Bass Guitars

The Guys from The Echo Falls have (or in this case HAD) some neat gear. Bassist, David Arend, used to have a Giuseppe Tarantino 1930 Double Bass. Now it is gone and Gearwire is getting all America's Most Wanted; If you see this bass call the authorities. Don't take the law into your own hands or anything, neither Gearwire nor John Walsh would approve of that.  

When a man plays so many basses in a lifetime, they can all start to look the same. Some men are just lucky that way. But the Aria DMB-380 actually does remind Owen of a certain other bass from his past. Just a younger version...  

Michael Pedulla once envisioned an acoustic instrument that all of a sudden turned out to become a solid-body electric bass. With a shopping list of exotic woods in its construction, the Pedulla Guitars Nuance defines flamboyantly what detail is all about.  

Who would have thought that there is uniqueness in simplicity? Arnoud Faber did with his custom bass guitar design called the PaddleBass.  

Dan Lakin of Lakland Basses has a great affectionate interest in the Skyline Model, because... well, it's his company. He has a great affectionate interest in all of it. But seriously - Lakin explains how the foreign made Skyline model compares favorably to its US made counterpart.  

Gadow Guitars have been known for the high-level of handmade quality in their instruments. After three years out of production, the newly designed Gadow Guitars Custom and Classic Basses are now being reintroduced.  

It's the love affair of the millennium as GW Guest Blogger Scott Wilcox extols the Peavey Millenium USA Bass. Can you believe this bass's namesake year is almost a decade past?  

Back in the Lakland Bass workshop, we take a little Zen break to watch Fretmaster Kevin serenely lay frets into the neck of an infant bass. Enjoy the fruits of Kevin's labor both in this video, and possibly in a Lakland of your own.  

Doni Blair is a bassist. Geddy Lee is a bassist. Doni Blair likes Geddy Lee's signature bass. What else is there to say? Read on, Macduff!  

We're back at the Lakland Bass factory, where everything they do is expressly for you. Well, that is if you want to buy a Lakland Bass. Hey, you might want to... and meanwhile, take a look at one of their skilled craftsmen as he preps a bass for electronics.  

Dan Lakin from Lakland Basses is really into the Plek machine, a fret leveler from Germany that makes all the Lakland Basses turn heads and evoke provocative comments. After a genial introduction to the Lakland company, we get to see der Plekker in action.  

We're not exactly sure where Lakland Basses is located, since we had to consent to being blindfolded and driven through remote streets before arriving at the top secret location. Once there, however, the genial Matt was happy to show us how he makes the frets on a Lakland bass so conducive to smooth playing.  

Looking dapper in the strangely well-lit Gearwire studio, Owen O'Malley gets his eager mitts on an MTD Kingston Heir. Maybe it's the flame maple top, maybe it's the Buzz Feiten Tuning System, but we haven't seen him this giddy about a bass in a while.  

Dan Lakin of Lakland takes us into the factory and gives us a little show-and-tell of their Decade model. Amid accounting books and some mysterious mechanized sound (perhaps the Pleking machine?), we learn about this bass from one of its proud parents.  

Patrick Southern of the indie band Kiss Kiss knows more about the care and feeding of his Fender American Precision Bass than you might expect. Standing provocatively in front of a school bus after a local Chicago show, Southern tells us all that really matters is the neck and the pickups. Done!  

The Whamola is a wonderment. An oddity. An ur-bass of sorts. Who better to talk about it, then, than the wondrous oddball of bass himself, Les Claypool? No one, that's who.

Don't you hate it when people answer their own questions of course you do.  

Not only does the new Gibson Tobias Growler Limited Run 2009 provide more funk-per-pound than most other bases, it also holds enough beer to get you pretty buzzed, especially if you haven't been eating!  

The Rees F-Light Bass looks "rad," but with its 34" scale neck and Seymour Duncan Basslines Quarter-Pounder it sounds totally "trad." The only truly radical thing about this bass is its overall weight: about 6 lbs., and that's accounting for the .25 lb. pickup.  

Conrad St. Clair swears by the Pedulla Buzz bass. He has one from 1984 and another from 2006. He swears by the sound and the craftsmanship. He also swears like a sailor.  

Owen O'Malley, here sporting some politically charged headgear (or maybe not really all that charged, since the guy's got the job already), gives us the lowdown on this 5-string that goes way down low. It is the G&L L-2500 Tribute Bass, complete with satiny neck.  

There's the gear you fawn over, and there's the gear you just need to perform dependably. If you can find a happy medium, you're golden. Noah Harmon of The Airborne Toxic Event feels this way about his trusty Fender P Bass. They're a working band, you see, and they need stuff to work.  

After being discontinued in 1982, the Gibson Grabber II Bass is being reintroduced in a very limited run series of 350 basses. It'll be interesting to see if the economic principal of scarcity can make this bass any less ugly.  

"T-Bird"-style basses tend to lack balance when shoulder-slung for stand-up playing. Luckily, Mike Lull tends to lack patience for anything less than a perfectly designed bass, and the Mike Lull T-Bass may be the most comfortable and well-balanced "T-Bird" around.  

A Fender Jazz Bass devotee since the peak of the Wailers' fame, Aston "Family Man" Barrett has played other basses in his long career but always goes back to that classic J-Bass sound. He spoke with GW a little bit about what attracted him to the Jazz Bass in the first place.  

Given the excitement surrounding the Road Worn series and the metaphor that spawned the above headline, they should actually make pants that you wear on your hands. Those would sell like hot cakes -- especially in Winter.  

According to Fender, the only thing cooler than a Fender bass is an old Fender bass. Following this logic, I now understand why Warren Beatty swept the Teen Choice Awards this year.  

Remember the old Aria Steve Bailey Signature Bass? Neither does Steve Bailey. The new FENDER Steve Bailey Signature bass was released at Winter NAMM 2009, and it just goes to show: Steve Bailey is a fair-weather endorsee.  

If I were Steve Harris, bassist from Iron Maiden, I'd be worried that people might get the wrong idea about the glittery finish on my signature Fender P Bass. But if anyone gave me any guff, I'd hit them with it, because it weighs enough that I'd need a spotter when I play.  

To quote They Might Be Giants, "if I didn't have disappointment, I wouldn't have any appointments." We didn't have an appointment at the Ibanez booth, but that didn't stop us from examining the tastefully-appointed Ibanez SRX470 Bass.  

Owen's not sure why he didn't plugin and play the Warwick Buzzard JE Bass like he did with the other Warwicks at Winter NAMM 2009, but he's sure that it would take a lot of guts to strut on stage with one of these bad boys. It would also take a lot of guts to make jokes about "Buzzards picking at the corpses of deceased rock stars". . . guts that we don't have.