Vox Bass Guitar

Vox made a number of bass guitars (along with six string electic guitars) during the 1960s, although they were not nearly as successful as their efforts in amplifiers. Two of the basses, both modelled in shape after the Gibson ES-335 "Spanish Electric" guitar, were the Cougar and the Constellation.

The earlier Cougar bass came in red and tobacco sunburst. It had an almost "Gibson-width" 30 1/2" scale neck with Gibson-like 2-on-a-side tuners. "Vox" was inlaid vertically on the large headstock. It had a metal nut and a zero fret. The two single coil pickups were passive, and each had a volume and tone control. There was a selector switch to choose either or both pickups. The bridge could be raised or lowered by means of adjustments, similar to a Gibson 'tune-o-matic' bridge of the same era. The pickguard was floating, attached to the body by a metal rod. Some players removed the pickguard, as it served little purpose on an instument usually played without a pick and almost never strummed, even if played with a pick. The later Constellation double-cutaway hollow body bass guitar is the later of the two 335-style basses Vox had made by the Giannini guitar company of Brazil.

The Constellation (as used by Larry Graham with Sly and the Family Stone, and also by John Entwistle during "I can see for Miles", "Happy Jack", etc.) is sunburst, has a very thin, bound mahogany fingerboard maple neck with "Tee-Bar" truss rod, and a very large ovoid-shaped headstock with four "Precision Bass Tuners" on the one up-side.

It has a metal nut and a "zero fret", a floating pickguard, two very aggressive sounding passive pickups, and electronic circuits powered by a nine volt battery for DISTORTION/FUZZ ("Dance to the Music") andTREBLE/BASS BOOST ("Happy Jack", "My Generation") effects and a 440 Hz LC controlled "E-Tuner" circuit which crossfades with the Volume Control knob. There is 1 passive tone control for each pickup.

The tone is quite thunderous even though the pickups are single coil. The tailpiece bail is "Mosrite-Bigsby" type and the machineheads use large-ratio "Fender Bass"-type heads.