AN UNHERALDED new bass guitar made its debut at August's British Music Fair, prompting much interest among players who paused at the stand occupied by James How Strings — and Overwater Guitars. Consequently, One Two have asked me to write a few words as an introduction and background to the new C-Bass, because it has been something of a joint effort — though I stress that Chris May and Co at Overwater have done all the work.

My own cogs began turning a couple of years ago while playing for the Thompson Twins. It dawned on me how useful it would be to have a properly designed bass guitar which possessed a scale that stretched down to low C. Being synth/keyboard orientated, as of course many pop bands are, the majority of the songs and riffs were written in, or based around, C or G, or F or D. The Oberheim synth-bass on the TTs' records was utilising root notes and bass runs below the range of an ordinary bass guitar — with heavy results!

For live work, however, with a traditional electric bass, I had to transpose those lower notes up an octave. More than occasionally this broke the musical flow of a bass line, and often, I thought, rendered it less effective than its recorded counterpart.

In short, it was a little frustrating to be aware of those evil low notes on vinyl and not be able to reproduce them live. As I listened around, more and more dancefloor records used the sinuous depth of a synth bass-line for rhythmic anchoring, perhaps overlaid with a skeletal standard bass part or slaps.

What about a low-tuning bass? Hmmm...

A meeting with Chris May of Overwater at the 1984 BMF led to l...o...n...g discussions — I'd discovered that he, too, had been pondering the possibilities of such an instrument — but no real conclusions emerged. Due to my own perverted interest in emulating the snaky pitchbends possible with synth bass I had for some time been using a fretless bass — so the eventual Outcome was the decision to build a fretless prototype of the proposed low-tuning bass guitar.

A year on, with an earlier version having been completed and rejected, Overwater's all-new C-Bass arrived, casually unannounced, at a corner of the 1985 Olympia version of the BMF — which is where we came in.

At first glance at the photo you may notice the familiar Overwater shape, which is very comfortable and well-balanced. This bass looks almost African with its oily blends of deep red-brown mahagony and oak, neck/central section of pao rosa and strong dark yew, a very long, beautiful, dull black, ebony fingerboard, and black pickups and controls.

Scale length is extra long at 36ins. The set of strings, specially made by James How, is nickel roundwound, with the tuning (and gauge), low to high, set at C (130), F (100), B-flat (075), and E-flat (055).

I'm sure that the tuning sounds initially peculiar to you, but it's simply a total transposition down from regular E-A-D-G bass tuning, with the string gauges carefully calculated to the nominal requirements of those new open-string notes.

The C-string has a multicore (as opposed to a single core), chosen for its properties of flexibility and brightness, and all four strings are responsive and close-balanced both tonally and with respect to loudness. Tension is very good indeed, allowing room for expression, yet remaining comfortably taut. Thumb slapping is easy because the extra-scale strings bounce back like rubber — snap the top strings, though, and the sound can resemble (and feel like) the crack of a gunshot.

While on the subject of scale, I should explain that the neck has been set further into the body section than usual, and the bridge pushed further back, so that most of the extra length is "absorbed" across the body, rather than leaving the headstock extending into the clouds. Thus the player's reach and stretch, the balance of the guitar, and its playability, are each quite satisfactory.

You'd probably need to practice with the left hand to cover the fractionally longer distance between low fret positions, but this didn't, I'm told, pose much of a problem for those who tried the bass at the show.

The C-Bass is furnished with Schaller machine heads (tuning can be nearly a pleasure with these, and remains highly stable); bridge hardware is good, solid, three-way adjustable, and well-suited to both strings and bass. Pickups are by Kent Armstrong, stacked close together at the bridge end for higher definition. The good quality active circuitry on-board (powering a pair of bass/treble controls, a volume with push-pull treble boost, and a pickup pan control) is currently set for a "normal" bass response. This may well be adjusted, given critical feedback and the course of time.

The guitar is versatile — more so than I had expected — and it feels simple, elegant and correct. Let me tell you, when you play the C-Bass, you bring the whole room to life! You can drop in those low notes where normally there wouldn't be any. The well defined sound is bright and energetic, enriched by overtones resulting from the 36in scale and wide-gauge strings.

Sometimes the C-Bass sounds like some primeval jazz instrument, with woody, resonant tones not a million miles from a double-bass. Pan toward the bridge pickup and the treble begins to sparkle, the bass end sharpens up, and synth-like qualities develop — of the very-groovy-for-the-feet variety. This, I admit, appeals to me.

It would be crazy to suggest that the instrument is suited to all types of music, but it certainly covers the musical territories that we originally had in mind and, judging by reactions I've seen and heard, might even find itself elsewhere.

OVERWATER C bass: £800

CONTACT: Overwater Guitar Co, (Contact Details). The C-Bass is available at The Bass Centre, (Contact Details).