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 pickups; polished neck with binding; adjustable master bridge channel; rotary pickup selector and precision machine heads, with no active electronics. The Phantom IV and Delta IV Basses had the "trapezoidal" body of the Phantom VI guitar. The Delta IV had the same features as the Constellation IV, and the Phantom IV had no active electronics. The Mark IV Bass had the hollow "teardrop"-shaped body like the Mark VI guitar, with two single pole pickups. The Constellation IV model bass guitar had the same neck, hardware and electronics as the Constellation, but with the teardrop-shaped body. A special edition of the