Best of 2016: Top 10 Bass of the Week Features
Every Monday, Kevin shares his pick for bass of the week – a column featuring low-end instruments ranging from beautiful to bizarre.
Of the 52 we shared this year, here are the 10 reader favorites.
Fender set the standard with the Precision Bass in 1951, following it up the Jazz Bass in 1960. This week we’re taking a look at a bass that sleekly blends the two icons: the Fender Aerodyne Jazz Bass…
With a name like Evilectric, you might guess that the company makes some gnarly looking basses. You’d be right. Evilectric builds full 41 3/4-inch scale electric upright basses with custom designs. Only three have been made so far, and this week we’re checking out the Skull bass…
3. Tomisic Guitars MarkOne Bass
Luthier Milos Tomisic and bassist Marko Cvetkovic have teamed up once again to create the MarkOne bass, which Cvetkovic says is an attempt to solve all the typical issues modern players face. The result in a creative instrument that centers around a forward-thinking set of electronics…
No Treble reader Deryl Gallant wrote in to us with a cool story on the creation of his AMJ Guitars fretless bass. Strangely enough, it started out as just a neck for his Fender Jazz and ended up with a body of reclaimed wood…
Hot Wire Basses took a page out of the old school with their Blues Bass. Modeled after the early fifties Kay Electric Bass, the Blues Bass is a vintage-style hollowbody, which the company notes was often played by four-stringers backing up Blues legends like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf…
6. Barton Basses 11-String Fretless Harpbass
Barton Applewhite of Barton Basses sent this in for us to check out and it stopped me in my tracks. This monstrous 11-string fretless Harpbass includes a four regular bass strings plus seven standalone harp strings…
7. Ploughman Guitars Semi-Hollow Bass
This week we’re checking out another beautiful instrument by Serbia’s Ploughman Guitars. Their take on a semi-hollow body bass is crafted with a one-piece Sipo body that topped with book-matched, hand-carved, Bosnian maple…
8. Pachyderm Basses Blonde Bass
Les Claypool has always played distinct basses, and this week we’re checking out one of those basses he helped design: The Pachyderm Basses Blonde Bass. Claypool worked with luthier and longtime friend Dan Maloney to form the company and create his idea of the ultimate bass…
This week we’re checking out the Emerald Guitars Balor, an acoustic bass guitar built entirely with carbon fiber. The model is the latest in the evolution of their acoustic bass models…