My guitar collection - G&L
The Fallout Bass Launch Edition was announced on the Guitars by Leo (GbL) site in August 2019. It is a perfect mix of many familiar elements with its Fallout guitar body, L-1000 relative pickup position with respect to the bridge, Kiloton bass wiring harness, and a scale length of 30”, almost exactly halfway between the 25½” scale length for (almost all) G&L guitars and customary 34” scale length for a bass. The Launch Edition has an alder body finished in either of 3 colors: Racing Green, Miami Blue, or Racing Yellow. To accentuate the racing theme, the body has elegant white (Racing Green) or black (Miami Blue and Racing Yellow) diagonal stripes on the lower bass bout with the single-ply pickguard matching that color. The wiring harness is simplicity itself harkening back to that of the L-1000 but with just the treble-cut part of the tone stack: a single L-series MFD humbucker with a volume control, tone control, and a mini-toggle to switch between the parallel/split-coil/OMG (“Oh My God”) pickup modes. The hard-rock maple neck has a 9½” radius Caribbean rosewood (aka Chechen) fingerboard with Jescar Medium Jumbo 57110 frets, a 1⅝” nut, and G&L branded Schaller closed tuning machines. The finish on the front of the headstock matches the body giving the bass an esthetic balance. What is interesting is that the neck is attached to the body using 4-bolts and a guitar neck plate. Since the dimensions of this model are in between a guitar and a full scale bass, it comes with a G&L gig bag instead of a hardshell case. The Fullerton Deluxe Fallout Bass, a USA built “standard” version of this model, was introduced on the January 15, 2020 price list. A page on the Fallout Bass Launch Edition is still available on the G&L website here:
Fallout Bass Launch Edition
The story behind this guitar
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I had been on the lookout for a candidate in any of these beautiful race colors. Still, among the three Racing Yellow is my favorite and Drum City/Guitarland in Wheat Ridge, CO offered exactly such a version. According to its spec sheet it was completed on my birthday in 2020 no less. It is a bit weird to receive a USA built instrument in a gig bag. But what comes out of that bag is just a blast to play. Since the pickup placement relative to the string length is different from any other bass, other harmonics are emphasized or attenuated. A short scale bass still uses standard tuning leading to the strings being more floppy and a booming low end. All quite a nice change. The “OMG” setting quickly became the favorite of course. It is not hard to imagine how a guitar player can easily transition to this short scale bass due to its similarity in body size. However, as stated above, the scale length is neither long-scale bass nor guitar. Not a problem, having played all sorts of scale lengths for a lifetime, including mini guitars and ukuleles. For me the thing is just fun!
The story behind this guitar
2020
CLF2001256
none, marked ‘LE-FALB-RCY-CN’, ‘1PB-BLACK RACING ST[R]’, ‘PH’
none
La Bella 760FL-S Deep Talking Bass Flats, Light, 43-104, Short Scale
