König Bassworx 12-String Bass

König Bassworx Custom 12-String Bass

König Bassworx is the company owned by instrument builder Tom Koenig, who lives near Canberra, Australia. He has been building basses since the early 1980’s. Tom told us, “I’d like nothing better than to build 8’s, 12’s (and up) exclusively... but you know, a lot of players can’t cope with more than a P-bass. It’s almost fun watching those guys as their head explodes when they pick up a 12.. hehehe”.

Tom continues, “I am a huge fan of multi-string basses - always have been. One of my early builds, around 1982, was an 8-string bass for Robert Nairn. Rob went on and carved himself quite a career in the classical world. He was a long time president of International Society of Bassists and still teaches at Julliard I believe. He is very active in the classical world-but people do not know he is one hell of an electric player as well. He did a lot of studio work in the eighties in Berlin, Germany. He always wanted a 12-string bass but I never did it until this blue one...and it’s not his!”

“Anyway, that 8-string back in ‘82 was the start of the multi-string thing for me. The 12 was the next step. I knew about the Hamers but I had actually never seen one in the flesh until literally 2015! Pathetic I know, but nobody I knew during all those years owned one.”

“This 12-string bass started as demo. A Metal band was about to tour Japan and their bassist wanted a 12. So I got stuck into it. Then the tour fell apart, Norbert didn’t deliver my bridge etc etc... a complete tale of woes! So I finished it in peace, until its current owner came along, played it for 30 minutes, pried it from my cold dead body - and couldn’t sell his Hamer fast enough!”

“The biggest issue I came across was the hardware. I drew my 12 in CAD, and I kept working on the string spacing until I thought I had it right. Only then did I begin thinking about how to design the bridge. It had to meet the function first. There was no way I was going to thread strings through a tailpiece, no way! The bridge took over twelve months. I had the bass all roughed in when I sent a picture to Norbert, pleading with him to get my bridge built. ETS can be notoriously unreliable!”

“Norbert has since developed his saddles for intonating the octave pair of strings separately - he did that for Pratt. I’m not sure if Pratt gave him the individual spacings, I assume not as I have the drawing here for that bridge - in my opinion it’s wrong. The individual spacings are not thought out and the group spacing’s are not right either, BUT they work from a manufacturing point of view.”

“On my bridge, I have two saddles only. The fundamental and the octaves, the octaves have to share a saddle. My spacings will not allow individual adjustment of the octave pair, and as long as they are the same gauge and brand of string, it’s never been an issue. Note the tail piece also acts as a string guide. It keeps the strings in line nicely and stops them popping out. No more threading either!”

“The secret to my bass is the bridge and its spacing. I spent a lot of time working on the Octave to Fundamental spacing, then also the group spacings. This is what lets others down in my opinion, but what others are there to choose from? All the Korean hardware is junk in my opinion, its quality and function are just terrible. So I guess I simply started with a fresh sheet of paper, so to speak. The relative ‘isolation’ in Australia, I think, was also a contributing factor - I had nothing else to go by!”

“So now, I make my own bridges here, to whatever spacings and design my clients need. And I stress, I make them... here in my workshop, no one else. The next thing I want to set up for is plating. I have some of the gear together but not all of it.”

“As to this bass, well of course I’d like to change it. The upper horn is too long. It balances perfectly on a strap so I think it can be changed. I wasn’t happy with the truss rods. I had a bunch of Titanium truss rods made by Seiko in Japan, particularly in consideration of the 12. I wanted to reduce weight in the neck wherever I could. Two titanium rods weigh less than 1 steel rod. I am glad I never used them, and would not recommend using them on such a project. They will not cope with anything but a standard bass with minimal tension. (Plus the tone is somewhat unusual... shhh... don’t tell anyone!)”

The pickups had to be made by Reinhard (Delano) to suit the string spacing-so that we could capture the lot. The angled pickup was an idea I stole from Warwick, but the effect was astounding on the 12. It really balances things out. But of course that is an individual choice too.”

“The electronics Andreas Richter made as I wanted, maybe a few too many switches, but it’s all there if wanted. I asked him to have a passive tone control available (switchable) in active mode. This was really handy. Set your active tone then add a touch of passive. Of course, you can go passive entirely.”

Notes from Tom Koenig on building this bass

I have had several requests from players, asking for a working and playable 12-string bass, but this in itself proved difficult. This became a personal challenge for me, stemming initially from the “heart ache” of designing a usable and functioning bridge. Then there was the engineering behind that many strings at that scale length, with getting the string spacing right, addressing intonation capabilities, and getting the bass to actually be “playable”.

I set about designing the bridge some time ago, which took many months. In conjunction with ETS I came up with a bridge and tail piece that I eventually was satisfied with. There are not many 12-string bridges on the market, if any. The others I have seen are simply not even worth consideration. I wonder if any thought was given to their design… except cheap. The evolution of my design allowed for the independent intonation adjustment for the pair of octave strings from their respective fundamental brothers.

One of the other challenges was to achieve correct string spacing between not only the octave strings, but between the octave pairs and its matching fundamental string.

The bridge tailpiece is top loadable, and given the complexity of a re-string and tune, this tailpiece allows for a string to be easily popped in from the top. Should a string break for example, the job of replacement is easily managed. The string also doesn’t have to be rasped through the string feed hole. Ever wondered what this does to the life of a string? The tail piece also cleverly acts as a string guide, and keeps the strings aligned as they sit on their respective saddles.

The headstock angle on this Bass was kept to accepted angles. This was not only to help with the simple practicality of being able to fit it into a case, but also to provide sufficient pressure at the zero fret. The neck is a bolt on neck and runs all the way up to the neck pick up, as I wanted to have an extended foot into the bass. There are dual truss rods which are adjustable at the base of the neck. The truss rods also run at the matching string angles. The neck also contains three carbon fibre reinforcing bars. They run in a triangular fashion, keeping the neck stiff, but the center bar also extends all the way down the long headstock. There is enormous tension on this neck. The neck has a zero fret. The bone nut is precisely cut, and basically acts as a string guide over the zero fret. Why a zero fret? This bass has such a powerful sound-that uniformity of this sound was imperative to translate to all the open strings vs fretted notes.

There are mother of pearl block inlays, with the Roman numeral XII at the 12th fret for a little artistic touch. The fingerboard has blind binding, which means the fret slots don't go out to the edge of the fretboard. It makes the side of the fingerboard smoother on feel, and if there is any expansion or contraction, the frets don't poke out and feel sharp. The side position markers are blue Luminlay.

Importantly, the strings run as straight as possible to each machine head, without touching other machine heads or other strings. I did not want any string to be dampened, nor any further cross talk, which I believe is an issue on some other 12-string bass designs. I used Hipshot Ultralite machine heads for the obvious weight and balance considerations.

I wanted to keep the design of the body a little more modern, with a slightly extended upper horn, in order to help achieve balance. This bass does NOT neck dive when strapped. The body is contoured, not only curved on the top, but also curved on the back.

This example was finished in Transparent Blue, no particular reason, it just seemed right to do so at that moment! It is a full gloss, two component transparent finish. The hatches for the electronics bay are timber and magnetic for easy access. I also curved the hatches to match the radius of the curvature on the back of the bass.

The Delano pickups for this bass had to be custom made specifically to suit the string spacing. The neck J pickup, slightly angled at about 6° forward on the treble side. This was aimed to achieve a slight reduction in the upper registers, as 12-string basses generally tend to be a little more “bright” in the upper registers. The rear pickup is basically a double J, a quad coil, which can be switched and coil tapped. It can be blended with the neck pickup in any mode.

The EQ is a 3 band Semi parametric. The center frequency on the bass control has been shifted to 80 Hz, in an effort for more definition and “away” from the kick drum.

Probably one feature I consider really useful is the “Z” control. This effectively is a passive tone control, but it is possible to employ it in both active and passive modes. In active mode it acts like a tone roll off, and can be used in conjunction with all the normal active functions. In passive mode, it is your familiar passive tone control. The flexibility is achieved by being able to switch this function in and out. The flick of a switch can dramatically alter the tone pre-sets.

The EQ functions and tonal flexibility of this beast can seem a little overwhelming and a bit daunting. No-you do not have to be Captain Kirk to fly this monster, it can be as simple as you want. If you need something wild, it’s ALL there! I have placed a lot of work and design into this 12-string and I believe it may well be the first 12 anywhere to be as practical and playable. I have even witnessed this beast being slapped to death, a feat just not humanly possible!! If you need the perfect bass players’ revenge-this could be what you are looking for!

Specifications