Above is a Dingwall “Afterburner 2” bass guitar. Very pretty, very expensive and very awesome all the way around; you’re definitely getting something special when you buy a Dingwall. And as you can see from the photo, it has fanned frets on it, and that’s what this article is about. On a fanned fret layout, … Read more
All bass players at some point eventually buy “the good bass”; this is a bass that’s either a premium model (such as the Fender Select Active Jazz Bass) or something custom-built just for you by a luthier where you wait weeks to months to get it. Either way, that’s your “baby”; that’s the bass you … Read more
When going by the appearance of a pickup alone, one can get easily confused because there are pickups that have hum-canceling technology in them even though they look like a single-coil, and there are also humbuckers that look like humbuckers but are in fact tri-coil or even quad-coil. To answer the question of what counts … Read more
See Patrick’s business listing here This is a bit of a follow-up to our “mudbucker” article, as Patrick has a real-deal ’64 Epi Newport (original owner!) with a real-deal mudbucker in it. Patrick’s story: I purchased this Epiphone Newport back in 1964. Played it for about four years as is, but I wanted a EB3 … Read more
VOX’s amPhone series is a set of headphones which literally puts an amplifier inside the headset. And, as it turns out, there’s a bass model. Even Victor Wooten did a video on it: I was thinking to myself, “Y’know… I’ve seen this tech somewhere before…” Then I remember, yeah I did. It was called the … Read more
Here’s some photos from NAMM 2013. There was tons of cool stuff there, including some fantastic bass guitars. Here’s a few of them: Backlund F Bass Booth Lakland Mayones Oscar Prat Pigtronix Reverend Aqualina Spector (and a lot of them!) Warwick Which is your favorite? Post a comment below and let everyone know!
A bass guitar is a very physical instrument comprised of wood, steel and most of the time plastic (for switchgear, knobs and scratch plate among other things). On its own, the bass does absolutely nothing for you, and you do have to make it do what you want. Said another way, nothing about a bass … Read more
With bass guitar strings, there is no question that roundwound is always the most-available. No matter where you shop for strings, roundwound will always be there and always outnumber any other string type you could buy… …but that’s not to say you couldn’t experiment with a different type of string such as flatwound or halfround. … Read more
See Matt’s business listing here This week’s BotW is a green machine from Matt, which he calls the “Mutant Bass”. His story on this bass is: I’ve had this idea for a bass for a while and I finally brought that idea to life. Here’s a bit of the story behind this bass that took … Read more
Over the weekend our illustrious leader Max put this together: …and this is what it used to look like: Yes, it is completely functional, and yes there is now a battery box in the back where there wasn’t one before, but the point is this: This totally dives into what you would call “heavy modification” … Read more
