Off to the UK!!!


This beauty is headed off to merry ol' England, to a customer named Robert Copeland. We met Rob through Myspace, and I knew he was going to be a champ when his picture was Boba Fett. In the high-end bass world crazy wood is king. Woods with insane figure, unpronounceable names are always the norm. So you might think a bass with a flamed maple top to be on the tame side, not so with this bass. The top on this bass is so perfectly figured, and snow white in color. The Mahogany back adds a refined elegance. The other thing the bass has going for it is the wonderful snarl of a set of EMG DC humbuckers. I really like these pickups when coupled with the 3-band EMG eq with sweepable mid control. This bass is a real punisher.

Custom Basses

One of the major parts of Sage Guitars is custom basses. We take building customs extremely serious, because when someone puts a great deal of faith into us to build the bass of their dreams we want to deliver 100%. I often find myself bringing in-progress basses home at the end of the day. At night while I'm relaxing with my wife I'll place the instrument across from us so I can take it all in. I find this exercise helps me see the next step, and give me some introspection on how the build is progressing. The latest piece to grace the shop is a Long Horn 4 belonging to Cliff Davies. The bass features a killer piece of Mineral Stained Flamed Maple that presents itself on the top, peghead, and truss-rod cover. The other player in this picture is a piece of figured Macassar Ebony used for the fingerboard and pickup ramp/cover, both parts came from the same piece of wood. This bass has a sense of continuity and elegance. We're really privileged to build Cliff his dream bass. Now that all the basic fabrication is done it's on to final sanding and lacquer. More on that to follow.

Pickups, Pickups, Pickups!

Can you guess the topic of our latest post? So as many of you may already know Sage has had a wonderful relationship with Aero pickups and it's founder Larry Pollack over the years. Aero's have long been a top shelf option on all our basses, offering what we consider the ultimate in an uncolored voice of our basses. Pickups that let your bass's voice speak clearly. There's a little magic in these babies, and we always wished every Sage came equipped with them. After hours of long talks on construction topics from pole-pieces, to windings, and more now they do. The standard Sage pickup will be based on a single coil design that won Aero a "Top Tone" award by Bass Player Magazine, but with a few tweaks here and there. We will of course still offer the Aero humbuckers we have always used in the past as an upgrade. In a world of cheaper, faster, better it's really nice to know we're adding something that is boutique quality to all our basses, a micro brew if you will. Stay tuned for more info and pics on this topic.

Some months are better than others February has been great! We have had record sales and lots of new incoming projects. We're pleased to report that our 5 string Utilitarian prototype sold over the weekend to a great local bassist named Larry Lefebvre (he also owns the Cocobolo 5 in the gallery), we know in Larry's hands the bass will get a great workout. As you can see from the photo its neck building time. We build our necks in batches of 8, usually we need a few while the others sit on the shelf ready for the next customer order. In the next couple of updates we'll show you basses ordered by Carlos Peniche of Mexico, and Cliff Davies of California. Carlos Ordered a Chambered Singlecut fretless 4 with a 33" scale, and Cliff ordered a Long Horn bolt-on 4 with all the trimmings. These are just two of the very special basses in the fold. So keep your eyes peeled.

Here's the latest 4 string ready to leave the nest. It's our standard body shape with set-neck construction. It features a beautiful piece of Spalted Flamed Maple for the top, Wenge tone plate, and Mahogany body. Married to a Rock Maple neck with a Ziricote fingerboard. Last but not least the heart of the bass features a set of Aero humbuckers with an Aguilar OBP-2 Preamp. This bass is a tone arsenal for sure. Holla!

OK the latest batch to be leaving the nest soon are these three. The 4 is going to our good friend Theron, while the 5 and 6 will be off to Sleek Elite in Japan. Stay tuned for some pics of the finished pieces.

OK so this is what's new these days. Our new Utilitarian line developed with our close friend Jeff Caxide's needs for a killer sounding bass, with minimal frills, and plenty of moxie. These basses have been an instant hit at the shop, and all the artists who have graced us at the shop during the development of these basses have given major praise. Look for a full gallery of photos and specs in the coming weeks.

Holey smokes is this section in need of some major updates! No worries they're on the way. We just recently got back from the NAMM show in Anaheim, Completed the prototypes for the new Utilitarian basses, gave a shop tour and hung out with Liam of Dillinger Escape Plan, and a whole host of other stuff. We should have more content soon in terms of bass gallery photos, and eventually some restructering of the web site in general, so keep an eye out. 2008 is poised to be a sweet year for Sage.

OK I fully intend on posting full frontal shots of the Wedge, and Steve DiEva's LH-4. Having said that here are a couple shots of one of the sickest bass players laying it down on them at Bass Player Live in NYC , Marcus Miller. The man is just a killer with a bass in hand.

Here are some new pics of the back of the Wedge. We love the look of the Mineral Streaked Tiger Maple. The back is carved into the sides giving it a very rounded feel, super comfortable on my body in the seated position.

OK so we have the blues, or should I say the blueburst. This bass should be in tow at Bass Player Live in October. Quilt Maple Top, Mahogany back. The neck is Maple with a Ziricote fingerboard and Headcap. Stay tuned to see the progress of this sexy beast.

OK we've finally gotten around to putting the wedge in "The Wedge". The next step in the evolution is to glue the back wood on, in this case a book-matched piece of mineral streaked figured maple. Larry from Aero is hard at work building the custom pickup, which should be here in a couple of weeks. In the meantime we'll be cutting the pickup route, drilling holes for the electronics, and starting on the finishing. I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Steve's bass is in the booth at the moment. Just put some vinyl sealer and a nitro washcoat on before filling the pores of the Mahogany. Next we'll get some clear coats on, and prepare the Mahogany for a red/brown color coat.

The Steve DiEva bass is almost ready for finish. Here's a couple of pics showing the bass prior to fretting. Note the upper horns dual contour (I love the look, I see more basses with this style in the future). We'll have more pics of this puppy after the first couple coats of finish go on.

Here's a rough draft of the final look of the Wedge. There are a few changes to be made but this gives you an idea.

OK this thing is starting to resemble a bass. It's almost time for the fun stuff like Wedging the body, doing inlay, carving the neck, choosing electronics, etc. We put the peghead facing of Macassar Ebony on, drilled for tuners, and put the Abalone in the headstock in preparation for the logo. We also mocked up the bass to see visually how it was coming together. We think it's coming along nicely. We put a single Lane Poor on the face, and played around with knobs, I made some "mock-up" redwood concentric knobs; there are 8 knobs on this mock up. The layout I was thinking of was vol/vol stacked knob (if I go with 2 pickups), high mids/low mids stacked knob, treble/bass stacked knob, Piezo vol/Piezo tone stacked knob, and a 3 way mini switch for magnetic pickups/both/Piezo. I like the stacked knob arrangement because it keeps the bass looking less cluttered.

Here are some shots of the Wedge's Neck in process. We routed the trussrod channel, glued the ears onto the peghead, and cut the taper into the neck. Next comes the peghead shape cutting and gluing the peghead laminates. But that's next time.

The Wedge's Redwood top is now glued on to the body blank. Prior to gluing we hollowed out several chambers into the Mahogany body core. We have selected a beautiful Flamed Macassar Ebony fingerboard, and a 3 piece Flamed Maple neck. We haven't settled on the pickup arangment as of yet. The piezo bridge will be a Hipshot A style bridge modified for the Graph Tech piezo saddle system.

Here are some new pics of Steve DiEva's bass. We found a beautiful piece of Mahogany for the body core. You can see the body is fully glued and profiled, pickup routes are all set and the control holes have been drilled. The Maple burl top is breathtaking.

This bass is being built for Steve DiEva. Steve is a big Justin Chancellor fan, and had been wanting a Wal for the past couple years. After seeing our friend Jeff Caxide with ISIS (Jeff owns a BO-4) at a show in New York he changed his mind and gave us a call. Steve wanted to keep the wood similar to Chancellor's main bass, so we started with a Mahogany core, the top is a beautiful piece of Maple Burl, the neck is Rock/Flamed Maple, and the fingerboard is Brazilian Rosewood with our signature dots. It will have Aero Pickups and a Demeter preamp wired for stereo. I'm thinking ETS bridge for this one, but who knows. Time will tell.