Joe Meckley had his bass, “Shirley B”, built by BA Ferguson Guitars. Joe wanted a 6-string P/J bass built, and what he received was exactly what he wanted!
Joe writes:
Last year I had a custom B.A. Ferguson (Hartsville SC) six string bass made and think it may be something you’d be interested in for a featured piece of gear. Boot Ferguson and his shop were the builders on the project and they are mainly a guitar company but do make 4 string basses as well.
I took my German made warwick stream stage 1 six string to Boot to have a warped neck repaired (5 years of playing in SC humidity) and did an amazing job at fixing it. While the Warwick was being repaired I told him I have always wanted a six string P and J bass because i love the tone of that particular setup but have never seen it in a six string.
We started talking about a custom build and before you know it I had sold the Warwick and we were off to the races building the first Shirley model six string bass.
After about 6 weeks and a few trips to Hartsville the bass was finished and those guys did an amazing job especially in such a short period of time (my band Doctrine of Ethos was tracking for the new album).
After a few electronics changes we ended up putting the EMG X series pickups in the bass with an EMG BQS preamp with Volume/Volume setup. The neck pickup is a 35PX and the bridge is a 35TWX pickup which has a coil tap to go from humbucker to single coil jazz voicing.
The cool thing with B.A. Ferguson guitars are they are all made from repurposed woods. NO trees were cut down to build this or any of his instruments. He uses old piano soundboards, docks, old barns, etc. to build these instruments and some of these woods can be almost 100 years old!
The nut is an actual bone nut carved out of an antler with a brass insert on the low B string to give it a blend of the bight of a brass nut and the warmth of a bone nut. When I play in my prog metal band this is a great feature when doing open sting work on the Low B, it cuts amazing and is not muddy sounding. I have been playing both upright and electric bass for almost 20 years and this is by far the best bass I have ever owned. That and my 1951 Kay S8 Upright bass.
I have a music degree in bass under Mr. Steve Bailey and was a long time Warwick enthusiast but now I would put this bass against any Warwick, Fodera, Alembic and so on.
The bass is made out of a Mahogany body, Maple Top, 5 piece neck with maple, mahogany, and cherry. the fingerboard is Teak.
It really is a piece of art and am proud to bring this bass out on stage.
Sincerely, Joe Meckley (bassist for Doctrine of Ethos and Sound Effect) www.doctrineofethos.com
OH YEAH, A VIDEO!
…and now for some photos:
Always great to see a good build from repurposed materials. Well done!
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That 360 degrees spinning jump trick…
ha ha yes that is my signature.
I bought your Warwick! small world
awesome! I hope its doing well. there was a lot of love put into that bass.
Very nice looking body and neck. Just not as fond of the headstock as the rest of the bass. Overall a nice build though.
thank you to everyone at best bass gear for posting this you guys rock!