My rate of production has slowed down a little, but my most recent project to leave the shop has been one of the most exciting yet. While it may look plain, it's anything but.
This is a 34" scale 5 string for Brian Gibson of Lightning Bolt. This bass is made entirely out of maple (at least wherever wood can be used.) Brian had discussed with me that he was looking to get a similar aggressive sound like Cliff Burton of Metallica. Cliff started with a Rickenbacker 4001 which was made mostly out of maple. Taking this into account, I tried to play up as many of the qualities of a R4001 as possible to re-create the sound Brian had in mind. Brian wanted something that was visually toned down, so I used maple for the fret board, neck and body and nut. It's outfitted with a Seymour Duncan SRB-1B. I made a custom bridge out of a piece of angle iron so that I could achieve 1/2" string spacing. The neck on this bass is only as wide as a 4 string bass, but I've squeezed 5 strings into the same amount of space to give Brian strings that are close enough together to allow him to play the fastest he can.
