I went down to the Musicians Friends warehouse to see if they had any Epiphone Dot Studio (Korean) or maybe a LP Junior but found one of these instead. You wouldn't think such a small package could produce such a large sound. I'm going to have some fun with this.
The Ashbory bass, designed by Alun Ashworth-Jones and Nigel Thornbory, is an 18-inch scale fretless (but marked) electric bass developed in 1985. This scale is just over half of the 34-inch scale of an ordinary bass guitar. When amplified, the Ashbory produces a low, resonant bass tone similar to the tone of a pizzicato (plucked) double bass.
The Ashbory uses silicone rubber strings and an acoustic piezo-transducer pickup to create the instrument's tone. The lower string tension of the instrument means that no truss rod is used in the Ashbory's neck. Unlike electric basses and electric guitars, neither the bridge nor the neck is adjustable. The manufacturer recommends that the silicone strings be dusted with talc powder to make the rubber strings easier to play.
