As Fender project engineer I was responsible for the Victor Bailey, Reggie Hamilton, Stu Hamm bass and American Deluxe FMT bass line including the electronic for the Am. Dlx Zone bass. It was quite an honor to work with Marcus on this project and I liked his approach with intense testing sessions in his LA Studio "Hannibal".

This project started during August 2001 and Marcus had specific ideas of what he expected from this instrument. The tonality was based on his '77 Fender Jazz bass which meant utilizing an ash body, maple neck and '77 pickup spacing. He wanted a small nut width and a slim neck without compromising the string spacing at the bridge. The B-string had to be in the family with the other strings and deliver as much punch as possible. The instruments acoustic sound had to be alive and breathing which meant we could not stiffen up the neck too much with graphite. We used our Posiflex neck support rods (Patent applied for) which are two graphite tubes, each wrapped around a maple dowel in a way that the stiffness of the tubes varies over the length of the rods. In this way we keep the natural movement of the neck but improve the stability. We used the 4 and 1 headstock design with the new string trees for optimum pressure on all five strings in the nut. For extra stability and easier playing at the higher frets, we added our 5-bolt neck plate.

Marcus called me after playing the first prototype and explained to me that he didn't like the flat fingerboard radius ("A little flatter and it feels like my piano"). We tried different curves and ended up with a 7 1/4 inch radius which provided a very comfortable feel. Most of our in-house players found that the neck felt very small for a 5-string. (I remember at NAMM 2003 that even players who normally don't play 5-string felt right at home with this neck design)

Because of the extreme bridge section adjustment we needed a slight angle in the neck pocket to have the option of a low G-string action.

Next step was the bridge; we started with a Badass and then tested different materials from brass, steel, aluminum, titanium and also different combinations of metals. We also had a bridge with an adjustable break angle which allowed us to test the string pressure in the bridge sections. In this case we found that size doesn't matter, because the bridge mass and material not only transfers the string movement to the body but also absorbs some of the energy. We found that the choice of two different metals provided the best sound for this instrument.

We preferred brass bridge sections with a steel base plate over a die cast zinc design. This bridge is very simple with a groove for each section to prevent the saddle from moving and the possibility of either top load strings or having them through the body. This option allows the musician to use tapered or non tapered strings of any kind. Also you have the possibility of having the B-string through the body and the rest top loaded or vice versa.

With the medium sized frets we had a very natural and responsive acoustic sounding instrument and we moved to the next step of pickup and electronic design. Marcus likes a lot of punch on the bass strings and sparkle on the treble strings, in other words a wide range of sounds. After intense testing of different concepts we came back to the single coil Jazz bass format (how new is that) with formvar wire, which delivers the punch and the smooth treble attack we are looking for. The magnets had to be special staggered for the 7 1/4 inch radius.

For the control layout Marcus wanted the same approved configuration as his '77 Jazz bass. Neck and bridge volume, active bass and treble boost and passive/active selector switch. Because of the wide range output of the formvar pickups, we needed an 18 volt power supply for enlarged headroom. I decided to use a symmetrical power supply (plus/minus 9 Volt) which gave me more flexibility for the tone circuit. This preamp proves again that less is better; you would be surprised to see that there are not many parts on the PCB. The electronics should just support the tonality of the instrument and not make up for missing fundamentals and harmonics. When both tone controls are turned to zero the EQ is flat. The treble at 10 has a boost of 15 db by 6.4 kHz and the bass at 10 has a boost of 20 db by 40 Hz. But this information does not cover the whole picture, the bandwidth and peak performance of the EQ is also important. Marcus tested the bass at his studio playing to his music and we tailored the preamp until he was happy. We also tested the bass with different amps and compared it to different 5-string instruments. I really enjoyed working with Marcus and learned a lot in long and intense studio sessions. It was quite an honor to see and hear him play which again demonstrated that we can build a great musical instrument for the musician, but in the end it is the musician who creates the magic.

This is a simple and very versatile 5-string bass for both studio and live performance. As Marcus said in his MM5 statement: "If Fender had made a 5-string bass in 1977, this would be it." This bass is able to support the personality of many bass players.

Thanks Marcus for the opportunity and I look forward to the next project.

Sincerely Michael Frank-Braun