Archive for the ‘Bass Guitars’ Category

MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

The MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar is an electric bass guitar produced by MusicMan Inc. This company was actually founded by two former employees of Fender, which was then one of the leading guitar manufacturers. Along with Walker and Sterling Ball, Leo Fender designed the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar in 1976.
MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar
The MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar is similar in appearance to the Fender Precision Bass Guitar, but features great innovations. One of the innovations is the “soapbar” humbucking pick-up, along with the Stingray’s 3-band equalizer. This equalizer enables the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar to boost, low, mid range, and high frequencies. This was indeed a major breakthrough for the Stingray since no other electric bass guitars without active preamps have this capability before.

MusicMan Stingray Bass GuitarAside from these electronic advancements, the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar has a classic, heavy satin finish on the back of the neck for the players hand to conveniently slide up and down while playing. Moreover, the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar comes with a separate control plate and a pick guard that is egg shaped. Apart from these physical features, the most prominent physical feature of this guitar is the “3+1” headstock with which the three tuning machines are situated.

Over the years, modifications on the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar were made. One of the primary modifications done was the omission of the string-through-body stringing at the bridge, and the adjustable string mutes. However, for the 30th anniversary in 2006, MusicMan produced a Stingray which features the string-through-body design. Furthermore, it uses solid mahogany for the body with a Crimson Red Transparent finish.

Other modifications of the MusicMan Stingray Bass Guitar include a 5-string version with a distinctive truss-rod neck adjustment using a highly rust and corrosion resistant washer. These modifications made the neck adjustment of the Stingray easier.

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Fender Precision Bass Guitar

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

One of the bass guitars that made an immeasurable contribution to popular music for the last 50 years is the Fender Precision Bass Guitar. This guitar is the first ever electric bass guitar to be made widely available for the consumers.

Fender Precision Bass GuitarThe Fender Precision Bass Guitar was patterned after the electric bass guitar personally designed by Leo Fender and was introduced to the market in 1951.

The Fender Precision Bass Guitar is a solid body instrument which comes with a single split-coil humbucking pick-up. Moreover, the fingerboard is made of rosewood or maple and is composed of 20 frets. The Fender Precision Bass Guitar is also famous for its one-piece neck made of maple. To date, the Fender Precision Bass Guitar is one of the best selling electric basses.

The important variations of the Fender Precision Bass Guitar include the Standard P-Bass which consists of a 3-ply parchment pickguard. This bass guitar has a tinted maple neck with a fingerboard made of maple or rosewood. Among its other features are a return to the knurled chrome flat-top control knobs and a split-coil pick-up for hum cancelling.

Another Fender Precision Bass Guitar variation is the American Standard. This bass guitar carries three models of this kind including the American Deluxe, which features a J-style humbucking pick-up; Highway One; and American Vintage.

The Road Worn is the last among the variations of the Fender Precision Bass Guitar. The Road Worn has a 1-ply gold anodized pick-up, and a synthetic bone nut. The body is designed as a distressed alder body and comes with a nitrocellulose lacquer finish.

The Fender Precision Bass Guitar is known for its use of frets which produces the distinct timber very different from the double bass guitars. The precision bass guitar is more focused and has a less percussive thump.

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Fretless Bass Guitars

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

In the real sense of the term, fretless bass guitars are electric bass guitars with no frets. Unlike the guitars with frets, the fretless bass guitars operate in such a way that the vibrating string length runs from the bridge to the point where the strings on the fingerboard are pressed by the fingers.

Fretless Bass GuitarOne thing that is advantageous for fretless bass guitars is that these guitars are not limited to certain temperaments or tuning systems. For this reason, fretless bass guitars can play music that is not only in 12-tone scales, which are very typical of experimental music. Moreover, fretless bass guitars are capable of absorbing energy from the vibrating strings much faster, thus producing a distinctive sound. This causes the pizzicato of fretless bass guitars to sound more damped than the other guitars.

According to most musicians, the fretless bass guitars sound similarly to the double bass guitar which are more popularly used in Jazz, R&B, and Funk music genres. This is probably the reason why there has been a great demand for these types of guitars leading to its widespread popularity.

Most fretless bass guitars have fingerboards that are made of hardwood. Epoxy coating is applied to these fingerboards to lessen the wear caused by the round-wound strings. On the other hand, other strings can also be used to lessen the wear, such as the ground wound, nylon tape-wound and flat-wound strings.

Although it is quite difficult to use fretless bass guitars which require more training for the exact positioning and shifts of the fingers, a lot of famous guitarists prefer to use these guitars. Some of these important guitarists are Juan Alderete who is the bassist for the Mars Volta, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, and Jaco Pastorius who is considered as the most influential fretless bassist of all time.

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Gibson Thunderbird

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Gibson Corporation is one of the leaders in guitar production. Over the years, it has managed to set new trends in guitars, and produced the firsts of their kinds. One of its major successes, is the Gibson Thunderbird electric bass guitar.
Gibson Thunderbird
The Gibson Thunderbird was first introduced in 1963, together with the Firebird guitar which basically resembles the Gibson Thunderbird in design and construction. The main difference is that the Thunderbird is an electric guitar. Although the Gibson Thunderbird fell behind twelve years from the Precision Bass which was produced by Fender, the Gibson Thunderbird definitely did not fall short of any expectations.

The basic design of the Thunderbird is that of a neck wood that went through the entire body of the guitar, which is being glued in place. The production of the Gibson Thunderbird with a scale of 34 inches, is an improvement over the previous Gibson bass guitars which have only a scale of 30 ½ inches. There were originally two models of the Gibson Thunderbird, these being the Thunderbird II, with one pick-up; and Thunderbird IV, with two pick-ups.

Gibson Thunderbird Electric Bass GuitarThe design and construction of the Gibson Thunderbird underwent a revolution, as its design was changed in 1966 due to a lawsuit that was filed by Fender because of its resemblance to one of its products, the Fender Jazzmaster. This has caused the design of the body of the Thunderbird to be changed to ‘non-reverse’, as opposed to its original reverse body design. However, the production of the revised Gibson Thunderbird guitars was discontinued in 1969. In 1976, the Thunderbird, in its original reverse form, was reissued as a bicentennial edition, and continued production until 1979. It was again discontinued since then. However, in 1987, the Gibson Thunderbird models were introduced again, with the Thunderbird IV, and the Nikki Six Signature Thunderbird IV in its line. Both of these models have two pick-ups and have retained the reverse bodies.

Perhaps, the most attractive feature that the Gibson Thunderbird models have is the high pick-up that they possess, enabling these guitars to produce a stronger signal than the other active basses. Moreover, the Thunderbird pick-ups are said to be indestructible, thus no replacement pick-ups are released in the market by Gibson Corporation. Today, the current Gibson Thunderbird, represented by Thunderbird IV is made from either mahogany or walnut. To form its body, wings made from mahogany are attached to it.

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Electric Bass Guitars

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

For quite some time, the electric bass guitars have replaced the upright bass in popular music. These guitars have been more popularly used in the rhythm section of popular music. The more specific music genres that make use of electric bass guitars in the harmonic framework and the best include rock, blues, country, metal, pop, and country. In addition, electric bass guitars are used distinctively as soloing instruments in funk, Latin, and jazz music.
Bass Guitar
Basically, the electric bass guitars have the same appearance as with the electric guitar, however, the electric bass guitars have longer necks, larger bodies, and longer scale lengths. Moreover, there are only four pitches used in tuning to the same pitches as the double bass guitars.

The electric bass guitars are considered as transposing instruments as these are notated in an octave higher than it sounds. This is done to address excessive use of ledger lines. The tuning used for electric bass guitars, is the standard tuning used on the lower four strings of 6-string guitars; though it is an octave lower for these guitars.

Some of the most commonly used strings types in electric bass guitars include the flat wound, round wound, ground wound, and half wound. The selection of the string type is important because it influences the tonal range of these guitars. The most commonly used string type though is the round wound, which produces a greater sustain and a higher timber.

On the other hand, the tuning options for electric bass guitars include four strings, five strings, and six strings. The four strings tuning include the CGDA tuning for an extended upper and lower range. Likewise, the five strings tuning include the BEADG for an extended lower range. Furthermore, six strings tuning include the BEADGC, which is actually a four-string with additions of low B string and high C string.

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Laurel Left Hand Electric Split Pickup Bass Blue

Monday, April 30th, 2007


Manufacturer: Laurel

Lowest Price: $128.79
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Laurel Left Hand Electric Split Pickup Bass White

Saturday, April 28th, 2007


Manufacturer: Laurel

Lowest Price: $128.79
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Laurel P Style Electric Bass Natural

Saturday, April 28th, 2007


Manufacturer: Laurel

Lowest Price: $107.79
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Laurel P Style Electric Bass Blue

Saturday, April 28th, 2007


Manufacturer: Laurel

Lowest Price: $107.79
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Laurel P Style Electric Bass – American Flag

Thursday, April 26th, 2007


Manufacturer: Laurel

List Price: $169.99

Lowest Price: $95.11
You Save: $74.88
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