Bass guitar in 1958. 1956 saw the appearance at the German trade fair "Musikmesse Frankfurt" of the distinctive Höfner 500/1 violin bass made using violin construction techniques by Walter Höfner, a second generation violin luthier. The instrument is often known as the "Beatle Bass", due to its endorsement and use by Beatles bassist Paul McCartney. In 1957 Rickenbacker introduced the model 4000 bass, the first bass to feature a neck-through-body design in which the neck is part of the body wood. The Fender and Gibson versions used bolt-on and glued-on necks. With the explosion of the popularity of rock music in the
Recording practices of the Beatles with the "Rubber Soul" sessions, the Beatles increasingly used the studio as an instrument in itself, spending long hours experimenting and writing. The Beatles demanded a lot from the studio; Lennon allegedly wanted to know why the bass on a certain Wilson Pickett record far exceeded the bass on any Beatles records. This prompted EMI engineer Geoff Emerick to try new techniques for "Paperback Writer". He explains that the song "was the first time the bass sound had been heard in all its excitement ... To get the loud bass sound Paul played a different bass, a Rickenbacker. Then we