Hi there,
I own 3 Gordon-Smith Guitars and 1 Bass. It is a Gemini with the rotating pick-ups and the tremolo unit. It has a through neck and I think, walnut wings.
The finish is fantastic, John Smith told me it was from 1979. They are a great company and make very nice guitars. Sturdy guitars with great sounds.
They are all really nice people in the workshop, I am lucky I live close to them.
The bass is really heavy but well balanced. It has a clear gloss fingerboard (like a Ricky) and it is edgebound with nice marker dots. The frets are low and very fat indeed. The action is the lowest I have seen. Slight rattle...but some like it this way.
The rotating pickups allow a degree of fine tuning, but they cannot be changed mid song, or even mid set. Infact I think the ones on mine are siezed up a bit.
I am not sure how to describe the sound, but the trem adds a bit of interest to the whole affair.
Once when I was in the factory there was talk of a Warwick styled bass made by one of the guys there for his own use...he said "even though they were really guitar makers rather than bass makers....it was very nice...as in..... very very nice indeed!!!" A mate of mine has a P bass made by them as well..it is fairly old I think (70's or 80's)
If you can find a bass try it and turn some heads....as for the guitars...buy them and use them, they'll not let you down and they usually have an excellent set-up and a powerful sound. Hand made in the north of England, you owe it to yourself and to our country.
Thats it.
Please see the photos attached
K-L
