Understanding CMI guitars and amps

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 10:34 pm Post subject:

Excellent, thanks for the great pics Cool

.

On the other thing, don't use amp-speaker cable to plug a guitar into the amp. Speaker cable is unshielded and it'll sound horrible. It might just be enough to smother your piezo altogether. See if it works with the instrument cable.

myfoot · Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:56 pm Post subject:

Yes sir ..new GUITAR cable took care of the problem Thanks so much for all your help.

1bassleft · Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:33 am Post subject:

Glad to hear it Very Happy

and thanks for all the input towards this thread. Keep looking in and, in fact, elsewhere round here Smile

Eirik · Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 4

Hello

I joined here googling after info on the American CMI. I happen to have one of these (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7417545667&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1 ) basses and the strange thing is that I live in Sweden and I got it from a Swedish auction site called Blocket.se. So I am really just asking for some info on the American CMI company and how the heck I ended up with this bass?

1bassleft · Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:07 am Post subject:

Hi Eirik,

That bass looks typical of the 80s US CMI guitars I've seen (except for that finish - a bit like a Fender Antigua). All that I know is typed up on previous pages. I assume that the CMI is Chicago Musical Industries and, by this time, I would guess those instruments were made in Korea. A lot of that is guessing, though.

Eirik · Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 4

1bassleft wrote:

Hi Eirik,

That bass looks typical of the 80s US CMI guitars I've seen (except for that finish - a bit like a Fender Antigua). All that I know is typed up on previous pages. I assume that the CMI is Chicago Musical Industries and, by this time, I would guess those instruments were made in Korea. A lot of that is guessing, though.

Thank you very much for the information, where did you find all this info on CMI? Razz

Iv'e been searching(googling) for what seems like an eternity and the best thing ive come up with is this CMI catalouge from 1934

http://www.musurgia.com/products.asp?ProductID=734&CartID=7954031252004

Are these basses worth any money (I'm going to sell mine)? The bridge that was on it seemed kind of crappy so I replaced it with a Fender bridge that I had laying around. I like the sound that it produces, though, I have always preffered passive pickups Smile

.

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:02 am Post subject:

Wow, not as much as that catalogue supposedly is Shocked

. I know it's a 1934, but $400? Anyhoo, back to your bass - I'd be surprised if it goes much above $100 or 100 euros. There are so many brand new instruments from Korea and China that are decently made that sell for less than this amount that the 2nd hand 70s and 80s instruments have to have some reason to exceed this. The British CMI instruments may attract a Marshall fan or those persuaded by the Japanese copy reputation. I'm afraid the American CMI guitars do not have any such association and are probably just seen as no-name cheapies.

All of the CMI info I've pieced together here came about from some dogged determination to make this thread the best place to get CMI info under one roof. I bought my CMI amp in 1981 and had a heckuva time finding out info and wanted to save others the trawl. Thanks to some brilliant contributions from others looking in and posting, this is probably the #1 on the list of most searches people might do when looking up these guitars and amps Very Happy

Eirik · Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 4

Haha... Then I got scammed when I bought this thing, I paid like $190 for it, but I did get a good amp with it.

And your'e right, this is probably the best source of information on CMI, before I found this site, I didn't even know there were more than one CMI Very Happy

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:00 pm Post subject:

Here's another early CMI US-market guitar, an E200 that looks to date from the late 60s or (more likely) 1970s. I'm assuming that these were imported and distributed by Chicago Musical Instruments and that this vintage would have been made in Japan (incidentally, Eirik - does your bass have any marking to establish country of manufacture?):

Obviously influenced by the Fender Mustang guitar, note how the US CMI logo is no different to later instruments such as Eirik's. In common with some of the cheaper Japanese-made instruments of the 1970s, the neck may not be maple and note also the cheap tuners on this model:

Eirik · Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 4

Hmm... The only thing I can see on my bass that can give some clue as to where it is from is a serial number, 8908121. My bass' body also seems to be of some kind of cheap plywood or something... The neck seems to be out of maple or something like that (As my bass has a thick layer of gloss paint I can only see the wood through small scratches and blems). That ebay auction with the same kind of bass that I have stated that the fretboard may be of rosewood, It may be possible (I'm no expert at this), but the wood looks kind of nasty... But that may also be becuase it's really worn. The tuners also seem very cheap on my bass, and they look identical to those of that cMi jazz bass that SteveShark posted on page 1, the bridge that was on before I replaced it also looks very similiar, though mine was more of a silver colour.

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