Minimal Bass

Industrial Design / Featured Project

The minimal electric bass (MEB) is a design exercise, with the purpose of reducing an object to its 

most basic elements. An electric base guitar can often be a large, cumbersome object to carry. 

Musicians looking to practice on the go, are left with few, crippled options. Travel guitars are 

usually made with lower quality woods and components. 

This design aims to provide a new, high end experience to the traveling 

musician. It gets rid of all unnecessary clutter and delivers an instrument 

that is portable (fits inside carry-on luggage), lightweight (4lbs) and that has 

the tonal qualities of a full-sized, stage quality piece.

It is carved out of a single piece of solid Guatemalan Rosewood heart. 

This unique part of the tree has a distinctive light and dark transition, 

with a beautiful contrast. The wood`s high resonance and its single piece 

construction provides the sustain and tone of a larger instrument. 

The wrap-around bridge design drives the strings to the back of the instrument, reducing the 

total length considerably. Combined with modified tuning machines and a reduced scale length, it 

allows the user to store the base inside small luggage. It also has no portruding parts, increasing its durability.  

The magnetic pickup floats over the strings, instead of lying 

beneath them. This allows for a thin and light body, and easy servicing 

of the electronics. Functional prototype crafted by Juan Carlos Noguera.