[Bass of the Week] Tuli Chamber Bass

This week’s bass guitar of the week is a super-exotic from Finland.

Builder Tuli writes:

TULI 5-String Fretless Chamberbass Specs

Scale: 33”

Top Plate: AAAA Bookmatched Karelian Masur Birch Back and Neck: Thermo Treated flamed Arctic Birch

Finish: Hand applied oil and wax

Pre-amp: NOLL TCM-3 active 3-band

Pick-up: Delano 5-string Humbucker encased in Masur Birch

The story of this bass starts on a Saturday morning in snowy Finland. I went in to the workshop not really intending to build an instrument but just thought I would mess around sketching out and cutting out designs. I really wasn’t paying attention to wood selection or really even intended to finish it. I was just bored. It had been about 10 years since the last time I built a bass.

Instrument building was something I always loved as well as being a bass player, but as my life progressed it always seemed that there was never really room for me to pursue these things to a level that I was happy with.

A few days later a friend stopped by and took a picture of the progress I had made, and with the quickness, threw it up on Facebook.

After about 5 minutes one of their mutual friends messaged them and asked to buy the bass. The guy who inquired wasn’t just any friend, but the owner of a local music school and an ‘in demand’ studio bassist. At first I was like, sweet, right on! But then after he emailed me and told me about all of his other friends in the European Luthier world as well as in the professional music scene, I suddenly had second thoughts. This bass was just a fun experiment. Not at all worthy of a guy like this.

Then a thought occurred to me. I should take him up on his offer to buy it, start all over again and build the sickest ,wildest ,most well crafted 5-string fretless I was capable of making. Anything worth doing is worth over doing right?

As we are in Finland, the first step I took was to procure some of the amazing exotic woods indigenous to the native forests here. As North America has many sweet varieties of Maple, Finland has just as many exotic types of Birch.

I selected Masur Birch for the top. This wood is almost a national treasure in Finland. It is ubiquitous in Finnish crafts and is very costly and hard to find in pieces big enough for instruments. I think the only time I ever saw it on a bass was on an $12,000 Fodera or something.

I was lucky enough to find the perfect piece that had been aging in someone’s house for almost 4 years. The back and neck were also from birch but from the entirely polar opposite end of the spectrum of the species. A flamed variety of Birch that grows north of the arctic circle that is very similar to flamed big leaf maple was my choice here.

In Finland nowadays, there is a drying process called thermo treating. It effects an AMAZING brightness and density to the wood while adding a rich mahogany color.

For fun I sandwiched some wenge veneers in between the laminates. The build took about 50 hours. With in those hours I also took the time to make really good reusable templates so, if I ever wanted to do this again, I would have to figure out all the angles and stuff.

Some of my mates helped out a bit with sanding and stuff. For a minute it became a bit of a team effort and was a great break from the normal woodwork we do. Plus, I was running out of time with the other responsibilities I have.

When we delivered the bass to this guy, it was a priceless moment. He was pretty shocked. We went right into his studio and started jamming. That went on till like 4:00am! Cheers, Tuli

Wonderful materials and a great build, well done!

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