Interview with Jerzy Drozd by Koray Ergunay
How did your
quest of building instruments start and
how did it evolve to become “Jerzy Drozd Basses” as a profession and a company?
Well, this is funny but loooong story.
When I was very young I was good with my hands. I loved to make airplane flying
models, so when I was 16 that was the age when I started discovering music and
wanted to play instrument. My brother told me to play bass guitar because it
has just 4 strings so was easier to learn and play (laughing) Well, I asked my
father for bass guitar but he rejected that idea telling me that this will not
last long and I will drop soon the instrument in the corner.
So I decided on building my bass guitar.
I had no experience and no idea whatsoever how to do it, I just find one book
which explained how to correctly position frets on the fingerboard and then I
had pictures of instruments and some bass guitar catalogs. I designed and built
my first bass from the scratch and it was entirely designed by me.
I played that bass for some time but
suddenly somebody wanted to buy it.
I sold it :) and started the next project. Needless to say
that there was huge leap in quality when I finished the second one, but I sold
it too, then I made few more basses just for fun playing bass guitar at the same
time.
When I was 26 years I decided to make my
own company, I called it "Jezy Drozd Basses" and it remains operative
until today.
12 String Legend made for Yves Carbonne
How can you sum
up the attitude and style of the Jerzy Drozd basses?
Style: Unique, different I do not follow
established path even if that seems like I do. Personality in Design and
constant searching for the perfect sound. My personal development as luthier
never stops and doubt will ever stop.
Attitude: Very open to opinions and
critics of bass players, I keep my ego way down so any critic does not affect
myself but help me to make better instruments. Have no fear to change things,
to experiment. I´am on my own way to discover how the sound creates and what it
is all about and how each part of the instrument help you to create that unique
voicing.
5 String Excellency
9 String Soul
How can you
describe the construction and sound of the Obsession Legend semi-hollow bass?
Basically I created Legend bass as an
concept instrument for musicians who want to expand boundaries beyond of
standard bass guitar.
The next idea was to make it hollow body
with piezo pickups and then even with MIDI.
It´s not easy to describe sound with
words, this is kind of an instrument with warm but crisp acoustic touch, you
can blend that acoustic sound with standard magnetic pickup for some out of
reality voicing. When you blend both piezo and magnetic pickup it sounds like
3D, spacious and rich sound.
The development of this unique instrument
do not stop, I work closely with Yves Carbonne (www.yvescarbonne.com) who uses
my 10 and 12 string Legend basses to discover new possibilities and to prove
some of my theories about how sound is created.
I will expose these theories in my
upcoming book " The Alchemy of Sound" it will be available later this
year thru www.electricbasssecrets.com website.
5 String Sequel
On your basses,
you regularly use the propietary JeDXS single coil and JeDXD double coil
pickups that bear neodymium magnets which are known to produce different
harmonics compared to regular ceramic or alnico magnets. How did you decide to use
neodymium magnets?
Any kind of magnets has it´s own
limitations, I decided to use neodymium because it allow me to explore new
sound possibilities much better than ceramic or alnico magnets.
You can not make pickups with neodymium
magnets the same way as will alnico, you have to think different way, it cost
me mostly two years of development to get the right sound, I still test new
ideas and now I´m working on my 3rd generation of pickups.
Neodymium are more expensive too this is
the reason they are less popular.
4 String Oracle Model
In the last
decade, custom basses have gained considerable attention and the usage of
composite materials such as graphite necks have been increasing. What are your
comments on these? Can you describe your preferences and tastes for building a
great bass?
Composite materials actually were used
for more than two decades now, but from my point of view they simply can not
match wood in terms of sound.
I personaly used carbon fiber inside of
my necks but now I do not use it anymore since I didn´t see any improvement for
stability and overall performance.
6 String Oracle Model
Thank you for
your time. What would you like to say to the readers as your closing comments?
First of all thank you very much Koray
for this opportunity to explain my vision of bass building to Sound magazine
readers, I feel gratefull for this!
If you are instrument maker always search
for excellence in what you do. Your Art can not exist without people who buy
and play your instruments, treat them as gold and as the best asset you will
ever have.
Published on April 2011 issue of Sound Magazine
About the interviewer www.korayergunay.com