Rob van den Broek shared his latest creation with us and it’s an absolute beast. The Brooks Double Duane Bird, aka the DDB, is a double neck Thunderbird-style bass that features a traditional 34-inch scale four-string neck below a 30.5-inch scale twelve-string neck.
“Originally The idea started out as a double string with a six string Firebird guitar below and a 4-string Thunderbird above,” he says of the commissioned instrument. “But when my customer saw the sketch, he knew he wanted a twelve string bass neck instead of a six string.”
The bass is built with Korina for its body and necks with ebony for the fretboards. Some of the finer details include a buffalo horn nut for each neck and a custom made twelve-string brass bridge set. Van den Broek fitted the DDB with a Gemini Dominator pickup for the four-string neck and a Gemini Devastator for the twelve-string neck. A toggle switch lets you choose between which of the pickups is active.
All the extra firepower does mean the DDB weighs in around 17.5 pounds, but its construction offers a nice balance. “People always assume 12-string basses suffer severe neck dive. And I know with this bass having two necks they’ll assume it’s even worse,” says van den Broek. “But no, it doesn’t dive like a kamikaze pilot thanks to the super light-weight tuners that I use for all the 12-string bass guitars that I’ve built. The 4 Gotoh Res-o-lite tuners used for the bass strings weigh the equivalent of 1 traditional bass tuner and the Gotoh ST-31 tuners used for the octave strings only weigh 13(!) grams each. But yes, the bass IS heavy.”
Check out the builder’s video of the bass demonstrating its balance and sound.
Brooks Double Duane Bird Bass Photos:
