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NBD 1980 Odyssey by Atilla Balogh


EMG456
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Good things come to those who wait - not much option if you're looking for one of these.

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And yes, that's a Kahler Trem! 

The bass has been modded over the years with the Kahler and a strange active circuit but you can still play it Passive as well and the active and passive each have their own volume control presumably so you can balance the two different sounds.

All the work seems to have been done to a very high standard and the original wood working, timbers and finish are all excellent and surprisingly well preserved.

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It sounds and feels great and (IMO) looks fantastic so well chuffed with this one. I've only been looking for about 25 years!

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Congrats on a very nice looking and well made bass.

I owned an Odyssey, over 25 years ago.

All I can remember was it had Bartolini pickups, a brass nut and had a great build quality.

Also it had a bridge with a tailpiece, which meant I had to find extra long length strings.

I didn't even have the internet then and had to send a picture of it to that large, free music paper, you got in music shops and they IDed it for me.

Thanks for the memory.😎

 

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1 hour ago, TheRev said:

What do the switches do?

That's a very good question to which I don't have the full answer yet.🙄

I was provided this helpful guide and I mostly concur except that the active treble (actually more like a high mid/ treble) is not broken but works fine. As per the guidance, the actual function of the mysterious switches 1 and 2 is as yet still unclear. 

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It sounds great though, active or passive.

Edited by EMG456
Forgot to add image - doh!
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47 minutes ago, songofthewind said:

Jings, I love that! How does it play and what tones can you get?

Well the Barts were perceived back in the day to be quite "dark" sounding pickups and they live up to that here. Passive, it's full, rounded and plummy. The neck pickup is indeed too much on its own for my personal tastes but both on together is a fantastic, tight sound. Bridge on its own is more Musicman than Jazz I would say - very usable.

Switch to active and the two band eq can add that bite at the top end, add huge lows or indeed, make it all much more middley when both are rolled off - again reminiscent of an old Stingray 2eq circuit. Out of phase is extremely thin and honky as to be expected.

Feel wise, there's a little bit too much relief on the neck at the moment for me- I'm just going to let it settle in for a few days before I start tweeking things- I've every confidence that it will fall into line when I do that. One thing I didn't recall from my previous Oddysey encounters was that the board is virtually flat- no radius. That's quite a trend now but not so much back then. Long sustain that you might expect from a well built, through-neck, maple bass.

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4 hours ago, NikNik said:

I want my old B100 back

Where are you based?

Well you can't have this one I'm afraid. I'm in Scotland.

1 hour ago, Shaggy said:

Nice, body shape reminds me of the old Hamer guitars (I think)

I put a Kahler vibrato in a P bitsa many years ago - great units!

Yep, seems rock solid even as a fixed bridge.

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Seem to remember reading somewhere that a Scottish dealer (might've been Grant's) was UK importer/distro for these - there does seem to be a disproportionate number of them north of the border.

Unfortunately none of them are mine - had GAS for one since @FlatEric posted pics of his on here ages ago. With any luck that'll summon him to this thread! :D

Anyway, time for me to trot out my favourite Odyssey anecdote - the one where I missed out on one being sold on Edinburgh Scumtree for £30. Admittedly it was only a guitar, but still...

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7 hours ago, NikNik said:

Well, I'm in Scotland. My old B100 was last seen in Edinburgh. 

Well, I bought this one from GuitarGuitar in Edinburgh but it came to them as part of a 50 instrument collection they purchased from a collector somewhere near Epsom. The collection included loads of interesting and unusual guitars and basses. It may well of course have gone to Epsom via Edinburgh - see below.

4 hours ago, Bassassin said:

Seem to remember reading somewhere that a Scottish dealer (might've been Grant's) was UK importer/distro for these - there does seem to be a disproportionate number of them north of the border.

Unfortunately none of them are mine - had GAS for one since @FlatEric posted pics of his on here ages ago. With any luck that'll summon him to this thread! :D

Anyway, time for me to trot out my favourite Odyssey anecdote - the one where I missed out on one being sold on Edinburgh Scumtree for £30. Admittedly it was only a guitar, but still...

I worked with Jimmy Grant in the mid '80s and this was where I originally came across the Odysseys. Jimmy liked the shop to have a selection of high-end instruments which were not readily available else where and he would often sell them on to other dealers, usually in England. He had brought Alembics in around that time also and always had a selection of Martin acoustics and the beautiful Gurian acoustics.

When I started with Jimmy, there were just two Odyssey basses and one guitar left. The one I liked best was identical to the bass I have just bought and the other one was a less expensive one without the body and headstock binding and with slightly plainer timbers. They were both sold within a few months and I missed out as I was fixated on buying my first Steinberger at the time and was selling other basses to fund it.

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3 hours ago, EMG456 said:

Well, I bought this one from GuitarGuitar in Edinburgh but it came to them as part of a 50 instrument collection they purchased from a collector somewhere near Epsom. The collection included loads of interesting and unusual guitars and basses. It may well of course have gone to Epsom via Edinburgh - see below.

I worked with Jimmy Grant in the mid '80s and this was where I originally came across the Odysseys. Jimmy liked the shop to have a selection of high-end instruments which were not readily available else where and he would often sell them on to other dealers, usually in England. He had brought Alembics in around that time also and always had a selection of Martin acoustics and the beautiful Gurian acoustics.

When I started with Jimmy, there were just two Odyssey basses and one guitar left. The one I liked best was identical to the bass I have just bought and the other one was a less expensive one without the body and headstock binding and with slightly plainer timbers. They were both sold within a few months and I missed out as I was fixated on buying my first Steinberger at the time and was selling other basses to fund it.

That's where I bought mine in '79. There were a bunch of them,  around eight, including two guitars. There was even a B100 that had a 6-band graphic built into it. I paid c£600 for that bass back then, on HP. My first major bass purchase.

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7 hours ago, Bigwan said:

I was offered one of there by a local guy in trade late last year. All original and in virtually mint condition. But I declined. Didn't djent... 

Do you still have contact deets for this fella? Did the bass look like the OP's? Minus the Kahler and extra switches, of course. 

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5 hours ago, NikNik said:

Do you still have contact deets for this fella? Did the bass look like the OP's? Minus the Kahler and extra switches, of course. 

I did have somewhere but can't find them at the minute! Leave it with me... 

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18 hours ago, NikNik said:

That's where I bought mine in '79. There were a bunch of them,  around eight, including two guitars. There was even a B100 that had a 6-band graphic built into it. I paid c£600 for that bass back then, on HP. My first major bass purchase.

Nice one - I'm led to believe that the eq was an MXR unit integrated into the front of the bass.

I suspect that if you're looking for an Odyssey, Edinburgh or Vancouver will be the locations most likely to turn one up!

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