Malabass Information

Malabass is a creative Custom instrument builder that strives to innovate and break new ground. Considering most other modern instruments are little changed since the 50's and 60's, we have decided to come up with our own concepts and designs. Malabass is not, and will never be a retro based company, we want to move music forward and create tools for forward thinking modern musicians. Since we are musicians, it makes it really easy to come at building from the players perspective. Another thing we strive for is when we create an instrument, we want to be happy with it ourselves. If we would want to play it, only then is it good enough to sell to someone else. Communication is a huge priority for us, and essential to making the best instrument we can. The cookie cutter approach is the opposite of what we do. We do use machinery to shape and size woods, but do not use automated CNC machining for our creations. Each instrument gets designed as the instrument is created, and that allows us to compensate for any changes during the build or complications when we build for you. We really enjoy utilizing the fan fret design fingerboards for several reasons. I often explain to people the reason for the fan design is much like the strings in a piano, with the long bass strings and short treble strings. Physically it coresponds to the size of wave the string creates, bass waves are long (slow), treble are shorter (faster). Ergonomically speaking, it tends to feel very confortable on the left hand, it's much more natural than it looks, and you get used to it very quickly. The many benefits include a much more even tension across all the strings. With that you also end up with the added benefit of very even tone and string to string volume. To us it's a win/win all the way. Another thing we do a little differently because of the fan fret design, is we do not radius the fingerboard, it is flat. Much like a classical guitar and many touchstyle instruments. This really lends itself again ergonomically to hand comfort and a ...