First 12-string bass? A bit of British bass history...

[Cosmo Valdemar]

Not Hamer - apparently Burns!

 

Well, not a 12-string in the modern sense, but still.

 

A random pic of The Hollies popped up on Facebook the other day, and I was surprised to see Eric Haydock playing what looked like a Burns Double Six instead of his usual Fender VI.

 

On closer inspection, those strings do look a bit thick... so I did a bit of digging and yes, Burns made a 12-string bass in the 60s. It was even on their now-archived website so potentially was still available as a custom order in recent years - the Double Six Apache model.

 

It seems that all the featured players of the Apache Double Six played it as a standard 12-string guitar, however the glamour shots on the Burns site are all clearly strung as a bass: 

 

 

And, it seems it was used for recording as well!

 

 

Jump to 1:10 for a slightly hesitant bass solo. Begins well but then he seems to regret starting it at all.

 

 

[crazycloud]

A 6x2 string arrangement. Sweet.

[BigRedX]

That vibrato mechanism is a bit optimistic.

 

I have a Burns Barracuda 6-string bass and with decent (95 E or heavier) Bass VI strings the vibrato mechanism is inoperable.

[Alanko]

I'm sure that sounded amazing through the Watkins Dominators and other miserably small amps of the era!

 

A design introduced too early?

[Cosmo Valdemar]

On 19/05/2025 at 13:51, Alanko said:

A design introduced too early?

Indeed - if anything it seems to have been swept under the carpet of history. It doesn't appear to have been hyped or marketed at the time either, so it's not even much of a noble failure. It just doesn't seem to have been given much of a chance.