Entry-level acoustic bass guitars are generally constructed entirely from laminated wood. But mid range acoustic bass guitars may sometimes have a combination of solid parts, often solid top and laminated woods. Acoustic bass guitars are most preferably used while playing a folk music or a country song, though many pop as well as rock singers use this guitar quite often in their concerts.

A brief history

The first modern acoustic bass guitar was developed in the early 1960s by Ernie Ball of San Luis Obispo, California. Ball aimed to provide bass guitarists with a more acoustic sounding instrument that would match better with the sound of acoustic guitars. In the late 1980s, MTV unplugged show helped to popularize hollow bodied acoustic bass guitars amplified with pickups.

Information about the construction

The acoustic bass guitar usually has a hollow wooden body similar to that of the steel string acoustic guitar. This is quite unlike the electric bass guitar, which is generally a solid body instrument. The majority of acoustic basses are fretted. Semi fretted versions also exist, although they are quite rare. Frets are raised metal strips inserted into the fingerboard that extend across the full width of the neck. On a fretted bass, the frets divide the fingerboard into semitone divisions. The acoustic bass guitar commonly has four strings, which are normally tuned E A D G, an octave below the lowest four strings of the 6 string guitar. Most acoustic basses have pickups, either magnetic or piezoelectric or both, so that they can be amplified with an instrument amplifier. This is because it becomes difficult to hear an acoustic bass guitar without an amplifier. Piezoelectric pickups are non magnetic pickups that produce a different tone.