Moze Guitars Custom 12-String Bass

This 12-string bass was custom built in 1996 for Scott McDaniel by Moze Guitars in San Diego, California. It is an extra long 35" scale. The bass has an Ash body and Maple / Purpleheart 5-piece neck with dual truss rods. Sea Foam Green finish. This bass was originally strung in three octaves using three different sizes of Hamer tuners.

Given the thinness of the sound that resulted from strings in three octaves the bass was soon converted to the standard string arrangement. Scott writes, "We used singles for the third octave. They were Ernie Ball guitar strings, it's been too long for me to remember the gauges. The highest octave D string was a real challenge to find but we did it. As to the practicality of the three octaves: It sounded like absolute garbage. Tuning and intonation weren't the real problems, tone was. The bass was so biting and piercing that no one (not even a hamster) could stand within twenty feet of my amp. The high end didn't actually get lost in the mix, it dominated it. The guitars were lost behind the bass' shrill voice."

"Two gigs later I was at Moze Guitars having the bridge set back to where it belonged and proper octaves installed.