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
Vox Bass Guitar Vox Bass Guitar Vox bass guitar is any of the bass guitars made by Vox, a British musical equipment company, in the 1960s. Vox made a number of bass guitars (along with six string electric guitars) during the 1960s, although they were not nearly as successful as their efforts in amplifiers. Early basses were built between 1961–1967 by Jennings Musical Industries (JMI) in the UK, with Italian manufacturer EKO being brought in to help with the huge demand from the US market from 1965 until 1969. Several models of Vox basses featured active electronics powered by a nine volt battery