Build of the Week [Matthew Scarpa BlueLotus Bass Guitars BLSC4]

This week’s bass build comes from Matthew Scarpa of BlueLotus Bass Guitars. Here is what he had to say about the build:

As a pre-teen growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I choose electric bass guitar as my instrument of choice while flipping through the pages of a Sam Ash catalogue (yes, you read correctly. A catalogue!) in my schoolroom cafeteria. We huddled around a lunchroom table, perusing through the contents of the catalogue with my friends, each of us deciding which instrument we ambitiously wanted to learn to play. Reluctant to choose guitar (because all my friends were choosing guitar), I picked the bass: And it stuck! It was there – in that moment – my obsession with the instrument began, and it led to the bass guitars I craft now.

I played bass all through high school, then college, and beyond. Playing in bands, recording and writing tunes, and picking up new gear and basses along the way. Until one day, my interest in carpentry and love for bass guitar collided in the most spectacular way. I had an epiphany! A revelation! It was what some may call an “aha” moment. It was when I realized: “If bass guitars are made from wood, then perhaps I could attempt to build one.” I then discovered a documentary entitled Restrung featuring the story of Randall Wyn Fullmer, a bass guitar builder and guitar luthier, just “an ordinary guy with a cat, [who] decided to turn his life-long hobby into a full-out obsession.” I was inspired!

After I built my first bass guitar, I just had to try building another. The second time around, I wanted to build it better, more efficiently, and continue to develop and learn new building techniques in the process. What you see here is the result!

This single-cut neck-through construction BlueLotus Bass is hand-carved from the finest woods. Strong high-mids and a punchy, tight low-end, this bass is both articulate and expressive. A well balanced, ergonomic design features a five-piece multi-laminated quarter-sawn hard maple and wenge neck, provides a solid midrange and warm full bottom tone.

A the three-piece body features a highly figured quilted maple top over an alder body and wenge tone layer sandwiched in-between. Alder, being light in weight, helps keep the overall weight of this instrument down. Tonally, alder provides a nice warm low-end, while the wenge tone layer provides growl and punch.

As a choice of fretboard I chose ebony. Distinct in sound and clarity, ebony provides a nice brightness and a clear percussiveness. A quilted maple headstock plate is accompanied by wenge truss rod, control, and 9v battery covers. A laser engraved lotus from wenge is inlaid and epoxied blue to round out this BlueLotus Bass.

This 34” scale bass features a 2-way adjustable truss rod, Hipshot Ultralite tuners, Hipshot A-style Aluminum Bridge with 19mm bridge spacing, Schaller strap locks, and Nordstrand Big Single soapbar pickups in the neck and bridge positions. Both pickups run through a Nordstrand 3-band active/passive (push-pull) 3b-5a preamp system. Nordsrand characterizes there Big Single pickups as “the ultimate pickup for the Jazz Bass®-on-steroids tone purist”. They’re right! These certainly are!

My goal and ambition for BlueLotus Basses is to continue to build bass guitars, to learn, and to work towards developing new and interesting bass guitar instruments, superior in sound, craftsmanship, and ingenuity.

In addition, he included some specs about the bass:

4 Strings
34” scale
41mm (1.625″) Nut width
24 Jumbo stainless steel frets
16″ fretboard radius
Hand rubbed oil finish
2-way (dual) adjustable truss rod
2 carbon fiber reinforcement rods
Fully shielded copper tape control cavity
Hipshot Ultralite Tuners – Black
Hipshot A-style Bridge – 19mm spacing – Black
Schaller Locking Strap Locks
THG Knobs – Wenge
Nordstrand Big Singles in neck and bridge
Nordsrand 3b-5a Preamp
Switchcraft barrel jack
Overall length: 44.375″
Body depth (thickness): 1.625”