What is going on with Tom Petersson's bass?

[Benn Roe]

A local guitar shop posted a picture of Tom Petersson from Cheap Trick playing one of his old twelve-strings. It wasn't the twelve strings that interested me, though, it was the pickup configuration and very busy additional control panel at the top of the guitar. Does anyone know anything about this? What's the advantage of the individual horizontal half-pickups for each trio of strings? And what's that control panel all about? It almost looks like a patchbay of some sort in the one picture, but is it an individual EQ for each trio of strings (which, I guess would answer my first question)? Anyone know anything about this bass?

IMG_1374.JPG (41.96 KiB) Viewed 867 times

IMG_1373.JPG (32.94 KiB) Viewed 867 times

[Paul_C]

"Tom wanted a stereo 12 string bass, but Dantzig took it a step further by creating a quadraphonic 12 string bass. The 12 knob designation came because these instruments had built in mixing consoles.

Each pick up was wired to its own volume, treble boost and cut and bass boost and cut. The switches below the knobs selected the frequency of the EQ. Another unique factor was the pickup arrangements Dantzig used.

The original 1978 version came with four 3 pole pickups placed vertically, one under each string. There was an additional pickup above them that was placed horizontally. This bass was known as “The Trade Show Bass” and used extensively by Petersson."

[Chankgeez]

Wacky Cheap Trick dudes and their wacky enabler Jol Dantzig!

[Benn Roe]

Sweet. Thanks. I tried searching for a writeup like that, but had no idea what search terms to use. Dude's had a lot of 12-string basses.

[repoman]

Whatever happened to Hamer? Those things were everywhere in the 90s.

[Paul_C]

Bought by Fender, killed off in 2013, re-started in 2017.

[dubkitty]

i gather that their main model--the maple-topped doublecut that was based on the Les Paul Special design--had a high rate of failure at the heel joint.