I just want to share with you my new experience with an unknown instrument maker called Igor Keller in Slovakia.
I found him by mistake on ebay while I was looking for a left-hand neck. I saw that this guy was selling jazz bass neck replica of a '64 Fender he made. For a rare time I was browsing ebay without the lefty research and when I found that neck, in my head it was a lefty but it wasn't. So I contacted him and said I was sorry about my mistake and he said to me "No problem, I will make a lefty for you". Why I wanted a neck from him? Because he was in Slovakia, home of my favorite NHL goaltender Jaroslav Halak. My intention was to have the neck signed by him during summer if possible during the World hockey championship in ....Slovakia. It didn't happen of course and Igor was really sorry about it and I didn't even have big expectations about that to start with. So he did the neck and after seeing pictures of it I said to him "can you make a left-hand replica of a 64 Jazz body as well?" He said "of course". And I ordered a 3 tone sunburst with a tortoise pick-guard. By the meantime, Igor got in touch with a journalist that follows Halak in the NHL and talked about my intention to have the instrument signed by him during his visit in Montreal for the game between the St-Louis Blues and the Montreal Canadians. Halak used to be with the Canadians and made an incredible impression during the 2010 play-offs on the fans even as a second goalie that overpassed the No.1. Great story that moved me a lot. The underdog that makes it big even if the organization kind of spitted on him and he saved theirs asses off from day 1 with the big team. Anyway, I got an email response from Jaroslav Halak himself last week after I wrote him a email about my intention to have him autograph a bass hand-maded in Slovakia for a fan of his in Montreal and agree to meet me to sign the bass.
I got the bass yesterday (neck and body assembled). Great workmanship and quality woods here for a ridiculous price. A total of $770 US and shipping cost of $92 from Slovakia to Canada that took less then a week by postal services. I bought some parts on ebay (tuning pegs,bridge and tubes) that he provided links for. I order pu from a local guy here, Lauzon who has a great reputation at making very high quality stuff and an extra Audere preamp that I will try. I have the feeling that this bass will be a top weapon in my collection on top of that.
These are some of the pics he sent me and they don't give enough credits imo to the quality of his work but it will give you an idea. I don't know how much would cost warmoth parts but these are hand-made for me by a true passionate builder and I really love that since my main bass that I play professionally for more then 20 years is a custom built that surpass everything I have tried so far.
Vive le travail of the creators, the passionates and underdogs like us, lefties
Sly
PS I will post pics of the actual autograph with Jaro Halak in january. I look so forward to that and to assemble the whole bass next week.
