My right handed buddy was from California, and owned both a T40 and a Magnum- in part because Ross Valory played them both in Journey. I still have a complete set of T40 pickups and electronics that I’m going to insert into a lefty bass someday if I ever get around to it. They obviously utilized the Fender 34" scale, but rethought electronics, bridges, body and neck construction (CNC production, carbon fiber reinforcement/halved opposites). both were from American companies trying to break into the bass market in the late 70s- early 80s with "back-to-the-drawing-board" transitional design concepts that were in some ways ahead of their time. I've always thought of the Magnum and the T-40 as "blood brothers" in a sense. did anybody ever see a lefty Peavey T-40? Another bass from that era I lusted after back at the time, because 1) they weren't Fenders 2) they both sounded great, and 3) neither one was available as a lefty. Last edited by Carmine on February 23rd, 2020, 12:10 pm, edited 3 times in total. It's now fun to play, sounds great, and can come reasonably close to capturing the tones of a original Magnum, as well as do its own thing. In the interim I wanted it to look and sound better so I made a few mods- including replacing the mudbucker with a Guild BS-1 Bi-Sonic Single Coil pickup (which btw is also what Serek Basses here in Chicago is using- ) for much warmer and cleaner low mids an SBK 3 band active preamp w/ vol/blend (to emulate the 3 band active sliders in the Magnum II) replacing the standard 2 vol/2 tone/ 3 way switch a Hipshot Brass A-Style Bridge, and a brass nut (also replaced the knobs and all those fugly silver screws w/ black ones). I was pleasantly surprised that the build quality and neck were actually quite decent- but it looked like a collection of parts bin pieces, and of course the mudbucker pickup and electronics sounded nothing like an actual Magnum (one of these days it might be fun to stumble across a beat Magnum on the cheap and transplant electronics and hardware). Remember Eastwood's attempt to create a Magnum "tribute version" back in 2011? The production run was brief- and according to the old page on the Eastwood site, they only made 24 Lefties- so when an old B stocker popped up a couple years ago, I had to go for it.
Anyway, some of you may find this entertaining. I always thought from a design /features/ tech angle it was very cool in its own unique way- and it sounded pretty good too, but as Frenchy said, it wasn't the kind of thing you could just fling around. I think this is one off or prototype.īack around 1980 when Neal Schon and Ross Valory were endorsing Ovation guitars, a right handed buddy of mine got an Ovation Magnum II bass with the built in graphic EQ. Even the pickup position isn't consistent with anything they manufactured. Not sure if this is a parts bass that someone assembled using righty parts and had an aftermarket body built or if it came out of the factory this way, but the body is pretty unique and I doubt someone trying to build a lefty Magnum with parts wouldn't want to get a body built that isn't accurate to the real thing.
The pickup is also further away from the neck heel than any other bass Ovation offered except the very rare Magnum IV single pickup model, which had the pickup in the sweet spot/P Bass position. On a reverse P pickup bass, for example, it makes sense to me, as the pickup offers better overall tonal balance to a standard P PUP arrangment by beefing up the thinnest D and G strings (since they're now closer to the neck) and tightening the E and A strings, but here I just don't get the logic having the poles arranged up-down-up-down. but WHY? E and D are closer to neck and A and G are further away. The pickup was probably installed to keep it consistent with the "proper" pole piece arrangement on a righty, thus the pole under E string is closer to neck, pole under G string is further from neck, etc. The pickup consists of 4 "zig zag" arranged pole pieces (what's up with that?) and 4 holes that are actually trim pots for each pole. The neck pickup is backwards/upside down.
A few things I noticed upon further investigation.
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