
BEBOP 70’s
In search for the ultimate slapsound
BeBop 70’s can be a real slapmonster (the shape of the pickguard should give you a not-so-subtle hint) but not just that. It was summer 2010 when Marcus bought my first BeBop. Over the past 6 years I’ve found ways to make many small improvements that turned BeBop into a better bass still. This is where BeBop 70’s starts. It starts as a great passive bass that has already had a history of constantly finetuning the specs. And on top of that there’s an amazing newly developed preamp onboard. So what’s different from a normal BeBop? It is mainly about pickup location, pickup type and preamp + controls. Then there are some cosmetic details like pickguard and batterybox. Wood and finish options remain the same. On 70’s jazzbasses the bridge pickup was closer to the bridge than on 60’s basses, and the pickups were a little underwound. These 2 factors give a 70’s bass it’s distinctive sound compared to a 60’s bass. We added our own preamp to it, which is a story in itself.


After over 20 years of building basses I had become frustrated with preamps. Most are noisy, even without boost. And boosting treble comes with a loud hiss. Many pre’s don’t sound musical to me. There’s too much boost and consequently you can hardly use the whole sweep of the controls, and the boosted freq’s peak too much which makes it sound unnatural. The pre I was looking for didn’t exist, so I turned to Vanderkley Amps again. Together we designed the one and only pre that I am 100% happy with. It features a bass and treble boost only, no cut. We limited the gain to 12db max @ 30Hz and 9db @ 8 kHz. You really don’t need any more. If you need to boost 20db, then perhaps it’s time for a better amp? This limitation allowed us to select better components than typically used and to design a better cirquit. The controls sound musical in whatever position. From subtly increasing bass and treble to full boost, it sounds natural and musical always. Go full boost for your Miller slapsound. And it is so silent, it raises the standard for preamps. The controls are: Vol (pull passive), Vol, Dual Tone, Bass, Treble.
Many players picture an ash body with maple neck and fingerboard (with binding and blockinlays) as the typical 70’s specs. If you need a slapbass, then ash bodywood with maple fingerboardwood would be your best choice indeed. However there are tons of 70’s basses that were made from alder and/or rosewood. If you need a little more core to your tone, perhaps alder or rosewood would be better for you. I’d be happy to advise you in finding the ideal specs for your dreambass. Contrary to basses from the 70’s our finish options are endless. You can have solids, bursts, transparents, metallics, clean or reliced. You can have dots, inlays, binding in any combination. There’s a lot of cool coloured pickguard materials. There’s different pickups to choose from. I am really looking forward to filling a gallery with cool basses and hopefully one will be yours.
-Sander de Gier

ORDERING
BeBop 70’s is no longer available unfortunately
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
BeBop 70’s – 4 | BeBop 70’s – 5 | |
---|---|---|
Neckwidth at nut | 38 mm | 46 mm |
Neckwidth at last fret | 63 mm | 78 mm |
Thickness at nut | 20 mm | 20 mm |
Thickness at 12th fret | 23.5 mm | 23.5 mm |
Fretsize | small | small |
Stringspacing at bridge | 19.5 mm | 19 mm |
Radius fingerboard | 7.25″ to 12″ | 7.25″ to 12″ |
Neckshape | C | C |
Number of frets | 21 | 21 |
Neckjoint | Bolt on | Bolt on |
Scale | 34″ | 34″ |