Katana
Many of our clients are looking for a modern bass with a very warm yet clean and articulate tone and fast response. Often accompanied with a shorter scale with narrow spacing for easier chord playing and extended range for solo work.
Together with our ergonomic designs and the Rampbar, with built in ramp and a larger right hand position area, the Katana is a perfect finger style bass to express oneself in the most subtle ways.
Standard features
Body
- Mahogany back with your choice of facing
- Black veneer between body and facing
- Hand-carved with X-ergo shaping
Neck
- 33” scale and extended 27 frets
- Narrow spacing at bridge (17mm for 6-string, 17,5mm for 5-string)
- 5-piece maple/wenge neck constructed from our own straight-grained, aged neck blanks
- 2-way, high-quality truss rod
- Volute-reinforced angled headstock
- Matching headstock and body facings
- Rounded fingerboard with frets dressed inside the edges for a smooth, worn-in feel
- Ebony fingerboard
- Inlaid edge markers
Pickups & Hardware
- Rampbar with matching fingerboard cover
- Hipshot A-style, 3-way-adjustable bridge
- For string attachment; both string thru body or string thru bridge is possible
- Hipshot Ultralite Tuning Machines
- Schaller Security Locks
- Catalyzed oil finish
- Hard case included
- Warranty, tools and certificate included
Additional information
The body and fingerboard wood
The body and fingerboard wood
For the warm and articulate sound we chose the combination of woods that would extend these characteristics.
The African mahogany is a lightweight body wood that adds punch and warmth to the tone. The mellow and sweet sound of mahogany is a perfect contrast to our harder and brighter sounding fingerboard woods like the ebony and greenheart.
The hard and dense ebony produces a very articulate sound with very quick response and a bell like high end ring and great tone articulation. As an alternative the greenheart is an even harder and denser wood than ebony but with a higher resin content which produces an equally articulate and responsive sound but with compressed high end and a warmer, woody tone.
Neck and top wood
Neck and top wood
For the neck we have chosen our true and tested combination of Hard Maple and Wenge.
This combination has a very balanced, vintage but bright, open tone.
As an alternative we offer our very popular ash - guariuba - hard maple combination because of the balanced sound it produces. Warm deep lows, bright midrange and sweet treble. Basses with this neck combination always sit very well in the mix.
For the top wood we have selected medium dense woods like mahogany and Boire as they complements the other woods perfectly. Harder woods like red mallee and yellow box have a slightly quicker response and clarity.
The Design
The Design
Based on the Halo model the Katana has an extended fingerboard with 27 frets and a re-designed horn and treble side to give a better access to the 27th fret. It’s designed for perfect balance, maximum support, and ease and freedom of movement and features our X-ergo shaping, an ergonomic carved back that fits perfectly to your body and enhances stability and balance.
These features enable you to play faster with less effort, allowing you to play for longer without fatigue. You can read more about it here.
Pickups & Electronics
Pickups & Electronics
The Katana features our RampbarXL pickup, This pick-up houses a pair of our bassbar humbuckers and doubles as a big ramp. The surface follows the curvature of the strings and has a large surface area to play over and an extended right hand position area. Which enables you to move your plucking hand more towards the bridge or neck for subtle tonal differences.
For the electronics, you can choose between passive controls with volume, blend and tone or add active controls or a three-band Glockenklang or Noll preamp. Both preamps include an active/passive switch and enable you to dial in the right sound for any room or situation.
