Electric Guitar Company

These look completely badass. But...you all remember the Travis Bean's and Kramers with aluminum necks right? They were awful to actually play and it seems to me there's a pretty good reason they don't make 'em any more. I wish these guys all the luck though.
 
gball said:
These look completely badass. But...you all remember the Travis Bean's and Kramers with aluminum necks right? They were awful to actually play and it seems to me there's a pretty good reason they don't make 'em any more. I wish these guys all the luck though.
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I had 5 Travis Beans.
1X professional, 2X standards, 1X wedge, and 1X longhorn bass.
This is the reason they don't make them anymore:
Travis Died.

These guitars were excellent to play, the Professional and the Longhorn Bass especially. the Bodies were Hawaiian Koa Wood.
The action was outrageous. The Bass was like a pipe organ, thundering low frequency that no other bass ever made could even touch..
I regret selling them..but out of crisis and necessity.

After Travis died, the employees of Travis started manufacturing Kramer with aluminum necks.
These were also beautifully made; meticulous detail.

The Professional which I paid $785 for new: now goes for $7000.00 used.
The wedge which I bought for $325 used, now sells for $11,000.00
 
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gball said:
These look completely badass. But...you all remember the Travis Bean's and Kramers with aluminum necks right? They were awful to actually play and it seems to me there's a pretty good reason they don't make 'em any more. I wish these guys all the luck though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they could be cold to the touch, and worse, go out of tune with temperature changes.

I did find this in the FAQ on the site:

"How does aluminum react to temperature changes?​

Aluminum expands and contracts more than wood when exposed to different temperatures. These changes are easily resolved by letting the instrument acclimate to the ambient room temperature. Thirty minutes or so usually accomplishes this acclimation."

Sounds nice, but that doesn't necessarily work for outside gigs in the summer when load-in and setup starts while the sun is still up, but you may play until midnight or later. The air will get cooler and the neck will contract. There isn't really a chance to acclimatize the instrument because the temperature changes throughout the evening and night. Even with a wooden neck, you may have to make tuning adjustments under such conditions.

Indoor gigs can be problematic, too. I played indoor once in the winter where the ambient temperature in the room was fairly cool, but where I was standing on stage was under a heating vent. When the heat came on, it blew warm air down on me and could make my guitar go slightly out of tune.

You can't always predict what situations you may face and things may not be ideal.
 
Amp Mad Scientist said:
I had 5 Travis Beans.
1X professional, 2X standards, 1X wedge, and 1X longhorn bass.
This is the reason they don't make them anymore:
Travis Died.

These guitars were excellent to play, the Professional and the Longhorn Bass especially. the Bodies were Hawaiian Koa Wood.
The action was outrageous. The Bass was like a pipe organ, thundering low frequency that no other bass ever made could even touch..
I regret selling them..but out of crisis and necessity.

After Travis died, the employees of Travis started manufacturing Kramer with aluminum necks.
These were also beautifully made; meticulous detail.

The Professional which I paid $785 for new: now goes for $7000.00 used.
The wedge which I bought for $325 used, now sells for $11,000.00
Click to expand...

Your experience differs from mine. The one I had was a POS that wouldn't stay in tune and felt terrible and heavy, couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Heard the same from a lot of folks over the years but to each their own.

Edit: I know they go for mad money now because of the rarity, but when I had one briefly in the mid-80s they were a cheap used guitar and I just thought it was cool-looking but not great to play. Never picked up one of the basses, they may slay as you say.
 
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A friend has one of the Standards. It took quite a while to have it built. He seems to like it. He had a Travis Bean back in the eighties that he loved. It was stolen when his apartment was broken into. It's never been found.
 
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