2004 Steinberger 5 String Spirit Bass review.

Ned Steinberger is an American creator of innovative musical instruments. He is most notable for his design of guitars and basses without a traditional headstock, which are called Steinberger instruments. He also has a line of electric basses and string instruments through his company called NS Design and was also the designer of the first ever Spector bass, the NS. In addition, Ned and Emmett Chapman, creator of the Chapman Stick, collaborated on the creation of the NS Stick, a guitar/bass "multi-mode" instrument sold by Stick Enterprises.
Ned Steinberger began his design career creating furniture and custom cabinetry. In 1977, while working alongside luthier Stuart Spector, Ned designed his first musical instrument, the Spector NS-1 bass guitar. While attempting to source materials in an industrial area of New York City, he visited Lane Marine, a lifeboat builder, where he met with Bob Young, an engineer with deep knowledge of carbon fiber. Though Young was more than twice Steinberger’s age and had no experience with musical instruments, he joined forces with Steinberger after getting great feedback from his son, a recording engineer, who took to the instrument and understood the appeal of its construction.[2]The Spector NS quickly became Spector’s most popular bass design and remains so to this day. Inspired by that first creation, Steinberger set out to explore the possibilities of bass design. His search lead to alternate materials, like carbon fiber and the headless concept. His company, Steinberger Sound, launched in 1980, found immediate success with the L2 bass. Steinberger headless guitars and other bass models followed. After selling Steinberger to the Gibson group of musical instruments, Ned started a second company, NS Design in 1990. NS Design continues Ned Steinberger's boundary-pushing designs with a family of bowed electric instruments as well as headless guitars and basses.
Ned is the son of 1988 physics Nobel laureate Jack Steinberger (born 1921 in Germany).
Ned Steinberger got his introduction to the guitar design world in 1976 when he met Stuart Spector who, at the time, was his neighbor in a rental co-op in Brooklyn. Stuart was a fledgling luthier who was just getting his company off the ground and Ned was a furniture designer.
At that time Stuart was making electric six-string guitars. He was having only mild success so he had decided to manufacture bass guitars. At that time bass players were a lot more progressive than guitar players, and are not afraid to try something new. Guitar players on the other hand were reluctant to check anything out that isn't a long-established name brand, which is too bad for them because they missed a lot of very cool things. (Today that is very much the opposite), The Guitar players are much more progressive now and most of them don't like the old Fuddy, Duddy brands that their grandfather played.
I think it had to do with all the phony rip-off vintage guitars that dominated the market in the 90's. Many guitarists got tired of being ripped off by all the fake stuff on the market. It's a much safer bet to purchase a new work of art that actually costs less than one of those old mostly fake vintage guitars on the market.
Stuart asked Ned to help him design a bass guitar that would appeal to a bass player not just for aesthetic good looks but for it's ergonomic feel, its balance and its tone. Ned came up with the convex/concave body design that was to become synonymous with Spector Basses forever. The NS2.
Ned Steinberger became very interested in the music business. Luckily for us he wasn't a musician, otherwise he might probably have been bound up in tradition and we would have been denied all the incredible innovations that he created. Quite possibly, if Leo Fender had been a guitarist, he might never have come up with the electric bass or any of his other incredibly cool ideas.
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[@johngarcia1777]

Awesome Bass and Video Gene!

[@GeneThorpe]

Glad you enjoyed it John!

[@michaelgregory2231]

Another good one, Gene, thank you!

[@GeneThorpe]

Thanks for listening Michael.

[@videojoeshows]

Nice job with the howto videos. Keep it going!

[@GeneThorpe]

Thank you Video Joe!!

[@CJ-fv1hd]

Can it be tune different?

[@123446809]

excellent as rare as the dan armstrong guitars from that period

[@123446809]

I never new those were 5 strings

[@GeneThorpe]

They come in 4 or 5 Stringers. I really like the wooden ones. Very light. What type of Bass do you use on your recordings?

[@123446809]

@@GeneThorpe I finally bought a rickenbacker bass last year. My brother used one for years. I like to set up my recordings with a stereo sound. or as you know that ricky tone. love your show gene you put a lot of quality thoughts on it

[@pogomole]

*Steinberger

[@GeneThorpe]

Thanks!