Basses

Basses

The modern bass guitar is an electrically amplified bass that displaced the upright bass in modern music. The instrument’s signal is generated with electro-magnetic pickups and can be altered and modified with amplifiers and effects. As in the case of guitars there are acoustic, semi-acoustic and electric/digital versions available.

Since the 40ies the bass has been developed progressively because the sound of the classical upright bass was too low in comparison to other instruments and it was inconvenient to transport.

The common bass guitar has four strings, but five, six or even twelve stringed instruments are available as well. Mostly, basses are made of wood and there are numerous material combinations. The possibilities are quite limitless and result in very unique sound characteristics. There are fretless basses as well that are inspired by the classical upright bass and they are rather different to the standard versions concerning playability and sound.