Guitar Gallery

Company: Sparks
Model#: Model 21
Year: 2007
Description: I designed and built this bass for my son Josh's 21 birthday present.  It has many special features in honor of his turning 21 years old, such as the 21 position markers on the fingerboard, one of which is a star on the 21st fret.  Also, on the back there are five coins are inlayed, four nickels and one penny.  The nickels are all from 1986, the year Josh was born, and the penny is from 2007, the year he turned 21...and they total 21 cents!  The inlaying of the coins were my wife's idea, and it was quite a good one. His name is inlayed into the head in script mother of pearl.  Josh likes to play in dropped "D" tuning, so I installed a bass Hipshot "D" tuner on the low E string.  There are two volume and tone controls, a set for each pickup, and a blend control, instead of the usual three position pickup selector switch.  The blend control allows Josh to pick one pickup or the other, both in the middle position, (which has a little detent), or anywhere he might desire in between.  I borrowed this idea from early Gibson electric archtops.  The body is made of two bookmatched choice pieces of quilted mahogany. The binding on the headstock and fingerboard is curly maple, as are the handmade pickup rings.  It has a full two octave 24 fret scale with a wide fingerboard that reaches deep into the body joint. The bass was presented to him on his birthday and he was appropriately shocked and surprised. I also documented the entire building process in a book called "Building a Birthday Present, the Model 21 Bass."  He has already joined me on stage with it several times and believe me, it sounds as good as it looks!          

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