About

About

About

Other than my family, my two great passions are basses and motorcycles. I wanted to be able to combine the two by creating an upright electric bass that I could take to gigs on a bike, and get off the bandstand before the horn players. The bass would have to be compact, sound good, and be completely functional.

The original 30" scale KYDD Carry-On electric upright bass was conceived in the early '80s after experimenting with a short scale Guild "Starfire" electric bass with transducer pickups. It sounded great — very acoustic-like! The short scale and transducer idea was transferred onto a Steinberger-like, no-head stock neck/body. After prodding by my former band member and guitar industry legend, Rich Lasner, KYDD Basses went into production in 1994. The seemingly counter-intuitive move of trying to get a more acoustic bass sound from a shorter scale helped set KYDD apart from other manufacturers. In early public demonstrations of the Carry-On, it was often assumed that the bass was a MIDI controller that ran a computer bank. The most commonly asked question was "what was used as a sample?" In 2000, by popular demand, KYDD introduced a 34" scale bass called the Big KYDD, and in 2005 introduced the KYDD 42 Long.

By the way, KYDD stands for Kaminsky's Yukon Deli & Drygoods. But that's another story….