Building

I mainly build electric basses and some electric guitars. My starting point is that an electric bass or guitar is really an acoustic instrument. True, it sounds a little soft, but you can amplify it. The instrument must sound good un-amplified and it has to have character, has to live up to the character I want to put into it, which in turn comes from the wishes of my customer. Therefore I have a number of conversations with him before I start building the instrument. I somewhat have to know the future owner in order to translate his wishes onto the instrument.
For the neck I only use first class maple (for example Canadian hard-rock maple) to ensure strength and stability. The fretboards are mostly maple, rosewood or ebony. For the body I choose a type of wood, or a combination of various types of wood that will determine the character of the instrument. This is really a very versatile technique. It is imperative to use only well selected wood. You just can’t simply make a good bass body from any random piece of maple or whatever. Pick-ups and hardware can certainly add something, but that which is not good in the base will not get better with the best pick-ups. Here too, of course only the best components will be used.