1985 Daion Savage custom beater with a bad attitude and killer tone.

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ProgressiveDoom

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Mar 31, 2017
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#1
Ive had my Daion Savage since 87 and I know that I will never part with it and that being one reason that I customized it the way I did. After despising the way the pick guard took up most of the body hiding the beauty of its shape and being sick of looking at it in the color Red for 30 years it needed a change. It started life as a P/J and I didnt change any structure so that if I ever wanted to rebuild it to original format I could do that easily. Cut a new designed pick guard out of an old bbq front sheet metal panel and saved the original. Pulled out the P and J pickups and opted for a single Rickenbacker pickup in the neck position. Original neck pickups were located way too close to the neck witch is right in the sweet spot where I do my digging so I moved the new pickup over an inch back. Added a fender style bridge cover and pickup cover and two different control knobs .The Savage always had an incredible tone ,fast neck and light body weight but now is a tad lighter and sounds better and fuller than ever. Some will cringe and some will loathe and some will appreciate the changes. Have a look!. After pic's (black)
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#4
gjohnson441496 said:
Never heard of this bass before seeing yours and I like what you did with it. Really cool looking.
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gjohnson441496 said:
Never heard of this bass before seeing yours and I like what you did with it. Really cool looking.
Click to expand...
Thank you kindly. Daion was a Japanese manufacturer that built fairly high quality instruments that competed and outplayed some major brands before they ceased operations unfortunately. In 1985 this bass sold new for around $500 and two years later I purchased it at a pawn shop for under $200, back then it still was a relatively unknown brand. Some info can be found here - Daions Online
 
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#11
tpaul said:
I'm not a fan of red instruments either. It looks much cooler in black.

Didn't Daion make cars for a short time?

Edit: just looked it up and apparently not. Not sure what I was thinking.
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Thanks, Ive always had it programmed in my mind that guitars should only be black,white or wood grain. I cant believe it stayed red as long as it did.
 
#13
Hi Progressive Doom :)

I am not a big fan of ashtrays on basses :D

but one painted black and the other cromed together with the two pots looks really :cool: (great concept :thumbsup:)

your bass hasn' t lost her 80s garage/punkrock style :hyper::hyper::hyper:

how does she sound with that Ric pup? (bet she' s got more grind :))

have fun :thumbsup:

may the bass be with you

Wise(b)ass
 
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#18
I remember Daion. They used to build neck through instruments to compete with - mostly - Aria. Pointy sharp headstocks and slim necks. In Scandinavia they managed to catch a wholesale and distributed them along the shops in the country. They even made acoustic guitars, but their basses was their best bet. Remember vaguely that Per Gessle of the rock duo Roxette made ads for them and played their acoustic guitars, so he had endorsment from them. Not that that helped though... ;)

I was about to pull the trigger on a brand new demo/display version of this sucker:

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String through body, through neck, and everything else that was needed for a sleek bass. Played actually really well, right off the shelves. Haven't got a clue why they didn't carry on, maybe some counterfeit thing going on, or got bought up and swallowed by everyone else in Japan/Korea/China. I couldn't fund another one back then, and was quite happy with all the basses I owned already back then. I do think this was a "true" neck through, I e made the same way as Aria, with a complete single block of neck that went through to the bridge. I e the rest of the body was - sort of - glued on at the sides of that block. Don't know that that method was called. But I never heard anyone having problems with them even decades later. They don't show up in "scrap" or backyard sales, that's for sure. No neck that's warping or else.
 
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#20
I'll be honest I like the original if it was a common bass I would be more inclined to having it modded but the older I get the more I appreciate things that have survived that long in their original condition but I can see she's in loving hands so enjoy:)
 
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