Bass Gear - Page 204

This week we take a look at another eye-catching bass from o3 Custom Guitars called the Rhodium. The Spanish-made bass is also called the Purplehaze due to its gorgeous purple satin finish over its ash body. Its neck is a five-piece laminate comprised of flamed maple and wenge with a pau ferro toneblock. The bass is fitted with a pair...

Bass luthier Cleve Johnson has introduced a new model to his lineup from LedBelli Bass Guitars called the Jonah “Thin Wing.” The bass is a variation on LedBelli’s flagship Jonah with extra shaping for a slimmer profile. “The ‘wings’ of the bass are heavily contoured and thin, thus the ‘thin-wing’ designation,” Johnson explains. “The thickest section of the body is...

Electric upright bass company MK has announced a new passive jazz model of their flagship bass. The Jazz-P features piezo transducer pickups and passive electronics, which MK says solves tonal problems of the bass including noise at high levels of amplification. It’s built with a single piece of horse chestnut for the body and neck with an ebony-stained pear wood...

EBS has taken their Reidmar amp design and built it into a new series of combo amps. The Magni 500 bass combo series features 210 and 115 models that incorporate an all-analog preamp with a lightweight power amp section. Both the 210 and 115 configurations include a tweeter to fill out their range. Similar to the Reidmar head unit, the...

After getting feedback from over a thousand bass players, Elixir Strings has announced they’ve revamped their Nanoweb coated bass strings. “We recently decided to broaden our range in both Nickel Plated and Stainless Steel Strings,” says application engineer Justin Fogelman. “New and refined gauges and single strings give bassists a tool to find what really works well for them.” The...

Joe Kruse has spent the past eight years working with Carl Thompson and two more years in Roger Sadowsky’s shop. Now he’s striking out on his own with MBJ Guitars, which focuses on unique short-scale designs and killer wood combinations. The luthier gave us the rundown on his Nutsy bass, which is our bass of the week. “I used mahogany...

New for 2015, Schecter has built upon their Diamond Series of basses with the Diamond Plus Series. The new lineup includes the Diamond-J Plus and Diamond-P Plus in a variety of finishes. Both models are built with a choice of swamp ash or alder for the body, a 6-bolt maple with carbon fiber reinforcements, and either a maple or rosewood...

Ernie Ball is fusing the elements of two types of strings with their new Slinky Flatwound Electric Bass Guitar Strings. Developed with the company’s patented cobalt steel alloy, the strings are described as having the sound of round wound strings with the smooth feel of traditional flatwound strings. The strings are constructed with a cobalt ribbon wire wrapped around a...

Spector Basses has introduced a new Mike Starr Signature version of their Euro4LX bass. Available as a limited edition, the bass is crafted in the company’s Czech factory and will only be available for order in the 2015 calendar year. “We started working with Mike on this before he passed away,” Spector’s PJ Rubal told us. “He’s known for his...

This week we check out a custom Cremona 5 by New York Bass Works. Built by luthier David Segal for bassist Sean Joynes, the instrument is based around a rare wood from central Africa called Moabi. Joynes gave us the scoop: “This new Cremona 5 bass is made of Red Alder with a Moabi Pommele (African Pearwood) top,” he wrote....

After announcing the pedal at this year’s NAMM Show, Tech 21 is now shipping the Boost Comp. The all-analog compressor utilizes FET-based technology, which the company says is inherently warm, while simplifying the controls for easy tweaking. The pedal offers pre and post-effect tone shaping capability with its Presence and Tone controls. Presence adds a pre-compression tonal boost in the...

Our monthly celebration of the top bass gear news coverage continues. Here are the top 10 most read gear stories on No Treble for the month of April, 2015. As always, it comes with a warning: may cause GAS. 1. Demeter Amplification Bass-400D Hybrid Bass Amplifier Amplification guru James Demeter was at NAMM this year to introduce the prototype of...