Yarns

We’d much rather be engineering, designing or manufacturing instruments so we often don’t have much to write here at Bunyip but I thought I’d give you a glimpse of what may be in our future plans.

The Billabong Bass has reached production status after a long period of testing across Australia by many individual bass players and bands, some of them quite famous.

So with production rolling, the scope for new instrument development will shift to the Uki bass. There has been a concept design of this around for a few months and it has been well received by ukulele bass players. Ukulele bass instruments are relatively new to the instrument market, given that ukuleles started in Hawaii in the 1880s as an adaption of Portuguese instruments. We will be featuring these in our Bunyip musos Facebook group when they are out for testing.

Following that, probably a 5 string bass, other acoustic ukuleles in both Uki and B Series, and our new concept for heavier type music players the Chugmeister. Amplifiers are still on our radar as well as manufacturing instruments, as are acoustic guitars but they are still a distance away.

If you’ve ever been to the South Coast of NSW you’ll know it has lots of good foodie type places. One of these is the Berry Donut Van. Great doughnuts, terrible spelling.

So what does this have to with guitars?

When Bunyip was just an idea and we knew what we wanted to make, we needed an Australian name for the brand. Seated on that very wall we thought, what is more Australian than a Bunyip? So some searching of business registrations and names and payment of fees to the government later, we had Bunyip Musical Instruments, trading as Bunyip Guitars registered. Step one.

The tag line “The new guitar you have owned for 20 years” came from a parent of one of our early clients, who are still one of our greatest supporters.

Their daughter had just won the Junior Country Musician award for the state. One of the judges said that they had seen her come up over the past two years but this day the performance was so far above what she had done previously that there must be something that had been added to the mix. Was it a new vocal coach, a new practice routine or something else?

She replied it was her Bunyip guitar – it felt like she had owned it for 20 years, so she didn’t have to think about how to play it. The judge said it wasn’t a possibility but he was a guitar player so could he try it. She gave it to him and he struck a chord. The look on his face and the single syllable expletive said it all.

Her father rang me with the tag line. She had owned the guitar for a week.