Laurus Introduces Federico Malaman Signature Quasar Bass

Federico Malaman has been impressing us with his playing for years. Now he’s teamed up with Laurus to create the new Federico Malaman Signature Quasar Bass. Based on the company’s Quasar, the instrument is a 5-string fretless with its tuning machines at the bridge.

Laurus Federico Malaman Signature Bass

One of the most striking features of the model is its chambered body, which has three vibrating boards above the tonal chambers. Laurus says this contributes to “superb harmonics and great sensitivity.” The body is created with mahogany Kaya and topped with maple, rosewood, olive, and ash woods, while the neck is made from five pieces of maple and purpleheart. Its finger board is a phenolic resin, which Laurus points out offers higher resistance to string resistance and eliminates dead notes.

The bass is rounded out with a Nordstrand Dual Blade pickup and Laurus bridge, which has been upgraded to a new style. “Every saddle, just over the string contact to the bridge, is built so that the upper part is separated by the bottom,” the company writes. “The top of each saddle is then free to vibrate along with the string, improving tone and sustain.”

Check out Malaman playing “Aramduk” on his new signature model:

The Laurus Federico Malaman Signature Quasar Bass is handmade in Italy. It carries a street price of approximately $5,423.

Laurus Federico Malaman Signature Quasar Bass Photos:

Laurus Federico Malaman Signature Quasar Bass Details:

Scale:34″
Construction:Neck-Through with Chambered Body
NECK:5 or 7 section Maple/Purpleheart laminate
Neck Support:Steel dual-action truss-rod, reinforced structure in graphite
Body:Mahogany Kaya
TOP:Maple, Rosewood, Olive, Ash
Fingerboard:Phenolic
Frets:Fretless
Headstock:Tilted back style, with construction rigorously based upon vintage italian “art-of-marking-stringed-instruments”
Hardware:Laurus bridge with with tuning machines for headless basses (accepts any type of string)
Pickups:Nordstrand “Dual Blade”

For more information:
Laurus

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  1. Louis

    Sweet! price is way beyond my budget. I’ll wait till I find one on eBay….lol

  2. Such a lovely player..

  3. Gregg

    “The top of each saddle is then free to vibrate along with the string, improving tone and sustain.” That makes sense and should hopefully become a standard practice or at least an option.

    • d

      Ibanez has a monorail bridge like that

      • Joe

        No, this is absolutely completely different from Ibanez monorail…

        And this is a work of art, and will go up in price and became an investment instrument, as it is a completely new approach, style, quality, sound and artistic in essence, with a tremendous sound, and also a limited edition. $5000 is nothing for that, when you compare to overpriced Fender Custom Shop (more than that $) or exagerated and surestimated Fodera (8, 10, 12, 15 and 20, 000 $$$) that have the same sound (except maybe the Al Johnson Contrabass, the only one that has a real unique sound for $20,000$)…

        And for those who still don’t know Malaman, he is the one right know that every bassist’s fears, his able to play as many chords on bass as others bassist are playing solo notes… And he always steals the ”competition” (dont tell me at NAMM guys doesn’t compete, this is BS even Jeff Berlin is always accepting to confront whoever has balls to think he can beat him in jazz playing, nobody can).

        In fretted mode, Malaman beats Wooten, Feraud, you name it, and all the flamenco’s stylists like Garrisson, etc; they are no match, Wooten was completely outcome and for the first time he couldn’t hide, and I was there and it was like ”oh my God i’m done”; he is no more in the same league, bass players evolve also… Malaman is 10 years in the future ahead of everybody because he not only has a combination of relative and perfect pitch, an out of this world musical brain that responde in nano seconds, he is the new kind of technician that are fats but at the same time extremely creative, more melodic,and he can play chords as fasts as all others are just able to play always the same solos. He can improvise and create in nanoseconds, and do lot more versions of the orginal version roght then, right there, and this is completely hard to state from bassists.

        But fretless mode speaking, Malaman is not such far yet. There is +/- 30 bassists ahead of him, the number one of them all is Alain Caron, who nobody can touch in that style.

        Also in the double thump thing Caron is the most perfect technician, he can play anything, anytime, with such fantastic precision, such timing and most, such melody, cause he developped his own DT technique (i dont talk here about simple DT slap technique, but the DT + 3 + 4 + pinky rythmic and melodic style same time thumb does DT when performing complex but beautiful music that goes for sometime 12 minutes and in 2 or 3 hours show without stopping playing that style. Nobody, just nobody can do that (if you never saw Caron play live, or on DVD, then you cannot say no to my affirmation). Look on uTube, you can see kopy-klone who still don’t have his true technique, and this when kloning his most simplest songs of a few minutes, not Alain’s real tough stuff and weird stuff.

        Wooten never approach Caron at NAMM, or never invited him anywhere, ’cause as he says himself (Wooten) ”I’m a sloppy player” and he knows that, so he won’t ever, ever try to compare side by side with Caron who is 15 years ahead in terms of precision, technique and difficulty. I am not talking here about show-off and pyrotechnical stuf (fast slap, tapping, etc) but at real prowess techics perfectly precise, timing, melodic, accuracy and difficullty in SONGS, not in solos.

        If you just want show-off slappy-di-da-di-slappy-di-da-di-flac then there’s thousand of i wannabe klones on Youtube, they all do the same stuff, all sounds the same, all spend their times doing this stuff without even learning anything musical. And if for you slappy-di-da-di-slappy-di-da-di-flac iis the ”most better bassist in the worls” thing, then Wojtek ‘Pilich’ Pilichowski is faster in that shit than anybody else in the world, but that’s all and he won’t make history…

        Learn real music in school or with renowed teachers, spend years learning, practice real music, and then make yout own style and sound. Don’t do the same and same and same as usual slappy-di-da-di-slappy-di-da-di-flac — so tire of slappy-di-da-di-slappy-di-da-di-flac !!!

  4. That headstock.. iuk.

  5. there was a reason that Jaco kept the fret marks highly visible on his bass – I think fretless basses without these marks are very difficult to play in tune. Just saying…

    • Bill

      I don’t think Jaco even needed to see his bass to play in tune and he surely didn’t need lines. It’s easy to play in tune on an unlined fretless if you practice. Just saying….

  6. Bill

    Who in the heck has five grand to spend on a bass? Not any working musician I know!

  7. Kenneth Conner

    Saw him at Bass Bash 2017! Spectacular performer and player!