This not-so-special-looking Mustang bass sold for $384,000. Introduced in 1966 at just $189.50 (about $1,600 today), that’s a big markup for the historic and collector’s value it accrued on tour with the Rolling Stones.
In our capitalistic world, there’s usually one thing that rules it all: money! The site ventured.com features statistics and lists relating to the value of just about anything, and that includes the most expensive basses ever—right next to the most expensive fish and banjos. So, is this list full of the most cutting-edge instruments with advanced technology, giving us a glimpse into the evolution of the bass guitar?
Well, the basses at the top of the list do not give us that impression. Instead, they’re rather old tech. In first place is a 1969 Fender Mustang played by Bill Wyman on the Rolling Stones’ 1969 and 1970 tour, which sold at auction for $384,000. Of course, the Mustang was originally designed to be a budget bass, featuring racing stripes to appeal to young students.
The second on the list is a $250,000 luxury bass made from “premium materials” by luthier Jens Ritter, featuring 24-karat gold inlays and hardware, plus knobs topped with diamonds. It might still be a good, well-playing bass, but that’s obviously not where the money went.
A Hofner 500/1 sporting Paul McCartney’s autograph is third on the list of the most expensive basses ever.
Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org
In third is another collectible piece: a Hofner 500/1 Violin bass signed by Paul McCartney, followed by James Jamerson’s 1961 Fender Precision. The list continues with either signature models, ornamental inlays, or sought-after, rare custom colors. The Rickenbacker 4005 “Lightshow” bass, featuring lights all over the body that change color based on the notes played, even makes an appearance.
This list is further proof that it’s the story of a bass—its origin, rarity, who owned it, or who signed it—that drives its value more than innovation. And, of course, it’s collectors and not players that spend that much cash. But what if all those efforts would have gone right into a musician’s practical or tonal needs?
Our basses have to be visually appealing, and it’s fun for them to have a cool story, but instruments aren’t just collectibles or fashion, and a little innovation here and there wouldn’t hurt—especially since so many manufacturers’ sites praise exactly that. Every other industry accepts R&D as a cost factor that customers must pay for. The music industry instead invests in either cost savings or ornamental luxury, keeping customers amused with an ever-recurring cycle of fashionable items. And besides tradition, fashion is often the real enemy of innovation.
Besides tradition, fashion is often the real enemy of innovation.
Remember those optical pickups from “A Closer Look at Optical Pickups” [May 2021]. An evolutionary product that requires an idea and costly efforts in R&D and, finally, patents? Or how about Just L. Pauls from Spain, who, almost a decade ago, thought he invented a 3D pickup and convinced his family to spend a small fortune on the patent? In the end, there was no money for a good website or even a demo musician and the project soon folded. What innovation will come along and actually succeed at capturing our imaginations and finding an audience?
On a personal note, this is the 120th Bass Bench column, which means it’s been running for exactly a decade now. It’s time for me to take a break and focus on my main business and get down my backlog that has skyrocketed in recent years.
It wasn’t only 120 deadlines to meet, but also some details I wasn’t super-interested in and never intended to learn about, but had to, knowing it was going to meet an expert audience. In the end, it has helped me to connect a lot of dots, both historically and technologically, which I’m extremely thankful for.
A huge thanks to all the great people at PG for allowing and helping me to do this, and to all who commented and read what I had to say. I feel honored I could do this, and, who knows, maybe—or hopefully—I’ll return at some point. Thank you!
For at least a decade, the classic Ampeg SVT was the dominant bass amp for power and tone.
Since the beginning of our instrument's history, bassists have faced the fundamental and existential problem of trying to be heard. It's solved now, but too many players don't seem to be interested in how we got here. And it's not just bassists. Even some amp manufacturers haven't been concerned with the details. A few readers might remember that in my September 2019 column, I discussed class-D amp technology. As part of my research, I called a very respected amp manufacturer to get his insight into class-D technology. His stunning response was: "We simply checked some Asian-made modules and chose the one we thought sounded best, but I don't know and never cared how they work." Even the offer of a short technical introduction was met with blissful ignorance. So, if anyone thinks they don't need to know how their amp works, at least you're in good company!
Over the course of the last 80 years or so, the fundamental technology used in our amps has been replaced—and not just once. The technological changes came in several waves and another might be on the way.
Here we are now after this last wave of amp-tech: down from 300 watts at 40 kilograms or 88 pounds in the 1970s, to 500 to 1000 watts at 1 to 3 kilograms or 2 to 7 pounds today.
For the greater part of the last century, bass amps relied on tube circuitry, and it took until the middle of the century to make decently powerful, but heavy and fragile, amps. Unfortunately, guitarists used the same technology—and sometimes even the amps that were initially made for us. (Remember that our low-end needs about 10 times the power of a guitar amp to cut through!) So, as their volume increased, our need for more power just became greater. Our problem remained until the 1960s when amps like Ampeg's B-15 Portaflex and SVT entered the scene. High-output amplification manufacturers sprouted everywhere, enabling loud rock bands to move from clubs to stadiums.
Though the transistor quietly altered the landscape of radios and small solid-state amps during the early 1950s, it took until the late '60s before this technology made it into our rigs. The first companies to make solid-state amps were those who possessed a higher engineering background. Vox, for example, released one of the first solid-state bass amps, thanks to their prior experiences with solid-state circuits from their organs. Many smaller companies soon followed, although most earned a reputation for unreliability. But the technology developed at a breathtaking pace.
This Ashdown Little Giant is more powerful than the mighty SVT at less than 1/10th the weight!
Photo courtesy of wikimedia.com
During the 1980s, clean and powerful hi-fi-esque synth sounds became trendy. This benefitted bassists with the development of clever tone-shaping options, hybrid circuits with tube preamps, bi-amping, internal DIs, and even more power.
Once we were sure to be heard, it was time to look for other advantages, like reduced weight and size, and along came another wave of new amp technology: class D. (See my column "Signal Processing in Class-D Amps," September 2019.) The basic principle behind class-D technology is pulse width modulation (PWM), which sounds as if those with higher engineering skill would once again be in the lead. Instead, there are just a few manufacturers building class-D power modules, and amp builders can use those as the foundation of their own amps. Just get one of the modules, which come in different power ratings, add a power supply and a tone-shaping circuit, and you're done. With several competing manufacturers offering identical power amps, the individual strengths have fully shifted to the qualities of their tone-shaping circuitry and other add-ons or gimmicks.
Here we are now after this last wave of amp tech: down from 300 watts at 40 kilograms or 88 pounds in the 1970s, to 500 to 1000 watts at 1 to 3 kilograms or 2 to 7 pounds today. What could be the next move? It looks as if the power-to-weight ratio has reached an end for quite some time, but tone-shaping capabilities in preamps might shift from classic circuitry to profiling or modeling amps as a fourth wave. And this time it's clearly engineering competence that will make the difference. Can you imagine what instruments we'd be playing today if our basses had made similar progress?
Photo 1: Despite the ornamental look of this golden Celestion speaker from 1924, its main components are essentially the same as today's.
While the membrane of a guitarist's speaker is almost always made from paper or cellulose, bass speakers also sport carbon, Kevlar, or polypropylene for enhanced stiffness. Added mass and stiffness contribute to frequency response in the bass range. Extra ribs on the conical membrane and chemical coatings can further enhance stiffness and rigidity. And, as opposed to our instruments, where we often have tonally dominating parts like the pickups, almost all parts of a speaker are interacting.
On a guitar speaker, the shell of the voice coil is most often made from paper, making it both light and sensitive, with a detailed upper range, but highly sensitive to heat. The bass version sports bigger voice coil diameters, for better thermal flux, and Kapton or fiberglass shells. As guitarists initially swore on alnico and, later, ceramic ferrite magnets, the bass world has now moved on to neodymium—which is 10 times as powerful and more lightweight than a ferrite magnet—as the norm. As we know, compared to guitar gear, ours is typically bigger, heavier, and way more powerful.
As guitarists initially swore on alnico and, later, ceramic ferrite magnets, the bass world has now moved on to neodymium—which is 10 times as powerful and more lightweight than a ferrite magnet—as the norm.
Another common difference is that guitarists mostly rely on one speaker size for their whole rig—mainly 12". Bassists, on the other hand, are used to mixing several sizes, using crossovers, or even bi-amping, mainly because of the hard realities of reproducing a good low end.
In the heyday of our instrument, those huge and heavy Ampeg SVTs and their 9x10 cabinets were at the heart of many a bassist's dream rig. The 300W SVT came in around 88 pounds, while a modern 300W class D head might be just a mere 3.3 pounds. The evolution of speaker cabinets is quite similar, with lighter cabinet enclosures sporting highly efficient speakers. If we want to quantify efficiency or sensitivity per watt, we have to look at their sound pressure level (SPL) and remember what logarithmic scales mean for perceived loudness and necessary wattage: Raising SPL by 3 dB requires twice the wattage. Or, similarly, a speaker's 3 dB of higher efficiency is like doubling an amp's power.
Image 1: Here are two almost identical SPL and impedance plots, despite their fundamentally different magnet materials, with neodymium shown in blue and ferrite in red. The SPL plots are the wild upper curves, while impedance curves have just one peak.
Copyright SICA/Jensen Speakers, Italy
SPL measurements are most often shown as frequency response curves in the audible range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz, with decibel (dB) versus frequency (Hz). Image 1 shows a comparison of two 12" guitar speakers with an additional impedance plot in ohms (Ω). The two speakers use different magnet materials, with neodymium shown in blue and ferrite in red. Since neodymium is 10 times as powerful, that means a speaker's heaviest part, the magnets, can be 10 times lighter without much of a different tone and efficiency. Notice that both materials create almost identical results.
While frequency response curves are a common way to compare speakers, they can be misleading. Once SPL ratings are just given as one value in decibels, they are either measured as the level resulting from 1 watt at 1 kHz in 1 meter distance from the speaker—an old and not very helpful standard from the days of portable transistor radios—or as an average of a frequency range. Some manufacturers use complete audible range or parts of the prominent midrange in their spec info. So, as valuable as these frequency response curves can be, keep in mind that, without knowing the details, comparability between manufacturers has its limits.