Here’s my workbench, newly cleaned off and organized in preparation for the upcoming run of acoustic basses. Next to the bass is one of the flared port tubes that will be the soundhole of the next bass, and on top is a sample of the high-pressure laminate I’ve picked out.

Instruments, About Me, Luthierie/Guitar Building, Acoustic Bass Guitars, Workshop | No Comments »

I am a big Tony Levin fan and have never had a desire to play an extended range bass, so I really like the idea of a three string bass. It has a 35″ scale and is tuned E-A-D. The nut width is 1.3″ and string spacing at the bridge is an extra-wide 7/8″ string-to-string.

Because the neck was so thin and extended out so far from the body, I went to extremes with reinforcement: 3/16″ x 3/8″ graphite bars on either side of the truss rod and a 1″ x .050″ graphite strip inlayed in the underside of the fingerboard.

But the real trick - no control visible cavity! The battery sits in a rout below the pickup rout, and the control cavity was routed and shielded before the top was glued on. The Neutrik locking jack isn’t just cool and functional, it provides a hole large enough to thread the EMG volume pot through. The bridge was custom made by Hipshot.

Instruments, Luthierie/Guitar Building | 8 Comments »

This bass is one I made in 2000 while I was working at the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix. The top and back are redwood and the sides are madrone. The body is around 5 1/2″ deep and it’s 19″ wide. Offsetting the soundhole does two things - it makes better use of the top’s surface area to make the bass louder, and it makes it easier for the player to hear himself.

Some special things I did on this one include graphite/balsa sandwich bracing and a central graphite spar that connects the neck and tailblocks. This, combined with the Fender-style bolt-on neck pocket, means never having to do a neck reset as the instrument ages.

On the drawing board now is a 6-string version. It will use honeycomb sandwich bracing for the top and a large removeable soundhole port tube. Besides looking cool, the port tube will allow fine-tuning of the main air resonance and provide easy access for string and battery changes.

Instruments, Luthierie/Guitar Building, Acoustic Bass Guitars | 3 Comments »