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The feature bass for this week happened from a desire to “test” fanned frets.
Cristian Huidobro owns this instrument, and it was built by Alfonso Iturra.
Cristian writes:
Some years ago, I was entertaining the notion of testing fanned frets. I saw some really great another-famed-fanned-frets-brad basses, but since I live in Chile it was expensive to get a hold of them.
Coincidentally, around the same time The-brand-with-a-misspelled-Spanish-name released their Premier range, and I felt in love with the woods and the looks of those basses. So it was pretty obvious what the solution was.
I asked Alfonso, who has previously built my two other basses, if he would dare to try something he has never done before: fanned frets. Of course he was! And since I have the utmost confidence in him, we begin planning on it.
Following the Premier’s road-map, it has a mahogany body, with wenge top and back. It also sports a bloodwood laminate. Neck is made of wenge and bubinga, and a wenge fretboard, giving it an amazing range of mids and lows. It’s an active bass equipped with a John East U-retro preamp, and 2 Nordstrand fat stack. It has an all-Hipshot. I bought all electronics and hardware at Best Bass Gear.
It plays like a dream, and it sounds even better. It’s as bit on the heavy side, but nothing that a wide strap can’t fix. I really love this bass, and it shows how versatile and well-versed in his craft Alfonso is.
Well done!
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Beautiful in every way! Congratulations! What is the beautifully-grained wood on the headstock veneer?
Very Nice!! Love the wood selection!!
Great looking bass. I love the Wenge. I’m tempted to try fanned frets also. I would have resisted the urge to fan the pickups however. That kind of defeats the purpose of the dual magnet polepieces. It will increase the magnetic pull on the string, without providing the widened sensing area. Beautiful work and good wood selection. You should be proud.
I think there has been a mistake: the pickups should have been mounted the other way round: now the two B-string polepieces are under the G-string. Turn them around and the polepieces would be perfectly square to the strings.
That works using Photo-shop, but not in real life. If you rotate those PUPS 180 degrees, they will appear EXACTLY the same.
Charles – surely the tone will be different across the strings if you keep the pick ups straight ?
Shouldn’t they be following the bridge angle when there is such a big difference? You would be playing AT the bridge on one and 5cm from the bridge at another. Well that’s my guess!
Well done builder! Good work.
Great wood work. I have only been building for a short while. I have a milling machine and I don’t understand how anyone could build without one. What do your controls consist of? I’m using 2 soap bars on my present build. I will submit it. Laminated Walnut and Ash.
Alfonso truly is the man who fell to Earth, well done!!!
Alfonso truly is the man who fell to Earth well done SIr, very well done!!!
A great concept; like on a piano, the lower the note, the longer (and thicker) the string. Would be nice to know the range of string lengths? She’s got class, a good looker nothing more than what’s necessary.
Very nice job, the woods are really beautiful and the shape seems very comfortable.
I made a fan frets 5 a few years ago, it was shown in “bass of the week” in November 2013. I’m working on a new one.
Which scales are the lower and upper strings? Which string spacing did you use to fit with the Nordy’s?
Interesting neck carve on the bass side. I don’t think I’ve seen that done before. Is that for stability? Or did he have a template for a single cut that was used? Either way, very, very cool instrument. Beautifully done.
Very odd that more wood was used on the treble side. Usually they put more wood on the bass side(bstring/estring)so that the it resonates more with the deep end. Any chance you can put up a youtube or throw down a soundcloud jam or something. Love checking out these basses, but hate it when I can’t hear what they sound like….:(
Very well done!!!! What is the scale length(nut to saddle) of each string?
BEAUTIFUL! As for the pickups, I like the slant. Installing them traditionally would have fought against the flow of the design. I like how the pickups are horizontal with the last fret, and those particular ones should sound great no matter which way you set them. I plan to use Nordstrands on my next build. If I saw this bass in a store I would not be leaving without it!
Words escape me (unusually for me). But the way those “pieces of exotic timber” combined with the Norstrands, Sh*t hot, oops, I mean Hipshot bridge/machines and of course, I’d never be able to live with myself if I failed to mention East’ie’s U-Retro4 tonics – I bet it sounds absolutely incredible, a specially with an 18v power supply. Combined with those absolute killer looks, fanned frets. Those sweep able mids are gonna give you any sound you desire, well you’ll know this already I’m sure. A totally unique and incredible build sir. I have one question. Your two micro switches, series/parallel, phase switching. I’m just bloody curious. Still a fantastic, really enviable bit of kit. Really appreciate your sharing……Cheers. Beautiful and certainly one of a kind. It reminds me of the incredible pieces of kit the legendary John Entwistle would have loved to have had at his disposal (May he rest in piece). Thanks again.
Really well done. The asymmetrical body shape and the fan frets are great. Love the wood choices – those cannot make a light weight bass – for tone and appearance they are great. Thanks for sharing. Beautiful instrument.
That bass looks amazing! It has a bit of a Guild Pilot hint in its shape (which I played for years and still wish I had), with a shot of steroids. Unreal bridge and fret work. So nice!