basses entered in the ISB 2011 makers' competition
This series of images were taken the morning after the results were announced from the makers' competition at the 2011 ISB 'Summer of Bass Love' gathering in San Francisco. Being with my young son in the front row of the theatre I was not able to do more than keep him from shouting (he kept demanding to know when we could leave) as the three tone judges briefly played each of the 25 basses. I did snap pictures and grab the odd video along the way, but unfortunately lost most of that in a literal hard drive crash later in the summer - beware balancing drives on furniture arms.

Here's a video of my bass being played by the three judges; first Chuck Israels, who doesn't like the Belcanto strings most of us put on our basses and really does not like an Eb neck apparently, then Kurt Muroki, and lastly David Murray, both of whose intonation also fell apart to some extent in thumb position. Do I need to make a D neck on every bass from now on? I welcome bassist's thoughts on this of course.



I've given names to these instruments based on a snapshot of the incomplete notes someone behind me wrote. Some of course are obvious, but I could not memorise every bass maker's name as they went quickly though player's hands. So if anyone spots an error and can offer a correction, please email me and I will amend this page for better accuracy. I've added notes on the various awards issued for the displayed basses. Wish I'd been able to take notes... it's frustrating not being able to name every bass. The judges were not comparing any instrument directly to any other, rather they were given the task of judging each bass on its own merits according to their personal criteria; hence the multiple awards in each class, except for the one gold which was due to silver medals in both tone and workmanship. In theory, multiple gold medals could be awarded if standards in a given year were that high, according to a given set of judge's opinions. The basses are in no particular order.

No need to guess on this one; it's mine.	Joseph Grubaugh and Sigrun Seifert of Petaluma, CA - silver medal for workmanship
Guy Cole - USA, based in Arlington, Texas	Mario Lamarre's 'tsunami' bass - Quebec - certificate for workmanship
Aaron Reiley - USA - silver medal for tone	Benedict Puglisi - Australia - silver for tone, though held in customs for 11 days!
Chris Roberts - certificate for tone	Christopher Savino
Daniel Hatchez - USA - gold medal	Daniel again. He was not present, and lost his wife to cancer the Friday of the convention.
David Yorgason - certificate for workmanship	Thomas Martin - certificate for tone
Martin Penning	Nick Loyd - USA - workmanship certificate, silver for tone
Seth Kimmel - USA	Steven Reiley - USA - certificate for tone
a Texan maker, didn't catch the name	perhaps by Hannah Mayne? - USA - certificate for tone
unknown
makers' competition results list - the 'customs award' note later became a silver medal for tone for Puglisi

gerard@luthier.ca