in a constant nostalgia about things that you didn't even see yourself. Some kind of cultural purgatory. This guitar has that exact russian vibe, but also was created in country that I wasn't part of, and yet it feels like it's part of my culture. Globalization killed so many things, I'm driving a korean car (just like everybody else in the world), playing on Ibanez (just like everybody else in the world), writing comments on TH-cam etc. There is no such thing as USSR anymore. And yet it is a part of my culture. Also I'm extremely glad that somebody also can enjoy our legacy!
@@x69bit I think that point of view from your generation is entirely relevant tot he conversation. thanks for sharing.
Super cool!
When Red Dawn happens at a Guitar Center
Круть!!!переверни магниты в датчиках!!!с завода они там расположены не верно полюсами и вообще могут быть размагниченны!!!!
Terrifying first 2 seconds into awesome bass work goodness.
7:01 So what brand of Black Pick is this one? The Bass really sounds amazing when played w/ a Pick.
It is indeed an interesting shape, I might do a guitar with that or very similar shape. Funny you should mention changing the electronics, that was one of my first thoughts....
I'd be interested to see the construction of the pickups in detail if you get the chance to take them apart.
Man I love those Russian guitars! This one is particularly looking good, I might get inspiration from that body shape for one of my project.
you and me both
It says on the pickup that pickup cost was 9 rubles.
awesome. Thanks for the translation!
Well done. 👍🎸
That thing is amazing.
I do remember!
I don't love the blobby shape but it certainly is unique. Sounded like a lot of fret buzz on the first couple of tests. Did you have to raise the nut a bit to fix it? Using the Sehat pedal was perfect for this monstrosity. 😁 Thanks for sharing!
I've got the action real low on it so it's a little clacky
So you're saying the tone goes to 11...
Why not just make 10 tonier?
Very interesting!
So cool. I want one.
That shape reminds me of a Guild ( can't remember the model )!
According to "1001 guitars to dream of playing before you die" these guitars and basses were the first mass-produced guitars in USSR. First models came out in 1969 from the Lunacharsky factory in Leningrad, later models in the Ural and Rostov factories. This shape went out of production in 1975
Very cool.
Блин,давно я такую не видал)).Privet from Russia!)))
now the price just went up....i need one
So cool!
That's one funky looking bass
Bravissimo👌🏻💪🏻👏🏻❤
Noticed you were using Fender 45 Strings
nah man it just cooooolllll
A joint USA - Russian bass! Or should I include China? The one and only time that would happen! Tim you are the only one to pull This Off!!! If not for you, we here in the states would never know anything about Russian guitars and basses! Love from NW Colorado. Thanxz
the bridge and tuners were made in China I'm sure! lol
Very interesting Bass & a nice upgrade Tim. I am curious as to the what the inscription on the head stands for? 🤔🤔👍👍
I just recreated my usual headstock logo in russian :)
great job as always!
i'm not sure that the neck joint doesn't kill the sound (sustain mostly). maybe the problem is withe electronics as well..
does it have a neck dive? mine had a significant one so i had to switch tuning pegs, sand the neck (which is short scale anyway), relocate the front strap lock and install a heavy metal bridge. but i can still feel it a little bit..
funny thing that soviet musicians dreamed of american guitars, but had only theese. and now it's payback time))
I have a great conversation thread in an earlier soviet guitar video from musicians swapping stories of life "behind the iron curtain" th-cam.com/video/F2n010R8e4w/w-d-xo.html. Very interesting to read. A lot of basses have head dive but this one doesn't seem too much worse, even with the longer neck and heavy tuners. The neck joint will work as well as any other bolt on neck joint. It just has a little extra wide fingerboard but everything else is the same - honestly probably tighter than the original neck that was on there! lol.
GG Tim man.
WoW .. well done Tim .. Hi from Italy .. did you laser engraved newperspective music in russian!?
lol. yes :)
@@timsway :-) very nice touch in my opinion
I was looking at some Russian hollowbodies, they're really interesting looking with comically large f-holes, and I've been wanting to buy one for a project!
That thing sounds nasty, would be great for stoner/doom as somebody else has mentioned