Epiphone has once again teamed up with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna bass guitar hero Jack Casady for a new signature guitar, which takes his favored semi-hollowbody design into fretless territory.
It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s latest signature Epi, having first partnered with the firm for a run of basses that arrived in a suite of fresh colorways.
Those models also arrived with frets, and now Casady has decided to shake things up – both cosmetically and functionally – in order to cater to fans of fretless bass tones.
On paper, the Jack Casady Fretless Bass (as it is officially called) faithfully follows the precedent that was set with the master’s previous model, offering an archtop Les Paul Signature Bass-shaped body made from layered maple as well as a C-profile mahogany neck.
The fretless fingerboard, meanwhile, is laurel, and offers a 12” radius with an imitation bone nut. Other hardware specs include a three-point adjustable bridge, Die Cast Clover buttons, and Gold Speed knobs that control volume and tone.
As for tones, there’s a Casady-designed JCB01 Low-Impedance humbucker, which is wired to a three-way rotary control that moves between 50, 250, and 500 impedance settings.
To finish it off, there’s a sleek Aged Royal Tan colorway, which makes for a rather nice vintage twist in comparison to the previous model, which arrived in Ebony, Faded Pelham Blue, Sparkling Burgundy, and Metallic Gold.
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Though it may not seem like it at first glance, the latest Casady signature model is actually a pretty notable release. As Epiphone notes, “The world’s most popular semi-hollow electric bass goes fretless.”
Indeed, the Les Paul Signature Bass template – which is an amalgamation of the EB-2 and LP shapes – is one of the firm’s most revered models, and the fact it’s now available as a fretless model will only serve to increase its appeal.
Speaking to Bass Player back in 2022, Casady explained his affinity for semi-hollow basses, citing their ability to provide an acoustic bass-style tonal spectrum.
“After the first three albums with Jefferson Airplane, I discovered a Guild Starfire bass, semi-hollowbody, and I really liked it,” he said. “It had some of the tone qualities of an acoustic instrument, and I was able to do some harmonic things: working with overtones and getting a fuller bass sound. It would be like me chasing the stand-up bass sound on an electric instrument.”
That’s exactly what his signature models – both this new one and his existing ones – aim to do: according to Epi, it’s “the culmination of years of experimentation… to find an instrument with superior electric tone and the response of an acoustic bass.”
The Jack Casady Fretless Bass is available now for $849.
Visit Epiphone for more.
