Wishbass is a custom bass guitar company located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The company owner and head luthier, Steve Wishnevsky, specializes in making unorthodox bass guitars out of both exotic and domestic woods.
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Overview
Wishbass are hand-crafted electric basses made from both domestic and exotic woods, although recent designs have favored domestic. They are generally inexpensive due to their simple electronics, design and lack of finish. Wishnevsky is known for what might be considered radical body shapes and for his trademark open headstock, which he claims adds sustain.
Wishnevsky focuses attention on using minimal metal in the construction of his basses, which he claims improves tone. He often features many different wood laminates to make up the bodies of his bass guitars, as do many of his contemporary hobbyists. The nuts and bridges on his basses are usually made of Corian, a plastic material commonly suggested for use as an alternative to bone, suitable for vegans and used by notable guitarmakers such as Gibson and Martin. Wishnevsky builds mainly fretless basses with no trussrods for cheaper construction costs. It is notable that although he is emphatic in using minimal amounts of metal in his basses, most of them feature an aluminum control cavity cover plate. Wishbasses are mainly built with passive electronics, and tone controls are not standard on Wishnevsky's basses. The lack of a tone control limits the player's ability to manipulate the tonal qualities of the bass guitar by electrical means.
Most Wishbasses are characterized by a rather large headstock and a thick neck that is more characteristic of an upright bass than as electric bass. This also lessens the need for a truss rod (which can be added upon request). There are eleven basic models or styles listed on the Wishbass website. The names listed below are templates and the similarities end there, as every Wishbass is different. The styles listed on Wishnevsky's site are the Stude, Hipper, Peanut, Scroll, Standard, JB, Arrow, Swirl, Kewel, Fantasy and Scarab. At the time of this writing. Steve Wishnevsky has handmade over 1,500 Wishbasses.
Wishbass Modifications
While many Wishbass owners keep their basses as they came from Wishnevsky, there is a large Wishbass fan base that views Wishbasses as the raw materials for a more sophisticated bass. They begin with a stock, but often rather crude (but usually playable) Wishbass and modify according to their own requirements. Typically this involves refinishing Steve's minimal finish ("just enough lacquer to keep the beer from soaking through") with many coats of TruOil or the like, replacing the aluminum cavity covers with wood ones that match or compliment the natural woods of the bass and even reshaping the body and/or headstock. Minimal electronics are expanded with stacked pots, varitones, pre-amps or by changing or adding pickups. The end result is a stunning, unusual bass that in a sense becomes a sort of a creative collaboration between Steve and the owner. (See the Wishbass threads on the Talkbass Forum for more details.) This results are one way to deal with some of the criticisms of Steve's instruments while keeping the tone and other features inherent in his designs.
Fire
On the early morning of February 17, 2015, the Wishbass workshop & about 30 commissioned instruments were lost by fire. Since then, a fundraiser was started & he will be working again as 'Wishbass 2.0'.