Affordable Carved Bass, $2,549 ($2,749)

As some of you may already know, we have recently sold out of our well known (and well made) Emile Gillet basses. While we are waiting for more of them to be made for us in the coming months, we decided to fill this void with a great alternative and with a bass that is actually much more affordable.  This is a fully, hand carved bass which is made and distributed by a very dependable and prominent instrument distributor in Alabama.  These are well made and come with a 1 year warranty. 

You may have seen this exact bass on some our competitors' bass sites which sell for close to $3,000 yet we sell the same, exact bass for far less.  In addition, we have our famous discount packages for string upgrades, bows and pickups as well.  With the prominent American distributor that makes and markets these basses, we do not feel it is right to put our own label inside or give it a name, other than the "The Affordable Carved Bass!"  While they still have these basses on offer, then so will we.  We stand behind the quality and workmanship.

$2,549 plus shipping, click any photo for much larger image:

The Affordable Care Bass Act:

This bass offer is unique in that in the efforts to keep the prices as affordably (cheap) as possible, we are letting the distributor set up each bass per our individual order so that we can simply send the bass direct to you, saving you money.  The American distributor that we acquire these from has a well trained shop staff and has a pretty amazing reputation with music merchants, largely because the set ups are so reliable and require very little to do afterwards. You can also choose just about any string brand you like, plus any special requirement you may have for how the bass plays or feels.  In order to compare apples to apples (basses to basses), we also offer the Helicore strings in our base price ($2,549).  Again, you can put on just about any strings or accessories (at the time of order) for just a little added extra, and no, we do not nickle and dime you on the added extras either.  Go for it! You'll save tons of money and get a nicer playing/sounding bass.

 Bass Checklist:

• Seasoned wood, quality parts and workmanship, for only $2,549.  Best carved bass you will ever get at this price.
• Solid maple, carved back and maple ribs (less cracking isues to worry about!)
• Solid maple neck
•  A good ebony fingerboard
• Solid ebony or rosewood tailpiece
• High density maple bridge with bridge adjusters
• Good, professional quality strings supplied.  Again, we include the Helicores because the other dealers do too, and we want to reflect our apples to apples competitive price comparison.  Again, add on ANY strings that you want at our 'cost' price.
• A decent padded cover (again, you can upgrade this too)
• A good, playable set up by very reliable luthier team, which includes optimum fingerboard planing and scoop, correct playing height of strings and good sound post placement
• Cheap upgrade packages that are only allowed with this bass

The bass we now offer is kind of an unusual way of offering a bass than what we normally offer here.  Unlike our famous Thompson® plywood and hybrid basses, which are professionally set up here at our headquarters workshop, these carved basses are set up, in the USA with the same luthiers that work for our distributors of this particular bass.  In other words, we don't set them up here, but they do a very decent job and it saves us (and our customers) loads of money in shipping and labor.

How to order and ship these?  You can first order the bass here (just below) and choose a simple bass, with standard (Helicore) strings and set up.  Changing the strings with higher quality performance strings by Pirastro or Thomastik is a cheap upgrade.  You'll see that drop down list as well.

How much does shipping cost?  Shipping is different from order to order, because the basses get shipped to different locations and states.  For instance, since our distributor shipping the bass to you is located on the south-east coast, the average shipping cost in the east coast will be the cheapest, about $120-150.  Shipping to Midwest locations, $150-200 and out to Arizona or California, $180-250.  Shipping is charged separately.  If you ordered here by our shopping cart, we simply contact you to confirm the shipping.  For over the phone orders, we confirm shipping to you at time of order.

Your new bass will come expertly set up, with bridge and strings up to tension, ready to play upon arrival with nothing else to do.  All shipments are totally insured.  With this distributor, we too offer a generous 2 week trial period (with money back guarantee).  You'll love your bass, but by some remote chance that you do not like it and want to return it, you can.   While it is very rare that someone is not happy or wants to return a bass, it is fully returnable so long as the bass arrives back in the same new condition as received and that the customer is responsible for both 'to' and 'from' shipping charges.

How does this save money and how is it possible to offer a decent carved bass so cheaply?  First, the price of the bass includes their set up.  Rather than we buy and then ship the bass to our workshop to set up and detail, we can pretty much get all that done first hand (with the distributor) whom sometimes is referred to as "Luthier partners".  So this way we can save on the initial shipping costs to us (about $200) and then save on our set up time which takes us about a whole day's work and then some.

The whole idea here is to be super competitive and offer the best deal, apples to apples comparison and save at least one way on shipping costs.  We LOVE doing this sort of thing!  It gets even more fun, read on...

Even though these are not our own custom produced basses (as say our Wan-Bernadel®, Rogeri, or Thompson® brand, we can still offer some pretty incredible packages with the purchase.  You can get bows at cost price, upgraded covers, pickups etc..

Amazing Bass Packaged Deals 2 (for this special bass purchase)

We love to offer packaged deals with super low priced accessories or upgrades. Here's a more detailed explanation and offering:

1. With our own personal brand basses (Thompsons, Wan and Rogeri) we almost always put a better set of strings (Pirastro and/or Thomastik.  The Helicores are decent strings, but in our opinion, you can get a nice bass here with a cheap strings upgrade at our 'cost'.
2. Wtih your new bass, you can get a David Gage Realist installed.  Email or call here for price, (800-600-2689).
3. With a bass, get a Tuff-Bag and Realist pickup for $330.  Even though the bass (above) for $2,249 comes with a Chinese padded cover, the Tuff-Bags are super professional and the best in the world! 
4. Perhaps you woud simply like a nice bass bow added to the deal.  We offer our special, S.E. brand, Brazilwood bass bows in 3 models, for $110 each.  See the link for more detailed description and photos.
5. Get these 3 accessories: a Tuff-Bag (blue or black), (normal price with shipping, $354) a S.E. Brazilwood bow (normally $170 with shipping) and a Realist pickup which is normally $229.99.  These three accessories, while they would normally be more than $754 altogether, comes only to $475 all in.  That's a nice grouped, packaged saving of $275!

These packaged deals are only for our special, Affordable Bass that we offer on this page.  Again, because we are not setting up these basses as we would normally do (but with the distributor) it's not as easy to install other pickups or items. We're working on this, so there should be more of these added in later.

For more information you can call or email us at affordablebasses@stringemporium.com