Bass Gear - Page 179

EBS is celebrating 30 years in the business this year. While they have tried and true products, that doesn’t mean they aren’t innovating. This year at the NAMM Show they previewed the ReTracer Delay, a compact pedal that utilizes new hardware and software from the company. The ReTracer offers twelve distinct engines to produce different effects. “Benefit from useful features...

Spector was showing off several new models at the 2018 Winter NAMM Show including the new Bantam 4, a short-scale bass with a chambered alder body. The combo of features helps to keep the bass’s weight down to just seven pounds. The basses are built with a carved NS-style body topped with quilted maple in black cherry or black stain...

Warwick unveiled a bass counterpart to the Framus Idolmaker at the Winter NAMM Show. Produced in the custom shop or as part of their German Pro Series Teambuilt line, the Warwick Idolmaker Bass is built with a carved mahogany body and a bolt-on wenge neck. It comes in four or five-string versions as well as fretted or fretless. Warwick uses...

Instrument builders always bring their best gear to the NAMM Show. As we were wandering the halls of the Anaheim Convention Center we found the Boutique Guitar Showcase, which brings builders from around the world to show off their work. We saw tons of great instruments, including the jaw-dropping Cintra bass from Portugal’s Ergon Guitars. Luthier Adriano Sérgio was on...

One of the booths at the NAMM Show that always has tons of buzz is the Marco Bass Guitars display. This year they introduced the N1 bass, which they describe as a game changer. Although the bass is their entry-level model, it’s still made in the USA in the Marco shop. “Marco Cortes has spent over three decades perfecting his...

Ned Steinberger and NS Design unveiled the latest in their Radius bass guitar series with the NXTa Radius. The headless bass carries many of the same features of the lineup while adding their NXTa battery-free active electronics. “The new NXTa brings together the brilliant ergonomics of the headless neck and body configuration, the NS self-clamping tuning system, custom NS/EMG™ pickups,...

Ashdown Engineering’s Classic Tube Magnifier (CTM) series got a little bigger this year – or a little smaller. The all-tube CTM 30 “Little Stubby” was debuted at the NAMM Show, where Dan Gooday described it as “a little bit more of everything in a smaller package.” “Measuring just 400mm wide, 220mm deep and 80mm tall, the 30-watt CTM-30 Little Stubby...

Death By Audio was on hand at the 2018 Winter NAMM Show to show off their goods including the new Deep Animation, an envelope filter pedal that responds to your playing. “This crazy goofball responds to how you play, enveloping and filter sweeping and overdriving,” the company writes. “Finally, the perfect wave-thumping bass moving with how hard you hit your...

After unveiling a slant cab version of their BA12-3, Genzler Amplification announced another model to their Bass Array series at the NAMM Show with the BA410-3. The cab is loaded with ten cone drivers: four 10-inch cast frame woofers and six 3-inch neodymium paper cone speakers, which are in a line array. It handles up to 1,000 watts at four...

Ernie Ball Music Man’s StingRay has been a time-tested model for decades, but both the four and five-string versions will be getting an update for 2018. The company made the announcement at the Winter NAMM Show. “For 2018, the StingRay4 and StingRay5 have been reimagined with new features and appointments that provide a new level of playing comfort while retaining...

Last year, Darkglass Electronics wowed NAMM-goers with the Alpha Omega. Now they’ve built upon the model with Alpha Omega Ultra, which they describe as “the most versatile bass preamplifier we’ve designed.” Just like its predecessor, the Ultra has two distinct distortion circuits that can be selected or mixed as well as a dry blend knob to retain your original signal....

This week we’re checking out a slick four-stringer by R. Low. Vaughn. Built by luthier Rob Vaughn, the bass is one of his newer models. “This particular bass is the 3rd one of that style I’ve made,” Vaughn says. “It started out as a concept for a bassist over in Britain named Alysha Moore who got the first one last...