Bass of the Week - Page 28

Adam Clayton is a bassist with style. He’s an avid collector of fine watches, and now he has just the instrument to match. H. Moser & Cie teamed up with Wild Customs to gift the U2 bassist with a gorgeous custom bass that brings his passions together. “A founder member of U2 who writes about contemporary art for British GQ,...

One of the great things about writing the Bass of the Week column is that builders send us photos of some of their best work. This recent Sadowsky NYC Will Lee 5-string hit my inbox and stopped me in my tracks. Built with a chambered swamp ash body, the bass’s candy apple orange finish and black pearl pickguard are enough...

Luthier Aaron “Ray” Ross has been cooking up a new style of bridge this year, and he’s created an amazing bass to showcase it. His 27th bass features the new saddle-less “universal bridge.” “Coming up with something new is a violent, painful way to create, this took 4 months of agony and hand work,” Ross writes. “I was a little...

British double bass luthier Neal Heppleston sent us photos of his Panormo model to check out, and I’ve been obsessing over it. Each piece of wood is jaw-dropping, but moreover, it seems every little detail is a work of art in itself. Hand-built in his Sheffield shop, the bass is designed after the work of a famous 18th-century luthier with...

Master luthier Mas Hino is a man that can appreciate the finer things in life. That’s why his bass design called the Matador is inspired by both Picasso and Lamborghini. “The Matador was inspired by Pablo Picasso. The shape is an acoustic guitar with an offset on the sides like Picasso’s guitar,” Hino writes. “The body line and shape was...

This week we’re checking out the Tsukanoma bass built by luthier Jim Fleeting of Fleeting Guitars. Taking a cue from Japanese design, the hand-built instrument features striking aesthetics. “The Tsukanoma bass is designed as a tribute to the incredible woodworking and modern design in Japanese woodworking,” Fleeting writes. “The use of sharper corner bevels make this a departure from the...

This week we’re checking out a hip Gretsch bass that had its start as a blues guitar. The Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo Bass is a four-string version of the company’s recreation of Bo Diddley’s classic Jupiter Thunderbird guitar he designed in 1959. When he gifted it to Billy Gibbons, the ZZ Top frontman didn’t dare to take such a rare instrument...

This week we’re checking out the Intrepid bass from Fast Guitars. Available in four-, five-, or six-string versions, the model features a lightweight chambered body with a long-tenon neck joint. “Our neck joints are as tight and precise as any other type of neck joint. With a tapered tenon, the string tension will only tighten the joint rather than pull...

Back in May we shared an incredible bass by Frederiek de Vette. Shockingly, it was her first ever build. Now she’s followed up with her second bass that looks just as stunning. We’ll let her tell you the story: “For this build, my second, I decided on a five string fretted bass with a bolt-on neck,” de Vette explains. “While...

This week we’re checking out an incredible acoustic bass guitar by Safran Basses called Iris. Hand built by luthier Umut Dal, the bass was dreamed up to bring the best of upright and electric together. “The idea behind my archtop acoustic bass Iris is to close the gap in between electric and double bass,” Dal writes. “I have seen similar...

Adamovic has some of the most incredible basses, so it’s no wonder their Private Collection has some of the most incredible basses ever built. This week we’re checking out their King Solomon that started the series. “With the first private collection bass we wanted to use one of our favorite woods: Solomon padouk,” Adamovic explains. “We chose some beautiful beeswing...

I’m always astounded by the bass work of Dominic “Forest” Lapointe. His refined technique and raw emotion always come through in his bass lines. I’m also stunned by his basses, which is why this week we’re checking out his six-string left-handed signature bass built by luthier Marc Chicoine. Based around Quebec, Chicoine has been building guitars and basses for 20...