See the business listing for this bass builder here The feature bass for this week is an exotic lefty from South Africa! Builder James Pickering writes: I am naturally right-handed, but I learnt to play guitar from my brother who is left-handed. I have, as a result, had to make my own basses since left-handed … Read more
In this build step, a contour is cut on the back of the body. This is a cut seen on many different basses and offers additional comfort when playing sitting or standing. Below: The tools used. Smooth cut files, rasps, surform shaver, microplane, colored sanding blocks, 80-grit sandpaper, sliding arm clamp. Below: Rear body contour … Read more
What does a Carl Thompson inspired fretless sound like when used with a looper and having the cantina song from Star Wars played on it? Well, it sounds a little something like what you hear below. Fretless bass playing isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, but to do it in one take … Read more
See the business listing for this bass builder here For those that are fans of the band Primus, you definitely know where the inspiration for this bass came from. Builder Evan Nichols from Nichols Guitar Co. writes: This Bass is a 34″ scale 6 string neck through with an oil-rubbed finish. The neck is 19 … Read more
In this build step, the only tool used is the spindle sander with drums of varying sizes to be able fit the sander everywhere that needs to be sanded. Below: Spindle sander used with 80-grit sandpaper. Seen here is, for this particular table, the largest 3-inch drum. Below: A look at the upper waist of … Read more
The feature bass player for this week is Stijn Deldaele from Belgium. Stijn is not only a good player but also good at bass guitar repair as well. He took a Cort bass that had been literally chewed up by a dog and turned it into something great. What is the model of Cort bass … Read more
See the business listing for this bass builder here 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 … Read more
The song Ramble On is well known to any John Paul Jones (bassist for Led Zeppelin) fan. What isn’t well known however is the vibrato John put into his playing for this particular song. While true you can clearly hear good bass tone in the original studio recording of Ramble On, some of what John … Read more
In this build step, the treble side rib is cut. A mistake was made where the cut wasn’t exactly flush so a chisel (not seen in the first photo below but seen later on) had to be used. Where wood is concerned, sometimes (or rather oftentimes) things don’t always go according to plan, so you … Read more
See the business listing for this bass builder here The original idea for this bass was to build a 9 or 10-string, but ended up with 7 instead. Builder Thomas Juehne writes: You featured the bass I built for my son in a Best Bass Gear email “How a father made his son a dream … Read more
