Eastwood Guitars to Revive the SB-1000 Bass
Eastwood is bringing back another bass from the past with the SB-1000. Introduced on their crowd-funding platform, the bass is their take on the Japanese instrument popular during the ’80s.
“The SB line of basses that came out of the Matsumoku factory in Japan are considered the ‘holy grail’ of Japanese basses,” Eastwood writes. “While their neck-through construction and solid ash body wings were selling points all on their own, it was their unique 6-way tone control that solidified the SB-1000 as their flagship model. It’s no surprise that legendary bassists Cliff Burton, John Taylor, Rudy Sarzo, Jack Bruce and Marcus Miller all used one of these basses to create some of the most recognizable riffs in history.”
The company will be recreating the same features with a maple and walnut neck, solid ash body wings, and a rosewood fingerboard with dot markers. The six-way rotary “Attack Mode” selector will be in play matched to a pair of custom double-coil pickups. Other features include volume and tone knobs as well as Gotoh style hardware.
The Eastwood Guitars SB-1000 Bass is available for pre-order with a final price of $899. It’s expected to ship in January 2021.
Editor’s note: Images shown are of an original SB-1000. They are shown only as a reference point for this new release.
Eastwood Guitars SB-1000 Bass Specs:
Scale: | 34″ |
Construction: | Neck-thru |
Body: | Solid Ash |
Neck: | Maple/Walnut |
Fingerboard: | Rosewood |
Inlays: | Dot Markers |
Pickups: | Custom EW Double Coil |
Switching: | 6-Way Rotary “Attack Mode” Selector, Attack Mode Bypass |
Controls: | Individual Volume/Tone |
Hardware: | Gotoh Style Nickel/Chrome (Gold on Black Finish) |
But Aria still makes these. Hard to find in the US from what I can gather. Even though this model is still listed on their website, their US distributor does not seem to list it. I remember you guys covering a Cliff Burton special edition just a while back.
Ruben beat me to it! I was just drooling over these on Arias website a few days ago and watching demo videos of this bass (the Aria one, that is) How do you release s tribute of something still being made?
I suppose when it’s impossible to get a new one in the US, tribute status is justified.
When I was a wee lad back when MTV was shiny and new, the Aria Pro SBs were all over these new music videos probably only second in popularity to the old Yamaha BB line. Seemed really big with the Brits, Aussies, and English speaking folks who couldn’t shell out 3 to 4 times as much for a custom shop Alembic or the like. These days they’re pretty hard to find in the States other than used, beat up, and way over priced. Would love to see a review of this Eastwood version. I’m curious.
The first video MTV showed was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. And Trevor Horn was playing an SB1000 in that video.
Right!!! And little wonder. These basses where everywhere. New Wave, funk/R&B, metal, big time rock stars, small town bar bands; I guess this was the bass to have that didn’t say Fender on the headstock.
beside Aria Pro II still produces SB-1000 basses, the black bass in the article is not even a SB-1000 model (it is “Black`n`Gold I” model, passive, with different hardware end electronics)
It’s now June of 2021, and the Eastwood website still shows them as not available. What’s the story? https://eastwoodguitars.com/products/eastwood-sb-1000-bass