This fellow looks rather nice. The Spellbinder Bass II marks the return of the model from the synonymous Spellbinder corp (I’ve been desperate to use that word for weeks). The model has had a long break, it is almost three decades since the first batch of Spellbinders were built in the early 80’s. So how is it looking on its return to the catwalk?

Well, first off, there will only be 125 of these 34 inch, 24 fret little puppies made, so don’t expect to see them in a music store need you anytime soon. This is an instrument on the elite end of the scale, with the wiring and pickup arrangement designed by Stanley Clarke, Thomas Lieber and Rick Turner. Familiar names to most bassists – Rick Turner built the ‘Alembic Black Beauty’ Bass.

The basses will be personally signed and numbered by Stanley Clarke himself (obligatory name drop: I got to shake hands with the man himself when he played here in London earlier this year – the magic didn’t seem to rub off on my playing, more’s the pitty – but it was a great gig).

There have been some invitation viewings in the US in August (I suggest dropping a line via the Spellbinder site to find out more) – if you are BassQuake, catch them today from 4-8pm at The Green Room Restaurant, 6756 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA (Right in front of Musicians Institute)! Everything about the model is slick – my fave touch is the bass clef knobs. Nice. It’s a wood sound block design, with a graphite reinforced quartersawn maple laminate neck and ebody fretboard. Just in case that doesn’t have you drooling, the body is spruce with a high gloss finnish. The electronics include a 3-way pickup selector and single/double and series/parallel switchable per pickup – hence the rather plentiful set of switches on the body. Oh, and check out the headstock:

More details from Spellbinder themselves.