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
Bass guitar early 1960s, bassists mostly used flatwound strings with a smooth surface, which had a smooth, damped sound reminiscent of a double bass. In the late 1960s and 1970s, players began using roundwound bass strings, which produce a brighter tone similar to steel guitar strings, though flatwounds also remained in use by players seeking a vintage tone. Roundwounds have a brighter timbre (tone) with longer sustain than flatwounds. A variety of tuning options and number of string courses (courses are when strings are put together in groups of two, often at the unison or octave) have been used to extend the