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January 24th, 2005:
Chapter 4: Put on the spotlights!
Once
again, I was visiting Jens Ritter in his workshop in beautiful
Palatinate. Christmas was just over, and since I have sold my digital
camera right before the holidays - what have I thought by doing that...? -
I could not document the visit myself. Fortunately Jens took some
pictures which he just emailed to me.
To get
a little bit of pleasant anticipation, and to perform at What4's CD release
party including a TV performance with the adequate instrument, Jens
loaned me a Roya 5-String in Futura finish, which he luckily had in
stock. The look of that instrument is already remarkably similar to the
instrument I'm going to get. Insofar, you can make yourself a pretty
good imagination of what's coming up.
For
all of you who want to know the details exactly, here's a list of things
that are going to be different on my instrument: the tuners will not be
black but chrome, the output jack will be on the backside and the neck
will have a nice black fret board instead of that wine red mahogany one.
By the
way: the very neck has gone through a remarkable development during the
last weeks. As you know, I'm playing very often on pretty dark stages
with Darkseed. Especially when the light man wants to save power on the
lights but blows up the fog generator, you can easily get lost on your
instrument. For giving me the total orientation even in that case, we
have replaced the side dots of the fret board with blue LEDs. This is
very helpful, even in Ultimate Darkness! Plus, as I described in the
last chapter, the fret board
will wear my name on the 12th fret, and when we were planning the LEDs
for the side dots, we also put some LEDs behind the name as well. Watch
Jens soldering a 9 volts battery on the neck, demonstrating how pretty
the neck shines!
If you
have read the last chapter intently, you have surely recognized that the
writing looks a bit different that on the fret board I'm holding in my
hands in chapter 3. Unfortunately the letters were too thin to get some
LEDs underneath them, and so we had to replace the fret board by a new
one, holding a single inlay in the 12th fret. This one has now 4 LEDs
underneath. Nevertheless the first fret board will not be
disposed. Jens and I already have some plans for it: we're thinking about a
10-string bass...!
Another reason for my visit was that Jens needed the borrowed bass back.
He needed to prepare it for the
NAMM Show, the
first big music fair of every year, in Anaheim near Los Angeles, where
he was going to exhibit that bass and many more! With a heavy heart I
had to return the bass which meanwhile I become fond of.
While
I was watching Jens' basses in his show room which he planned to prepare
for the NAMM show, I recognized a bass hanging on the wall which
immediately fascinated me: it was a Ritter Roya 5 string as well, but
with a high polished black finish, golden hardware and furthermore
fretless! Of course I wanted to check out that beautiful instrument at
once, and after a few notes, when I was already totally fascinated by
that instrument, Jens offered me to take the bass home and check it out
- of course totally unselfish ;-) ! When I got home I got even
more enthusiastic, and after Jens offered me to buy the bass for an
unbeatable price which could not resist!
Well,
here we are: as an official endorser of Ritter Basses, I am now the
owner of my first bass made by Jens Ritter, and I am very proud to
present those very fine instruments! As soon as possible, I will upload
some sound files recorded with the fretless. Until then, you have to be
satisfied with some pictures. ;-) Here it is:
Ritter Bass serial number 0307:
Now
you can imagine how these two instruments will look side by side:
 
Ok, let's hope that we can
add another chapter of "Bass in progress" pretty soon, so that the
little boy will get his little sibling! ;-)
See you later!
Martin Motnik
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