Long known primarily for their classic active basses, the historic builder debuts a strong new passive 4-string.
Clip 1 - Neck pickup soloed, tone dial wide open (maxed)
Clip 2 - Bridge pickup soloed, tone dial wide open (maxed)
Music Man is one of those brand names that spark instant tone identity. From Flea punishing his basses into our hearts to Pino swelling his fretless magic like no other, we’ve all grown to recognize the high-end sparkle of those big-poled pickups, the fat bottom, and the slight mid scoop that is the quintessential Music Man tone. So, what would happen if Ernie Ball Music Man decided to save bassists a few dollars on batteries every year and develop a passive bass? For the first time in its storied history? It’s true. The Caprice—along with its single-pickup sibling Cutlass—represents the first fully passive bass offering from Music Man, and we recently had a chance to spend some quality time with one.
Primed to Play
Out of the case, the Caprice had a familiar look, yet it’s a departure from typical MM lines. Finished in a stunning white that matches up well with its mint pickguard, our test bass had an instant-classic vibe. The natural aged-yellow finish on the maple neck also adds to the moxie. And as if you need another reminder that you are holding a Music Man, the large-pole split humbucker and in-line bridge humbucker stare you down with ominous force. They just look ready.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the most overlooked features in bass design that has been included on the Caprice. The thumb-saving engineers at Music Man rounded the plastic pickup covers where the screws pass through and, more importantly, where the thumb sometimes rests. This may not seem like a big deal, but I’ve often wondered why we bassists are too often forced to rest our curved thumb on a pointed surface.
Other design highlights on the Caprice are plentiful. The thin, maple neck (1-1/2" at the nut) felt amazing thanks to the ultra-light satin-poly finish, and fans of Jazz necks will feel right at home with its comfy 7 1/2" neck radius. The oversized headstock is still there and it’s loaded with Schaller tuners. This bass is a well-put-together machine with clean seams and tight joints, and at about 8 1/2 pounds, its weight speaks comfort for those long-gig nights.
Look Ma, No Batteries!
Unplugged, the Caprice sings. Even though the chrome-plated Vintage Music Man bridge is top loading, the bass resonated full and balanced across all four strings and through all 21 frets. The factory setup left our test model super-quick and even playing with no dead spots, so positive forces were already coming together before I plugged in. But let’s get electric.
I set up a big rig for this run-through: an Eden WTP900 pushing Eden 410XLT and 212XLT cabs. The controls on the Caprice are straightforward with a volume/volume/tone layout, and I started out with the neck pickup all the way up, the bridge pickup off, and the tone dimed. The bass hit just under MM tone, which is pointed and lively, and leaned a hair towards a P-like sound. The alder body and maple neck combo certainly helps achieve this snappy result. Pulling the tone back a little moves the bass into a more mellow zone, but the Caprice went completely dark only after the tone was rolled all the way down. So if you need a thuddy bass approach, go ahead and roll off a lot of tone, but I really liked the Caprice when it was wide open and allowed to sing.
Ratings
Pros:
Snappy tone, well made, lightning-fast neck.
Cons:
Limited tonal options compared to its active cousins. A bit pricey.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$1,699
Ernie Ball Music Man Caprice
music-man.com
To check out the other end of the spectrum, I soloed the bridge pickup and pushed the tone back up to full tilt. The snap that allows articulation and precision—and draws many to a Music Man instrument—is there, but with a bonus. A bridge pickup running by itself can generally be weak and thin, but I found the Caprice can be used in quite a few musical settings with just the bridge wide open. It’s very responsive and tight, which will speak to my fingerstyle friends and the R&B faithful.
With all the controls dimed to bring the two tones together, the Caprice sounded like what a bass should sound like in many situations: clear, rounded, and full with just the right amount of articulation and bottom. If one were to rip the knobs off the Caprice and leave it in this setting, this bass would still find a home just about anywhere.
Many revere the sound of a Music Man, but the company’s “traditional” tone definitely falls into its own category. It’s undeniably remarkable, but not for everyone. The Caprice isn’t necessarily meant to nudge aside anyone’s favorite passive bass, but it will allow players to get into a Music Man without, well, getting into “that” sound. It’s about as straight-ahead as a bass can get, and I like that. I can’t help but compare the Caprice to other Music Man offerings, but I feel they have successfully crafted an instrument for passive-bass devotees who want a more distinctive tone.
The Verdict
The meaning of the word caprice is “a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior.” That seems fitting enough for a company steeped in its own legacy that decides to break from their usual model. The body is different, the neck a little thinner, the feel is more traditional Jazz, and the tones are passive, but it is still a Music Man. The Caprice has made a strong entrance by both remaining true to its roots and setting itself apart to bridge the gap between the passive and active faithful. The Caprice may not have the shimmer or boom of its active cousin, but it can definitely hold its own in most any musical situation.
Watch the Review Demo:
Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acoustics—made famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchin’ rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouac’s adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadn’t noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, “hitchers” seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didn’t seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncle’s cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvania—home of Zippo lighters—and riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasn’t a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as I’m prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar that’s ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The “thumbs-up” headstock and the big “thumb” on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We don’t often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ’60s label Kent—a brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180T’s “thumbs up” headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ’60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
“Unless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.”
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I can’t decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. It’s very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. It’s a shame because these pickups sound great! They’re very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
• Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
• Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1–b3–4–5–b7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2–4–5–6–1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5–b7–1–2–4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (D–F–A) gives us 1–b3–5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (C–E–G) gives us the b7–9–4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1–2–b3–4–5–b7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (C–Dm–Em–F–G–Am–Bdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4–1–b3–5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.
Building upon the foundation of the beloved Core Collection H-535, this versatile instrument is designed to serve as a masterpiece in tone.
The new model features striking aesthetic updates and refined tonal enhancements. Crafted at the iconic 225 Parsons Street factory, home to other world-famous models like the H-150, H-157, and H-575 - the H-555 continues to exemplify the very best of American craftsmanship.
The Core Collection H-555 features a set of Custom Shop 225 Hot Classic Humbuckers, meticulously wound in-house with carefully selected components, and voiced to deliver added punch and richness while preserving exceptional dynamics and touch sensitivity. Seamlessly complementing the H-555’s semi-hollow construction, they blend warmth and woodiness with refined, articulate clarity.
The Core Collection H-555’s aesthetic has been elevated with multi-ply binding on the body, headstock, and pickguard. Its neck, sculpted in a classic ’50s profile, delivers effortless comfort and is adorned with elegant block inlays, seamlessly blending style with playability. Gold hardware complements the aesthetic, exuding elegance while presenting the H-555 as a truly premium and versatile instrument for the discerning player.
Available in Ebony and Trans Cherry, each Core Collection H-555 is beautifully finished with a nitrocellulose vintage gloss that features a subtle shine and gracefully ages over time. An Artisan Aged option is also available for those seeking an authentically well-loved look and feel, achieved through a meticulous, entirely hand-finished aging process. The new Core Collection continues Heritage’s tradition of world-class craftsmanship, offering a true masterpiece in tone and design for discerning players. Each guitar is shipped in a premium Heritage Custom Shop hard case.
Key Features
- Finest Tonewoods: Laminated highly figured Curly Maple (Top & Back) with solid Curly Maple sides
- Heritage Custom Shop 225 Hot Classic Humbuckers: Designed and wound in-house
- Headstock: Multi-ply bound headstock, featuring a Kite inlay, 3×3 tuners laser-etched with Heritage graphics
- Neck Profile: Comfortable ’50s C-shape for a vintage feel
- Bridge: Tune-O-Matic with aluminum stopbar tailpiece for enhanced sustain
- Made in the USA: Crafted at 225 Parsons Street
For more information, please visit heritageguitars.com.