NAMM what gives?!?

[BaltBass5]

Almost NO love for bassists.

Ibanez released a bunch of new Basses.

Way Huge released the Pork Pickle

Blackstar released some combos for bass

Ampeg released 2 new bass pedals

Fender found a way to rerelease more 3TS, Natural and Olympic White Jazz and P Basses and raise the price hundreds.

Not much else. Disappointing!

 

[king_biscuit]

I really like the new G&L "reissue" basses, and Fender has the new Studio bass amps. EBMM made a pretty big change/upgrade to the standard Stingray model.

 

[el_Bajo_Verde]

Almost NO love for bassists.

Ibanez released a bunch of new Basses.

Way Huge released the Pork Pickle

Blackstar released some combos for bass

Ampeg released 2 new bass pedals

Fender found a way to rerelease more 3TS, Natural and Olympic White Jazz and P Basses and raise the price hundreds.

Not much else. Disappointing!

Bassists don't want anything new. They typically want the same half-a-century old designs, and tend to buy used anyway.

Any company unveiling something new for bass at NAMM might as well say, "here's a new bass product that only a handful of people are going to buy."

No company really has a valid reason to unveil anything new for bass (except for that Rickenbacker 5-string drool)

 

[inanimate_carb]

This was actually a pretty good year for bass gear at NAMM compared to past 5 years. On top of everything already listed, Sadowsky released a line selling under 2k, new stuff from Hartke, GK, Markbass, Genz Benz, and Trickfish, MONO released a new gig bag, and a few other things.

It has to be mentioned occasionally that the world of commerce that surrounds the bass guitar is small compared to that of acoustic and electric guitars and their amplifiers and accessories. The reason that NAMM shows aren’t “all bass all the time” is the same reason there’s only a couple pages of bass gear in a Musician’s Friend catalog. The big money is in other instruments.

 

[Bassist Jay]

Almost NO love for bassists.

Ibanez released a bunch of new Basses.

Way Huge released the Pork Pickle

Blackstar released some combos for bass

Ampeg released 2 new bass pedals

Fender found a way to rerelease more 3TS, Natural and Olympic White Jazz and P Basses and raise the price hundreds.

Not much else. Disappointing!

Music Man completely redid the Stingray 4 and 5 string basses.

Here are all be upgrades done to them.
- Rounder body contours
- Sculpted neck joint / 5 bolt
- 22 stainless steel frets
- Aluminum hardware
- Neodymium magnets
- 18-volt preamp
- Cutlass/Caprice style bridge
- Roasted neck
⠀
They will also be available in 12 different finishes. Some, brand new for 2018.

I have been a huge fan of Music Man for years and after seeing how they upgraded the Stingrays, I think they will be a huge hit. Especially with standard roasted maple necks and aluminum hardware making the basses on average 1.5lbs. lighter.

Here are the finishes available with fretboard options and what color of pickguard will come on the bass standard, from the factory.

Jet Black Roasted Maple/Maple Black

Jet Black Roasted Maple/Ebony Black

Burnt Apple Roasted Maple/Maple Black

Vintage Tobacco Roasted Maple/Maple White

Vintage Tobacco Roasted Maple/Rosewood White

Classic Natural Roasted Maple/Maple Black

Classic Natural Roasted Maple/Rosewood Black

Charcoal Sparkle Roasted Maple/Ebony Black

Cruz Teal Roasted Maple/Ebony White

Chopper Blue Roasted Maple/Rosewood White Pearloid

Charging Green Roasted Maple/Maple White

HD Yellow Roasted Maple/Rosewood Black

Dropped Copper Roasted Maple/Maple White

Ivory White Roasted Maple/Maple Mint

Ivory White Roasted Maple/Rosewood Mint

Aqua Sparkle Roasted Maple/Ebony Black

 

[JKos]

The Tech 21 dUg pedal.

- John

 

[packrat]

Dingwall had a variety of new things. A new darkglass thing. A few Spector things.

 

[bebass]

I saw at least 4 new bass releases, at last 4 new bass preamps; a lot of bass specific - new amps new cabs, of course one does have to hunt it all down. I think i was most impressed with 3 cabs, 3 basses and 4 bass pre-amps.

 

[SXema]

As a Fender / Squier fanboy I think it sucked!!! It must be so ******* hard to refinish some basses and AT LEAST give us more options like a pink jazz, surf green Jag or a sherwood green P.

 

[packrat]

Fender dropped colors of things a few months back, didn’t they? I recall a mustang and guitars.

 

[jd56hawk]

Winter NAMM 2018 (ultra Pic-heavy)

 

[BaltBass5]

All good points above.

Of course there were nuggets here and there...Aguilar has a couple of new cabinets, MM was pretty big, a few cool pedals, etc....

I disagree that bass isn’t a big market. Sure there are WAY more guitarists out there and startup musicians tend to gravitate towards guitar, but every band has a Bassist too. (Except for White Stripes, Royal Blood and that trend...lol).

I think bassists gravitate towards the old tried and true because there just aren’t a lot of other great options. MM did great with new options and colors. Fender really needs to step up its game with options and specifically colors IMO.

Would also be nice to see some of the bass “leaders” step up the game a bit. Why can’t Ampeg shoot for a Mesa Subway like amp?

 

[Stevorebob]

Music Man completely redid the Stingray 4 and 5 string basses.

Here are all be upgrades done to them.
- Rounder body contours
- Sculpted neck joint / 5 bolt
- 22 stainless steel frets
- Aluminum hardware
- Neodymium magnets
- 18-volt preamp
- Cutlass/Caprice style bridge
- Roasted neck
⠀
They will also be available in 12 different finishes. Some, brand new for 2018.

I have been a huge fan of Music Man for years and after seeing how they upgraded the Stingrays, I think they will be a huge hit. Especially with standard roasted maple necks and aluminum hardware making the basses on average 1.5lbs. lighter.

Here are the finishes available with fretboard options and what color of pickguard will come on the bass standard, from the factory.

Jet Black Roasted Maple/Maple Black

Jet Black Roasted Maple/Ebony Black

Burnt Apple Roasted Maple/Maple Black

Vintage Tobacco Roasted Maple/Maple White

Vintage Tobacco Roasted Maple/Rosewood White

Classic Natural Roasted Maple/Maple Black

Classic Natural Roasted Maple/Rosewood Black

Charcoal Sparkle Roasted Maple/Ebony Black

Cruz Teal Roasted Maple/Ebony White

Chopper Blue Roasted Maple/Rosewood White Pearloid

Charging Green Roasted Maple/Maple White

HD Yellow Roasted Maple/Rosewood Black

Dropped Copper Roasted Maple/Maple White

Ivory White Roasted Maple/Maple Mint

Ivory White Roasted Maple/Rosewood Mint

Aqua Sparkle Roasted Maple/Ebony Black

Love the new EBMM 2018 StingRay5s…

 

[J Posega]

Dingwall has a bunch of new stuff, including the only T-bird design in history to actually balance properly and sound good.

 

[packrat]

Dingwall has a bunch of new stuff, including the only T-bird design in history to actually balance properly and sound good.

I think they had that before. What's new this NAMM is a version that doesn't cost eye-watering amounts of money.

 

[ColonelZulu]

Isn’t there a new Ric 5-string prototype with whacky triangle pickups?

 

[Michedelic]

Mohini was playing live 4 feet away from me; that’s all that matters. Same thing will happen today with Chuck Rainey. I can’t complain.

 

[J Posega]

I think they had that before. What's new this NAMM is a version that doesn't cost eye-watering amounts of money.

They did, but it's probably the most innovative bass guitar that'll be out on the NAMM floor, except for maybe the Strandberg bass.

 

[ole Jason]

NAMM has been increasingly irrelevant over the years as social media and the internet have become the main avenue for company interaction with customers. There just isn't really any reason to debut something big at NAMM when you can have the same outreach any time of the year.

 

[AL_BASS]

I don’t know, I thought there was a good amount of bass stuff. Personally, I am gassing for these Serek Basses.

If you like passive Basses try one of these over at the Reverb booth.