Yamaha Custom Shop 12-String Bass
The Yamaha Guitar Development Custom Shop created this left-handed 12-string bass for Doug Pinnick of King’s X. It is the only 12-string that Yamaha has built. Yamaha’s senior designer John Gaudesi built this bass and delivered it to Pinnick only 10 days after the original discussions.
An original CAD drawing of the bass.
John Gaudesi told us, “It's kind of an interesting story how this bass came about. Prior to my position here at Yamaha I was the custom shop manager and head builder for the ESP guitar company here in the USA. As well as custom orders for customers my main duties included the custom design and construction of instruments for ESP’s main endorsees at the time, such as Metallica, Slayer, George Lynch, etc.”
“It was rumored that Doug Pinnick was straying from his relationship with Yamaha and was going to send an instrument in to be duplicated. I was looking forward to this possibility but it did not happen before I moved over to Yamaha. A few months after I started here at Yamaha Guitar Development (YGD) I was at dinner with some of the members of King’s X along with their manager Jay before one of their shows here in Hollywood. As the night went on Jay and I started talking about gear and I told him of the strange coincidence regarding Doug’s use of the lefty converted ESP bass. I told Jay and Doug that I was the one that would have made his bass and jokingly asked what I could do to rekindle the Yamaha relationship. Jay immediately replied, ‘We asked them for a 12-string bass and haven’t gotten one. Do you think you can build one quickly?’ I arrived backstage at the Greek Theater 10 days later with the bass.”
The bass has a satin finish that is not quite black. There is a single volume control. The pickup is a Seymour Duncan Basslines P-Bass pickup.
The 4-saddle bridge was purchased from a guitar parts source. The tailpiece was custom machined at the Yamaha custom shop out of aircraft aluminum to accommodate the reverse string order.
This bass has a bolt-on neck held in place with six screws. The bass was returned to the Yamaha custom shop to have the neck thickness slightly reduced.
The body is constructed of a two-piece medium weight Alder body blank 1.75" thick. The neck is constructed of a 3-piece quarter-sawn neck blank capped with an Ebony fingerboard and Phenolic headstock overlay. The neck is slightly wider than that found on the Hamer Chaparral, comparable to the neck width of the Dean Rhapsody. It has a graphite nut and Gotoh tuners.
Build photos and details can be found in the Tech section.