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The era of the modern electric bass guitar began in 1951 when a former radio repairman named Leo Fender gave the world the Fender Precision. The first Precisions had 20 frets on a full-scale 34-inch maple neck that was bolted to the guitar’s ash...
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The era of the modern electric bass guitar began in 1951 when a former radio repairman named Leo Fender gave the world the Fender Precision. The first Precisions had 20 frets on a full-scale 34-inch maple neck that was bolted to the guitar’s ash body—the frets, presumably, were the "precision" points that differentiated Fender’s bass from traditional fretless uprights. Chromed covers hid the bridge and the instrument’s single pickup from view, while two knobs on the bass’s body allowed the player to adjust volume and tone. Fender did not reach far for the instrument’s design. That same year he had released the Telecaster, a six-string solid-body guitar, and the Precision was essentially a four-stringed version of that. Like a Telecaster, the sides of the Precision bass were squared off so that the body was a uniformly thick slab. As for its headstock, it, too, echoed the look of the Telecaster. Both of these details changed in 1954, when Fender released the Stratocaster, with its contour body (the Strat’s cutaway made it comfortable for players to hold the guitar against their bodies for extended periods of time) and more sculptural headstock. The Precision copied both of these features, note for note. Naturally, Fender had imitators, first a company called Kay, whose short-necked K-162 from 1952 faded away almost as soon as it appeared. In 1953, Gibson followed with the EB-1, a radically scaled-down version of an upright bass, complete with a fake F-hole. That model was dropped in 1958, but in 1955, German instrument maker Höfner made a go of the traditional look when it introduced its famous 500/1 bass, known variously as the "violin bass" for its shape and the "Beatle bass" for its most famous player, Paul McCartney. Two other basses from the 1950s are of interest to vintage bass collectors. Danelectro introduced its six-string UB2 in 1956, prompting Gibson and Fender to issue their own low-octave six-strings in 1959 and 1961 respectively....
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