New and revolutionary travel bass!

DSC_5782aThis is the second bass I built for Daniel Gómez. He’s a hard working and hard travelling musician, so the idea was to make a fully functional bass that he can take as cabin luggage on a plane. And so was born this 65 cm long design (that is 25.5 inches, for the imperial folk).
The tuning is one octave higher than a regular 6 string bass. For the lower register, he uses an octave pedal, but the sound is so thick and full that most of the time he doesn’t use the pedal.

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Another first for me was the sliding pickup system. The soapbar style pickup slides from the bridge to the neck, so you can set it in any intermediate position to choose the right tone.
The slinding system was quite the research project. After designing and building many different combinations of rails, sliders and spring material, I finally found the way to get the pickup to slide easily but with enough friction so that it doesn’t move on its own.

received_522899868570810Happy customer and happy luthier!

And of course, I made a custom case, with fitted plush interior.

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Shiny new Flytrap!

This latest Flytrap is already in its new home in New York.

For this one I used the last piece of two tone bubinga I had left. And with the high gloss finish… gorgeous!DSC_4807-u

This was my most complicated fingerboard inlay so far.
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Bubinga on top, bubinga on the DSC_4849-uback, bubinga up the ying yang!

IT’S A TOUGH JOB…

But I like it!
After all the sweat and wood dust, the final product is a shiny, precise and, dare I say, beautiful instrument. So satisfying…

Ele Custom Basses - Homero Cobarrubias - Dogor 5 - Construcción 23

Ele Custom Basses - Homero Cobarrubias - Dogor 5 - Construcción 24

Naga 5 for Augustin Brand

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A special Naga for Mr. Augustin Brand, from Buffalo, New York. This one features a bubinga body (first one out of my shop) for a solid, hard, in your face kind of sound.

Go to https://www.reverbnation.com/ishkabbible and you will hear this amazing bassist playing some pretty complex music.

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For this one, Augustin requested full 24 frets, so I added a piece of camphor burl to the end of the fingerboard to make a good contrast with the wenge. That way, I kept almost intact the design of the Naga fingerboard.

Check the full gallery here http://elebasses.com/galery.php?bass=2

From a thick slab of wood to a beautiful neck

A maple and bubinga neck with an east Indian rosewood fingerboard, with a cool lotus flower inlay, for the latest El Puntudo bass.

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New design! Dogor 5 single cut

Here is a new version of the Dogor model. The customer and I tweaked the usually single cut design to make a new version, with a more massive body thanks to the bigger upper half. We also added a ramp between the pickups that blends perfectly with the organic shapes present all over this bass. I’m extremely happy with the results, as is Richi, another happy bassist in Germany.

You can see more details here http://www.elebasses.com/galery.php?bass=0

Daniel Gomez with his new Ele custom bass.

Skånskandombe band. Kristina Gomez on vocals and Daniel Gomez on bass. Great jazz-candombe fusion.

Copenhagen, Denmark, August 29, 2015.

Naga 6 for Daniel Gómez

This one is ready and its proud owner is really enjoying it. He came from Sweden to pick it up personally, so it better sound good!

You can see the gallery here http://elebasses.com/galery.php?bass=2

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Trying some chords, some tapping, checking that everything is right…DSC_9859

 

Approved!
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(Don’t mind the sleeping dog in the background; she doesn’t know anything about musical instruments).

 

Just goofing around…
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And here are some more pictures of the building process.

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Ebony adjustable bridge.
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LED fret markers.
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Nordstrand MM style custom wound pickups. Tons of tone!
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El Puntudo 4 for Fabio Lessa, ready

This one is already in Brazil with Fabio Lessa. Hopefully, we will see him play it really soon.
It’s a dream to play, thanks to the super short scale, but with a rock solid tone, and only 3.2 Kg. That’s only 7 pounds!
You can see the gallery here http://elebasses.com/galery.php?bass=1

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Here we can see the last stages of the finishing process. Just one more coat of polyurethane and it’s done.DSC_9220
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And last, but not least, the pickups. For this bass I made alnico 5 jazz style pickups. Kind of a traditional sound, but a little clearer. They are the first ones in the picture. You can see all the other pickups I made that day for all the other basses I’m working on. Oh, it was a long day…DSC_9206

A blast from the past!

Here is Person Tupinambá playing a cool groove on his Dogor 6 Signature, the first of his two Ele signature basses. In this case he’s using the custom wound split coil neodymium pickups.

 

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