When Dale Hyatt passed away in March 2013, a short while later I received an email from Gabe Dellevigne whether I would be interested in instruments from the Hyatt Estate through Dale’s son Ken Hyatt. Although nothing happened at that time, several instruments previously owned by Dale are in the collection now. Most have been acquired from Mike Teepe of Acme Guitars in St Louis, MO, who bought about 10 instruments in all. (Note: Dale’s sales log was also part of this acquisition!)
Early last month it was my birthday. My lovely wife surprised me with this latest, which I have had now for a week or so:
For someone into collecting ASATs, this specimen makes perfect sense: it is the only “true” ASAT Bass in existence. The swamp ask body in Natural Gloss finish is an actual ASAT body with only minimal modifications as far as routs are concerned:
Also the pickguard is only slightly modified to house the 2 pickups. These pickups are the same as those used on the early SB-1/SB-2, and later Lynx bass, but the location is vastly different. The guard in the pictures below is from an ASAT and is aligned with the screw holes in the right picture, where the edge touches the last fret, and abuts the neck in the left picture. Since the guard abuts the neck, this is the only G&L bass with a pup placed that far forward whereas the “middle” pickup is placed at an angle. To have the proper scale length, the Locktight (aka Saddle-Lock) bridge is further away from the pickguard as is the case on an ASAT (Special). Notice the bridge has no serial number stamped on it.
The electronics is also very interesting in that it is identical to the wiring of the ASAT of that time, and hence of the original Broadcaster: 2 CTS 250k Audio-Taper potentiometers for volume and tone with 200pF±10% (201K) ceramic disc cap on the volume and 6.8kΩ resistor and .100μF±10% (2A104K) cap on the tone. The wiring is completed with copper foil at the bottom of the cavity and a 3-way pickup selector switch:
The back shows the nice pieces of ash used for the body. Like the bridge, the neck plate has no serial number either.
Dale had the body adapted by Lloyd Chewning to have an L-2000 neck fitted. The neck pocket and neck heel reveal when this bass was put together: May-June 1989.
The neck has a Satin finish but it is clear it has been played a lot. It has a beautiful East-Indian rosewood fingerboard still as a veneer as was normal in those days:
Dale had a proper water slide decal made for this prototype which can be found on the headstock. One of the first things noticeable was that the bass was neck heavy when the machines as used on the L-2000 were fitted. Dale made a call to Helmut Schaller and discovered they had light-weight aluminum machines available. After ordering a couple of G&L stamped sets and using those, the neck dive problem was licked:
Gabe and Ken provided the history and provenance. Click on the pics for a full resolution version. It is an interesting story. The slickness of the neck finished is now explained by it having been tested by a number of people.
The bass sounds pretty good; I feel you can get plenty of bottom end when using the controls as well as being able to dial in a lot of funk, especially when both pups are engaged. But the players like the other prototype doing the rounds more. That one was effectively an L-2000 with ASAT body, with pups in the same location and all the sonic options of that model. As we all know, that is the version still available to this day.
- Jos
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