1962 Supro Pocket Bass
This early-’60s axe is small but mighty—and mighty funky as well. Manufactured long before airlines began making it difficult to fit a full-scale bass guitar in the overhead bins, this “super-short-scale” bass practically fits in a backpack! Obviously, it’s just a guitar body and neck converted to a bass, but regardless of the physics involved, it works in a big way.
Supro was a division of Valco, a company that also made instruments under the National, Dobro, Silvertone, and Airline names. They were distributed mostly through Montgomery Ward and Sears stores. Supro started in Chicago as a partnership between John Dopyera, creator of the Dobro and National resonator guitars, and George Beauchamp, a jazz guitarist. The Supro guitar made its debut in 1936. The company was best known for building instruments using hybrid construction of wood, plastic, and fiberglass, in unusual shapes. In more recent years, Jack White of the White Stripes has raised the profile of the National guitar, but the company’s basses are still somewhat under the radar.
This 20-fret instrument requires a much lighter touch than a normal bass, but once you make the adjustment, it has an interesting sound and is fun to play. The 24e" scale’s low tension is forgiving enough that old-school guitar tuners can get the job done—barely. The intonation is like most “violin” basses, which is to say it’s okay as long as you don’t go too high up the neck. The fingerboard and bridge are made of Brazilian rosewood. The funky Art Deco-ish headstock and dual Plexiglas thumbrests are just about the only concessions to style; everything else is pretty bare bones. The body is hollowed out in the back, but the Pocket Bass is still hefty. The finish on this one has kind of self-destructed (or maybe had a paint thinner accident somewhere in its past), but this bass is hardly about looks or technical perfection—it’s all about vibe and tone.
And what a tone it is! The magnetic pickup has a big, buttery-smooth sound reminiscent of the Gibson EB series or a “violin” bass. The output is a little light on the low E, but given the “super-short” scale, the overall sound of the Pocket bass is surprisingly even and punchy, and the flatwound strings give it a plunky, thumpy sound. The wooden bridge contains a piezo pickup that adds a whole new element to the sound. Rather than the expected volume and tone controls, the knob closer to the neck controls the blend between the magnetic and piezo pickups, and the back knob is a master volume. This piezo has more low end than most modern pickups of this type, so it actually sounds pretty good by itself—but the fun really begins when you start blending the two pickups. The piezo’s distinctive top-end crunch allows you to add in just the right amount of sizzle to the darker magnetic tone, giving you a variety of subtle tone variations. With a combination of right-hand palm muting and adjusting the piezo pickup’s level, you can go from muddy to edgy with one twist of the knob. In the middle, it sounds almost like a doubled “tic-tac” bass part, even without a pick. (“Tic-tac bass” is an old Nashville term, for the sound of a muted baritone guitar, usually played with a pick, doubling the main bass part.)
This bass is a bit of an ugly duckling and certainly is the runt of the litter, but the folks who built it obviously found a combination of materials and design that became much more than the sum of its parts. Supro may be long gone as a company, but its quirky creations live on. This was a particularly fun bass to check out, and once again, it demonstrates that size isn’t everything—it’s all in how you use it.
