Small Frame, Huge Tone: Stoll Guitars’ The Duke Archtop Acoustic Bass Defies Expectations
We featured The Legendary Acoustic Bass by Stoll Guitars back in 2021, which boasts an enormous body to produce an equally large sound. This week, we’re featuring a Stoll bass called The Duke, which contradicts the design theory of its predecessor.
“While The Legendary Acoustic Bass from 1986 was a sensational development, The Duke seems to outwit the laws of acoustics and nonchalantly disproves the statement ‘the larger the body volume, the deeper the bass sound,'” the company writes on their website. “Despite the smaller body, The Duke Archtop Bass surprises with an assertive bass sound, impressive volume and brilliant highs.”
The Duke is crafted with a multi-scale design ranging from a 34-inch G string to a 35.5-inch E string. Its body has maple for the back and sides with a gorgeous Sitka Spruce top complete with a pair of F-holes. As beautiful as it looks, an important aspect of the body’s construction is actually hidden inside. Luthier Christian Stoll developed a new “Curved Double-A Bracing” allows for the entire top of the bass to be used for sound development.
“The Duke has a remarkably quick response and sounds extremely crisp and present,” Stoll states. “Due to the high proportion of low mids, it is reminiscent of an electric bass. Its growling sound carries far and can exist alongside any acoustic guitar.”
Other features include a Spanish Cedar neck, a Black Locust fingerboard, Schaller tuners, and a weight of just 4.6 pounds.
Hear the bass in this clip from Stoll:
Stoll Guitars The Duke Archtop Acoustic Bass Specs:
| Scale: | 34-35.5″ |
| Body: | Maple |
| Top: | Sitka Spruce |
| Neck: | Spanish Cedar |
| Fingerboard: | Black Locust |
| Bridge/Nut: | Bone |
| Tuners: | Schaller Nickel |
| Finish: | Nitrocellulose Satin Gloss |
| Weight: | 4.6 lbs |
| Case: | Luxury Gig Bag |
| Options: | 4, 5, 6 string models, lefthanded available, pickup options available |
In his time with No Treble, Kevin has met hundreds of amazing bassists and interviewed icons like Jack Casady, Victor Wooten, Les Claypool, Marcus Miller, and more. He's a gigging bassist performing jazz in Northern Virginia and bluegrass with The Plate Scrapers up and down the East Coast. Kevin appreciates all genres of music, from R&B to metal and everything in between. Connect with Kevin on Facebook and check his performance schedule on his website.
Could you imagine the mustache of the guy that walks out on stage with this bass?
How much very nice I’ll have to ask my wife they cut my social security