page_title: Keyboard bass
section_title: 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Keyboard bass / History / 1960s
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo by Peter Jackson
context_page_description: Keyboard bass is the use of a smaller, low-pitched keyboard with fewer notes than a regular keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the deep notes of a bass guitar or double bass in music.
context_section_description: The earliest keyboard bass instrument was the 1960 Fender Rhodes piano bass, pictured to the right. The piano bass was essentially an electric piano containing the same pitch range as the most widely-used notes on an electric bass (or the double bass), which could be used to perform bass lines. It could be placed on top of a piano or organ, or mounted on a stand. Keyboard players such as The Doors' Ray Manzarek placed his Fender Rhodes piano bass on top of his Vox Continental or Gibson G-101 organ to play bass lines. About the same time, Hohner of Germany introduced a purely electronic bass keyboard, the Basset, which had a two-octave keyboard and rudimentary controls allowing a choice of tuba or string bass sounds. The Basset was in due course replaced by the Bass 2 and, in the mid-1970s, the Bass 3. All three were transistorized; the Basset was among the earliest solid-state electronic instruments. Similar instruments were produced in Japan under the "Raven" and "Rheem Kee Bass" (sic) names.
caption: Rhodes Piano Bass (1960)
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