This week’s bass build was a custom piece submitted by Rudy Candia. Here is what Rudy had to say about the bass build:
The Altessa Bass guitar is a 34” scale bass that has an oiled walnut body and a five piece laminate neck made of walnut with two Purple Heart stringers. The fretboard is also purple heart with only side dot markers. Because purple heart is such a hard wood this bass has a very snappy, punch feel and sound to it.
The headstock has a 12 degree tilt back with a scarf joint that is barely noticable because the headstock is made of the same neck blank material as the neck itself. I left a substantial volute on the back of the neck, opposite the zero fret to further strengthen neck/head stock joint. I don’t want to have the “authentic” problem of the headstock breaking off which is very common with one piece necks with a tilted headstock.
The front of the headstock has a 1/8” thick cap of walnut, which was pore filled, painted black and finished off with the Candia logo and lacquer.
The strings on this bass run in a straight line from the bridge to the tuner so there is no need for a nut. I used a zero fret instead and extended the fretboard 3/4” beyond the zero fret. I also filed some notches in the edge of the fretboard to hold the strings in place in case someone with crazy strong fingers does some aggressive string bending.
I used medium fret wire to keep the action very low and fast; the only exception is the zero fret which is a jumbo fret. One thing I did differently on this bass is I did not radius the fretboard. I personally prefer the feel of all of the strings being flat rather than radiused because it feels easier for my right hand to quickly move across the strings.
The hardware on this bass consists of a Kick Ass bridge and Gotoh tuners. The electronics are a pair of Bartolini single coil pick ups running through an Aguilar OBP1 preamp. The control set up is master volume, pickup blend, high, two band mid and low.
Very nice looking and sounding bass. Well thought out. Nice grooves as well.
I love the look of the bass, plus I know Rudy personally and know he only likes the best!! Great build man!!
Hey thanks Manny and I promise your guitar is coming soon!
That is BEAUTIFUL! You never see purple heart on instruments, and it makes a wonderful complement to the walnut. Just two questions. One is what the bass weighs. Since walnut and purple heart are so dense, I wonder if it’s heavy. The other question is that I’ve heard some people have skin reactions to purple heart. I never have, but some woodworkers have talked about it. I’m just curious, and it’s no criticism. This is gorgeous.
Thanks Tom, I appreciate your comments. While I have not weighed the bass, I would say it’s probably a little on the heavy side but not excessively so. Walnut is actually softer than woods like maple or ash so it does not add an extreme amount of weight. Purple Heart is super dense but since I only used it for the two 3/8” stringers and the fretboard it’s not terribly heavy. Purple Heart is a very resinous wood and while I, nor anyone I know have had any reactions, it does release a pretty foul stench when you are working with it. Regardless of the smell, the color is so distinctive and beautiful that it is one of my favorite woods.
sweeeeeet bass, I’ve had a bass with a purple heart neck and it played so nice. Great Job!!
Very nice! Not the electronics I would have employed but drool worthy all the same! I love the fact that it doesn’t have inlays in that beautiful fretboard! I too am interested to know what it weighs.
Great looking and sounding bass! Nice demo too! It would be good to expand on the demo to show different preamp settings and the frequency range of the pickups & electronics. Also, since these are single coil pickups, does the bass have any hum/buzz? (If not, how did you prevent that from occurring?) An interesting concept of a ‘no-nut’ design….it would be nice to know the radius/shape of the back of the neck – kudo’s for the 2 octave fretboard and gold hardware!
Awesome Guitar, can you do the neck fret less?
Beautiful bass and REALLY a good choice to have your guest playing it throughout your explanation of it. Once you handed it to him for demo at the end, he quickly changed to slap. While that is a valuable demonstration of how the bass sounds when being slapped and popped, it’s a poor demonstration of what the bass sounds like outside of that technique. So kudos to you for having him play the finger method as the background earlier. Only other demo of it would be to demo how it sounds with a pick.
Again, absolutely beautiful work. I have to confess though that I am very old school. I started playing bass in 1965 and my first good bass was a 1965 Fender Jazz Bass that I bought in 1966. During the early 70’s I toured for 3-years with that bass playing 4 to 5 sets a night, 5-nights a week, 50-weeks a year. So I got real familiar with that neck.
Unfortunately all my bass gear was stolen in 1976 and I didn’t find another bass with that same neck profile until 1985. I bought that bass (late ’82/early ’83 Jazz with maple neck and white binding) and have been using it ever since. Very specifically that neck has a 7.25″ radius on it with a 60’s-style shallow “C” shape. Just love it!
I have played some basses with 9.5″, 12″, and 9.5″ to 12″ variable radius necks too and just am not happy with any of those. That’s why it took me almost 10-years to find one with a neck like my ’65 Jazz. So having a perfectly flat neck with no radius at all is a non-starter for me. It would drive me nuts to have all those nicely profiled shapes everywhere on the bass but on the neck.
Again, I’m really old school and very set in my ways. But I can appreciate a beautifully built and great sounding bass in any case and yours is top drawer. I wish you the best of luck with your Altessa.
Thanks Dan, I appreciate your feedback. I am 52 years old so a bit old school myself but… While I love the vintage inteuments, I am trying to create basses that look like Candia Basses, not Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, etc.. Thanks again and have a great day.
Super looking and sounding Bass,
Congratulations.
I’ll take a 4 and a 5 string. Sexxxxyyyy wow. What a great build!!!!
Thanks Roger, let’s talk about your 4 and 5 string Altessa basses.
Love, love, love that purple heart look! I’ve never seen a bass with that wood and it really makes for a gorgeous instrument! Kudos on a fine build!
Thanks Nicholas, I also am a big fan of purple heart as it looks so distinct and unlike the mass produced instruments.
How can I get in touch with you?
Very well done, Rudy. The 12 degree headstock is a nice design move for break angle and I like the way you carried the fretboard material way past the zero fret, looks very cool. I’m not a fan of gold hardware but on this one gold definitely works with all the other colors involved. Walnut, purple heart, preamp, Barts, you’ve put together a super nice instrument, congratulations.
Thanks Tim, I appreciate your feedback.
Looks great. Very clean build sounds good too.
Beautiful Bass, with a Great Tone, Love the Demo. Just would Love to pick it up and Play once!!!
Beautifuly made, Compliments to the builder!!!
Any plans to offer as a lefty? Preferably left body, strung right handed al Jimmy Haslip? If so I definitely need to reach out to you!!
Beautiful bass!
Hey Fred, I will be offering lefty models but I had not thought about the upside down strings. As I mentioned in the video one of the nice things about using the zero fret is that there is no need for cutting slots in a nut. For this reason, stringing it upside down would be a simple matter of just… stringing it upside down. Feel free to email me if you would like additional information. Thanks and have a great day.
Awesome looking and sounding bass. Love the Purple Heart. You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this bass build and it paid off. Great job. The guy playing the bass is really good. Nice grooves.
Thanks Darrell, I appreciate your feedback and yeah, Dave Parker is a scary beast of a bass player.
Beautiful Bass with excellent tone. Especially in the slap.
My only question is what brand are the strings?
William, Thank you for comments. The strings are called Black Beauties and they are made by DR Strings. I use them for all my basses because they sound good and they look so freaking cool.
Well, now,I need to clean my desktop screen, because i just slobbered all over your bass!! Very, very beautiful!! The walnut and purple heart gave it a deep, warm tone underneatth the bright and slap style being played. That’s hard to bring out both, but that bass did it!! Congratulations brother!
Thank you for the feedback Larry.
I like the bass along with the build quality. But, I like a lot more bottom end. Which I know that this bass has. Because of the Bartolini’s that are in it. For myself I would have gone with a Bart Pre-amp instead of an Aguilar OBP3. Pus, I like prefer bone nuts, to zero nuts and I prefer maple fret-boards too anything else, except rosewood. I also would have liked to hear what it sounded like, by just playing it with his fingers. Instead, of the slapping and popping. I would have really like to see what the bass can do? But it is a very beautiful bass. It’s just not for me, that’s all.
Rick,
I appreciate your feedback and I understand everyone has different tastes so I know this type of bass is not for everyone.
As for hearing the bass played finger style, look up Candia Bass in YouTube, there are a couple other videos of Dave playing finger style.
How much is it? What kind of strings are on this? How much does it weight? It looks GREAT & SOUNDS GREAT!!
Calvin
Calvin,
The strings are Black Beauties by DR Strings. It weighs almost exactly 9 pounds. I am selling this model with this hardware and electronics for 2,000.
Thank you for your feedback and let me know if you would like more info.
Beautiful. Though the fret board is made of a hard material, do you think the knot on the walnut neck (approx. the 12th fret, high side) will pose a stability/tuning, issue?
Hey Walt, I know what your talking about but its not a knot, it is just a dark spot in the wood grain. This spot was not even visible when I cut the strips to laminate the neck. It was only after I started carving the profile of the back of the neck that it became visible so, no I do not think that this has any effect on the stability of the neck and the bass stays in tune very well.
The Glenn “Peppers” Rios custom would be a great name for your next build. The GPR- C? Complete with a question mark on the headstock. Mesquite wood for the body. Bondo inlays on the neck with a jalapeno design on the 12th fret. Alpine white stain finish. Challenge presented.