Apollo Guitars Surf Bass

This bass was hand-made by John Kingma in Ontario, Canada. His company is called Apollo Guitars and is not related to the company that made cheap music equipment years ago. The bass has a custom-shaped, semi-hollow body made of Hackberry wood and a 21 fret (30") maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. It has 2 Lipstick pickups in the bridge position set up as a humbucker; with two Danelectro stacked pots (each controlling the tone/volume of one pickup). It also has a "tone switch" that extends the sound range of the pickups and a 3-way pickup selector switch (like a Gibson SG). The body and veneered headstock are finished in a peacock blue aniline stain and the awesome grain of the hackberry wood shines through. The bass has Danelectro tuners for the strings and a Wilkinson bridge/tailpiece (I think..it doesn't seem to be available anymore). The bass plays very well and looks pretty cool. Cosmetically it isn't completely perfect and I had to shim the neck a little to get the set up to the way I feel is best, but I stil think it plays just as well as my Jazz Bass and Ibanez GSR. For the price and the ability to have a bass that was unique and built to my specifications, you can't go wrong with John's guitars.

It is set up almost exactly like a Danelectro Bass and that is what it sounds like! When playing blues, garage rock, surf rock, rockabilly, classic rock (Cream, Iron Butterfly, Sonics) and even some punk, this bass fits the bill. Sometimes it is a bit too bright sounding to play heavier music, but that is the nature of using lipstick pickups. If you like old danelectros, univox and mosrite basses, something like this is perfect.

The bass is solid and was set up fairly well and only needed some slight adjustments to suit my hard style of playing. There were no real problems with the hardware and how it was installed.

The hardware was all name brand and the finish is a stain so it is durable. I have been playing this bass for 6 months and it is truly solid I play very hard and fling the bass around and the strap buttons have never loosened (I problem that I run into a lot). I've only had to adjust the Danelectro neck once and I would play this guitar without a backup only since I repaired the loose output jack problem that became apparent a few months in (though this is another problem that I seem to experience with my Jazz Bass due to my style of play and pulling on the jack/cable while playing.

Haven't needed support, but John was very responsive and helpful along the way while I designed the bass and he updated me while he was building it. Don't think it would be a problem.

I designed it along with John and it is pretty much exactly what I expected. I don't know what else to say.