Guitar
guitarz.blogspot.com:
The design of this Stradi Symphony Five-string Fretless Bass incorporates visual elements from both the electric bass and stand-up acoustic double bass, but at the same time it is quite a minimalistic design with no visible pickups, control knobs or switches being allowed to sully the face of the instrument. In fact, the sole control on the bass is a volume slider and that is to be found located on the backplate on the reverse of the instrument (seems a weird place for it, I'd imagine it could get knocked there). Note how the fingerboard (wenge, apparently) continues all the way to the base of the body beyond the bridge, giving the whole bass a very sleek and elegant appearance.
The specs are as follows:
Body: Walnut and oak with curly maple top
Neck: Hornbeam sides with maple center and walnut lines, two 8mm carbon fibre pipes from headstock to bridge working as resonant chambers and stiffening rods
Fingerboard: One, thick piece of quartersawn wenge. Side dots made of brass with acrylic centre eye.
Tuners: Gotoh
Bridge: Black oak with Stradi cutom piezo pickup underneath
Electronics: Stradi Sweet Transistor Preamp for piezo, Volume slide pot on backplate, 9v battery operation
Strings: Rotosound Tru-Bass
I can't say I'd personally want to keep those horrible black plastic-coated flatwounds on there. One thing that polarises fretless bass players is the whole thorny question of flatwounds versus roundwounds. I am very definitely in the roundwound camp. So, OK, they are going to mark your lovely black minimalist fingerboard - but the lovely sustain they will produced will more than make up for it. But then if you really ARE looking for an upright bass sound which is often more percussive and has a lot less sustain than an electric bass, maybe the RotoSound Tru Bass strings are worth a try?
Item is located in Poland and the starting bid is set at US $2,470.
G L Wilson
© 2014, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.
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Guitar
Stradi Symphony Five-string Fretless Bass
guitarz.blogspot.com:
Body: Walnut and oak with curly maple top
Neck: Hornbeam sides with maple center and walnut lines, two 8mm carbon fibre pipes from headstock to bridge working as resonant chambers and stiffening rods
Fingerboard: One, thick piece of quartersawn wenge. Side dots made of brass with acrylic centre eye.
Tuners: Gotoh
Bridge: Black oak with Stradi cutom piezo pickup underneath
Electronics: Stradi Sweet Transistor Preamp for piezo, Volume slide pot on backplate, 9v battery operation
Strings: Rotosound Tru-Bass
Item is located in Poland and the starting bid is set at US $2,470.
G L Wilson
© 2014, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.
- Shonky 2-string Fretless Upright-convertible Cigar Box Bass
guitarz.blogspot.com: Here's an instrument that I've been using a lot recently. It's one I commissioned to be built by Antony Moggridge of Shonky Musical Instruments and its very simplicity is a nice juxtaposition against the over-the-topness...
- Could This Be The Earliest Production Model Acoustic Bass Guitar?
guitarz.blogspot.com: I have on this blog previously queried what might have been the earliest production model acoustic bass guitar. Surely this Regal Bassoguitar circa 1937 must take the prize, even if it does look as if it was designed to be played...
- Eko B4 N Fretless Acoustic Bass From 1982
guitarz.blogspot.com: Although it wasn't the first acoustic bass guitar, and not even the first production model acoustic bass guitar (it was pre-dated by the Ernie Ball Earthwood and, I believe, by a Guild acoustic bass), the Italian-made Eko B4...
- Now That's One Heck Of A Big Ol' Bass!
guitarz.blogspot.com: Pictured next to a Fender Jaguar Bass (which I believe has a 34" scale length), I'm guessing that this extremely long fretless electric bass is intended to be played as an upright. It probably wouldn't be great as a double...
- Ergo Instruments One-off Doubleneck Bass, 4 + 8 Strings, Fretted/fretless
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