FACTOIDS & TRIVIA

The Fender Mustang Bass was designed in 1965-66 by Leo Fender while he was under contract as a consultant to CBS after the Fender buy out. It was introduced in mid-1966 and was the first student model electric bass guitar that Leo designed, yet it was high quality and sounded great. With it’s split coil pickup, the Mustang Bass is more or less a scaled down version of the Precision Bass. Being a student model it does have basic appointments such as a non-contoured (slab) body and a short, 30 inch scale length. However, it does use a string-through-body bridge which increases the coupling of string vibration with the body. Like the earliest Jazz Basses, the Mustang Bass was fitted with string mutes, but most players removed these as they did not prove to be useful. Consequently, the bass shown here is missing its string mutes.

 Body: Solid; alder

 Finish: Olympic White, nitrocellulose lacquer

 Neck: 1-piece maple, bolt-on

 Fingerboard: Rosewood; pearloid dot markers

 Number of Frets: 20

 Pickguard: Tortoise/white/black plastic laminate

 Bridge: Fender steel, chrome

 Nut: Plastic

 Tuners: Fender, open, chrome

 Pickups: One, Fender split coil

 Controls: Master tone; master volume

 Scale Length: 30 inches

 Neck Width at Nut: 1 5/8 inches

 Body Width at Lower Bout: 12 inches

 Body Depth: 1 3/4 inches

 Weight: 7.6 lb