Skjold Design to Revive JP Basses This Fall
Skjold Design Guitars will be reintroducing JP Basses, beginning this fall. Luthier Pete Skjold worked closely with JP proprietor Jean-Philippe Ferreira to keep the basses in the same spirit of their predecessors.
As the new moniker suggests, JP Basses USA instruments will be handmade in the USA. Familiar features on the basses will include custom preamps by John East, custom pickups by Aaron Armstrong and Hipshot hardware, though they will also incorporate some of Skjold’s own features.
“These will be his designs reinterpreted by me but with a will to keep everything as close to the originals as possible,” Skjold explains.
French luthier Jean-Philippe Ferreira retired from building basses in 2006 after his run over a twelve year period, with an output of about 50 instruments. Though the original JP Basses site is down, you can check out his gallery of work here.
For more info on JP Basses USA, visit the Skjold Design Guitars website.
Note: the photo above shows the original JP Basses.
Doesn’t this guy build tons of “stock” bodies and necks while keeping guys waiting over a year for their custom basses but is now going to “revive” an instrument line that hasn’t been around for 5 years and there wasn’t a real demand for besides maybe 10 guys on Talkbass?
I do not build many stock basses although I do have some bodies that feature popular tops and body styles so that if someone wants one it can take a couple months off the build time. I do not build the necks until the customer has chosen what he would like for the fingerboard and number of strings. Generally I am building exclusively custom orders of 25-30 basses at a time so it take about 10-12 months to get thru the batch, especially since it is just me building the basses and doing everything else that goes with it.My customers are well aware of this time line before they submit their deposit. In regards to reviving these wonderful designs, it is something I have wanted to do as soon as I heard JP was retiring from this. It has taken a bit for everything to fall into place but these will be available just like my current line and I am excited to build them. As for there not being a demand I think that had more to do with JP’s ability to produce larger numbers as this was more of a paid hobby between him and Fred. He is also from france so by the time people over here were getting hip to them he was finished making them. If only 10 guys on talkbass want the ones I end up building then atleast there will be 10 satisfied JP owners who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to have one made. I’m fine with that. Thank you for your question.