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
Acoustic bass guitar for him by luthier Tony Zemaitis in the mid-1970s. Mike used the bass on a number of his recordings from that time onwards, a prominent example being his 1975 album "Ommadawn". Brian Ritchie of Violent Femmes was also an early user of acoustic bass guitars. Unlike the electric bass guitar, which is generally a solid body instrument, the acoustic bass guitar usually has a hollow wooden body similar to (though usually somewhat larger than) that of the steel-string acoustic guitar. The majority of acoustic basses are fretted, but a significant number are fretless instead. Semi-fretted versions also exist, although they