Vinnie Bell—a great session guitarist of the day—offered innovative design ideas in his wild creations for Danelectro, which were marketed under the Coral name. The Vinnie Bell signature basses and guitars were different from other Danelectro models in that the hollow bodies were manufactured in Japan, rather than in the company’s New Jersey factory. Instead of the particleboard semi-hollowbodies and vinyl covering of the “normal” Danelectro and Silvertone models, Coral signature instruments were made using conventional materials—in other words, “real” wood and traditional construction methods. They were probably then assembled at the New Jersey facility, as all of the accouterments are pretty much straight out of the Dano parts bin.
From today’s perspective, this Coral Vinnie Bell Signature Bass is a hybrid of three distinct and incongruous elements, the most obvious being the body’s archtop jazz guitar pedigree, which makes it loud and acoustically resonant. As in many ’60s bass designs, it is essentially a bass version of an existing guitar model with a bass neck, but with a few important differences. Rather than having a short-scale neck, which many companies used at the time on hollowbody basses (perhaps for logistical reasons and to make construction easier), it has a longer 33w"-scale neck, which is quite thin and juts out of the thick body like the neck on the classic Ernie Ball Earthwood Bass. The neck is very straight with a fairly flat fingerboard; it feels and looks like a Gibson long-scale neck (such as that on the EB-3), and it even has the same style tuners. It plays fast with very low action, and the cutaway gives great access all the way up the neck. Finally, the Dano pickups and electronics gives the bass a unique sound and look, even if they appear to be a bit “tacked on” in extreme positions up at the neck and crammed against the bridge.
There are couple of other unique quirks as well. The bass has a brass nut—way ahead of its time—and a somewhat goofy wooden bridge right out of the Dano textbook. Regardless, this instrument intonates pretty well. The gold pickguard looks very cool, but it gets in the way a bit when playing the G string near the soundhole. The layout of the volume and tone knobs is horizontal for each pickup (rather than the vertical setup we’re used to).
This bass is huge, and its sound lives up to its looks—and then some. Unplugged, it is louder and punchier than most modern acoustic bass guitars (ABGs), and it feels as solid as a rock. The “one size fits all” lipstick pickups sound amazing despite their unusual placement. These pickups were never modified at all, no matter what bass or guitar model Danelectro put them on. They have never been known for sounding “hi-fi,” but they have a special, funky quality that every Dano player knows and loves. I think this big, hollow instrument’s superior resonance adds a new element to the classic “lipstick sound,” and I was amazed to find that it resists feedback, even at fairly high volumes.
The Vinnie Bell Signature Bass is an unlikely combination of ideas, but it really works. This is the only one of these instruments I have ever seen, and I literally couldn’t put it down. Hats off to Vinnie and Danelectro for breaking away from the tried-and-true design and building techniques that had already worked so well for them, and coming up with something very different. I only wish that most of today’s ABGs had this much character, volume, and tone—and that I owned this beautiful behemoth.