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[Bass of the Week] John Isch 1504

See the business listing for this bass builder here

This week’s feature bass is a 5-string with a gorgeous black walnut front that along with other interesting touches to “fill in the gaps,” so to speak.

John, builder of the instrument, writes:

This is the fourth bass I have built, a five string fretless. I was on the phone with a wood supplier buying wood for another project and I asked them if they had any cutoffs or small pieces of wood laying around. They sent me a piece of black walnut. I wasn’t necessarily looking for wood for a project, but after I got it I decided this would be the starting point for my next bass. I bookmatched it and cleaned it up only to find that it wasn’t big enough to cover the whole front of a bass. I worked with my design consultant/wife and decided that a triangular inlay would fill in the missing wood. The bass is black walnut on front, with the ebony/birdseye maple inlay. The body wood is swamp ash. The neck is built from a bookmatched piece of tiger maple with a black walnut stringer. The fingerboard is cocobolo with swamp ash as fret markers.

Electronically it has EMG DC40 pickups with an EMG BQC preamp. I have used this combination on my last two basses, I love having all those controls at my fingertips, it really allows me to dramatically change the tone of the bass with a little knob turning. Mechanically it has Carvin tuners and a Hipshot tremolo bridge. I’m not sure how much I will use the tremolo, but it was fun to work out how it would fit into the design. The bass sounds, looks and plays great. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

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Well done, John!

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10 thoughts on “[Bass of the Week] John Isch 1504”

  1. That is just gorgeous craftsmanship and wood. I play an ash body with walnut top 5 string, and just love the tone of that wood combination. Great job!

    Reply
  2. That is gorgeous John! Very well done sir! I have a big slab of Michigan black walnut from a Black Walnut tree we cut down. I’m going to make a bass body out of it. Yours has inspired me even more.

    Reply
  3. …stunningly beautiful was my first thought as I scrolled down the pictures! Both my Modulus Q5 and Q6 have Walnut finishes, so yours had my attention immediately. You did a Fantastic job!!!

    Reply
  4. Thanks for the comments. I made this from scratch, so I did carve the neck. Making a neck is a bit scary, but once you get going and get the basic dimensions down it’s really not as hard as it would seem.

    Reply

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