Guitar Gallery

Company: Sparks
Model#: FFB-1
Year: 1980
Description: I built this one-off custom instrument with a neck and body from Saga. I designed it to resemble a '70's era Fender "Tele" bass.  It is fitted with genuine Fender "elephant ear" bass tuning keys and a '70's Tele bass humbucking pickup.  I fashioned the pickup ring our of a 1/8 think piece of mahogany, stained black, which years of playing contact has worn off in places. Although the pickup is wired with a normal passive high impedance output, I installed a high to low impedance adaptor under the DiMarzio pickguard and wired in a three pole mini toggle to choose between the two or "dead" in the middle position.  There are two output jacks on the front as well, a normal 1/4" jack for Hi-imp out, and a three pin XLR output for Lo-imp out.  There is a single volume and tone control.  The bridge is a genuine '70's Leo Quan "Badass" bass unit.  The decal on the headstock reads "Free Flight ES-1," "Free Flight" for my band at that time, and ES-1 for Edward Sparks bass build number 1.  The instrument is in good condition with normal playing wear.  The opaque black finish was applied by Paul Reed Smith himself, "pre-factory" days.      

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