We’re featuring another incredible bass made by an amateur builder this week. Bassist Joe Goldsmith sent us some pictures of a stunning singlecut bass he built to suit his style. The eighteen-year-old, who mainly plays double bass, decided to make something that would make him feel more at home on an electric.
“As a double bassist, I’ve found that I’m not immediately comfortable on electric basses, so I set out to make my own,” he tells us. “My biggest problem with ‘standard’ bass guitars is how short the fingerboard is; for that reason I built this fingerboard long enough to reach the pickup, leaving plenty of room for the right hand. For that same reason, this bass has an unlined board and features very minimal controls (just a simple volume knob).”
Goldsmith got the wood to build his dream instrument for under $100 by utilizing reclaimed Lebanese Cedar for the body and working for a guitar-building friend in exchange for a East Indian Rosewood top. The fingerboard is Macassar Ebony. He opted for simplicity in electronics by fitting the bass with a single bridge soapbar matched to a single volume control.
