Best of 2019: Top 10 Reader Favorite Bass of the Week Features

Here’s a new bass from Jens Ritter Instruments created with Ish Guitars. The Princess Isabella Concept bass brings together Ritter’s Princess Isabella body with the “Concept” design, which streamlines it for a minimalist look.

Doner Designs always comes up with awesome basses for a good cause, and it looks like this one will need an amp rated at 1.21 gigawatts. The “Time Machine” was inspired by the “Back to the Future” movies and benefits the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Seeing a “violin” bass is fairly common, but Byron Isaacs decided to go a different direction and dreamed up a bass mixed with a mandolin. He approached luthier Harvey Citron to make it a reality. The result: the Byron "F" Style Bass.

One look at this bass and you’ll know its inspiration. However, Rick Wilson of Moonshine Custom Guitars went way beyond replicating the paint job from Eddie Van Halen’s infamous Frankenstrat. The four-string tribute takes every little detail about the guitar and its scars into consideration.

Rob van den Broek put together two classic bass designs to create the Brooks Telebird. The builder, who is a Gibson aficionado, combined the body of a Thunderbird with the neck and pickup Fender Telecaster bass.

Warwick is known for their use of Bubinga in their instruments. This week we’re checking out a bass that uses a larger canvas to show off the beautifully figured wood. Not only is the body larger, but the headstock is also larger, too.

This week we’re checking out a funky and cool bass built by Jeremy Kirsch called the Sirena Modelo Uno. The four-stringer takes its design cues from similarly funky vintage basses.

Steve Eisenberg is a luthier based in Phoenix, Arizona who uses all of his specialties to create unique and functional basses. This week we’re checking out the Highboy, which has two extended horns for balancing whether you sit or stand.

Frederiek de Vette is back with another gorgeous build. The last time we featured one of her basses, it was a take on a classic Precision bass. This time she built two basses alongside each other in a “new school vs. old school” theme.

The Guitar Summit in Mannheim took place last month and showcased loads of new instruments from luthiers around the world. Paul Belgrado was on hand with a trio of basses including his new model called the NaNo, which fuses several classic styles.