 The wood-burned feather, the hand-carved exotic wood truss rod cover, the ebony nut and zero fret. |
by Millard Ellingsworth, bass player, The Marsh Mellow Stone Band
As owner of the very first Cortobass sold to the public and a very happy Birdsong Guitars customer, I kept asking myself why I got writer's block whenever I started to write this review. I write frequently at work and have worked as a journalist and product reviewer and have run my own publishing related web site. I'm almost as likely to write as to speak.
But my Cortobass has left me wordless. Okay, I have a lot of glowing remarks to make about my Cortobass, I just haven't been able to figure out the right way to start a review. I finally decided the reason for my hesitancy is in deciding whether to describe the Cortobass relative to other short-scales or relative to all basses.
In short (in case you're not the reading type), the Birdsong Cortobass is a compact, professionally hand-built bass guitar that delivers pro-level sound in a light-weight, easy to play instrument.
And there's my (actually your) dilemma - when you can wield a comfortable, playable, light and easy to wear bass like the Cortobass, why would you hurt your back playing something else? No bass I've ever strapped on balanced as nicely as the Cortobass does (and with a Guitar Center a mile or so from the office and the Gear Trader a mile or so from home, that's a lot of basses). Imagine how much better you can play if your fret hand doesn't have to help hold the neck of your bass up. Now imagine how much better you'll feel in the morning after a four hour set the night before wearing a well-balanced bass that comes in under 8 lbs.
| Since this review was written, Birdsong has announced several additional Cortobass models, taking advantage of the custom built nature of the process to provide players with more options and other price points. More details at the Birdsong web site. |
I'll get to how great the Cortobass sounds shortly, but many bass players - because they have never had really good options - don't really think about ergonomics when they choose an instrument. Everything on the wall at the music store weighs around 10 lbs and is nearly 4 feet long. So the primary factors end up being "what can I afford that looks cool and sounds good?" rather than "what can I afford that fits me, is comfortable to play and sounds good and looks cool?"
If you spend much time reading guitar and bass discussion boards or magazine articles, two things are evident: (1) when someone is looking for advice about buying a regular guitar, fit, feel, and action are all an important part of the buying decision along with price and how it sounds and (2) there are lots of former bass players who chose to stop playing because of back problems they attribute to their instruments. Ever see those players who seem to play from the fifth position up? They're avoiding those widely spaced lower frets and missing out on the sounds open strings can make. I know, I used to be one of those players.
So I'd encourage you to read on and learn more about the Cortobass especially if you've always played a more traditional model. If you are a short-scale player looking for a professionally crafted, high quality bass, just head over to www.cortobass.com and place your order. You'll be delighted (and if for some reason you aren't, they'll either make it right for you or refund your money).
Jump to: detailed component description, the SOUND, short-scale comparison, conclusions, photo gallery
I like playing the "money frets", the ones up near the nut where the bass really sounds like a bass. I like the occasional open string. I am not a large person, though I certainly wouldn't be considered a small one, yet getting good sounding runs on those widely spaced frets has always been quite a challenge for my small hands on a traditional bass. Between the arm reach to get to the top of the neck and the wrist angles available after you reach that far, it's just not a comfortable position to work from. Clearly, some players deal with this by wearing their bass really low, but this just moves the difficulty to their picking hand (you know who you are). Why should playing be hard?
For years I've occasionally searched the Web for "short scale bass" and came up with the same small set of answers. I found the Fender Mustang this way along with several other basses that I couldn't consider seriously. In July of 2004, something new finally showed up. My Google search showed something called a "Cortobass". A flurry of emails began between southern California and central Texas that wouldn't let up for months. I had to know more and when I did, I had to have one.
The Cortobass ("corto" is Italian for short) is hand-built by the Birdsong Hand Built Guitar Company of Wimberley, Texas (www.birdsongguitars.com or http://www.cortobass.com). They bill it as "a bass that fits". The current design of the Cortobass actually fits into a standard guitar case. While they claim to have designed the bass for people uncomfortable with the standard size and scale, I think many players would benefit from the lighter and more comfortable Cortobass. If you are also a guitar player, you'll love that it is about the same size as your guitar -- moving between the two was never so easy.
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Since each guitar is hand built to your specifications from a small menu of options, the specifications may differ somewhat from model to model. The mahogany body models tend to weigh in under 8 lbs while the alder and poplar versions get closer to 7 lbs. All Cortobases share a similar body style and pickup configuration and these basic features:
Also, because the bass is hand built, there are a variety of options including a plain slab body (without the standard Cortobass contours), different body wood choices, different finish choices, wood knobs instead of metal, different control plate materials and finishes include a wooden one, thumb rest, different color hardware (gold or black instead of chrome), some alternate pickup options, and more. The price includes a sturdy and plush hard shell case and shipping. You can also get a CD of "baby pictures" documenting your bass at each step along its production process.
The Cortobass comes standard with Hipshot® Ultralite tuners and brass milled bridge that can be strung through the body or not as you see fit. Like all the other high quality parts on the Cortobass, these are well and purposefully chosen.
While we're going over the instrument's details, we might as well do a complete job. Starting from the headstock we'll work our way to the end strap button…
The headstock features custom wood burned logos and a hand carved arrow head truss rod cover. The tiltback headstock profile pulls the strings down over the nut, adding extra sustain. A zero fret increases playability and consistency of sound between fretted and open strings. The Hipshot UltraLite tuners are in a 2+2 configuration.
The neck uses three pieces of maple laminated together for strength and to resist warping and twisting. It has a "chunkier" profile, filling the hand a bit more than the thin necks on some basses. This fuller profile works well with thinner profile of the fretboard. String spacing at the nut is relatively tight, making it easier to reach the bottom-end and play well on all strings. A double action truss rod provides full control over relief adjustment. The adjustment nut is located at the headstock under a hand-carved exotic wood arrowhead. The rear of the neck has a satin oil finish that your thumb just glides over - no sticky lacquer finishes here.
To balance out the brightness of the hard maple used in the neck, a thick slab of select rosewood is used for the fretboard. The edges are nicely finished and rounded over and the dot markers are just on the upper edge of the fret board, leaving a nice clean look to the board itself. The fretboard radius is somewhere between the vintage "baseball bat" feeling necks and the modern thin necks. Frets are medium sized, neither big and clunky nor overly thin.
 The neck pocket is so tight that the neck seats perfectly and will not move even with no support. |
The body on my bass is Honduran Mahogany, though as noted, Birdsong makes hand finished bodies from a variety of tone woods. It has useful ergonomic contours for your body and your arm, making the bass fit in a bit tighter and easing the interface with your arm. A hand-rubbed oil finish protects the wood while letting its beauty show through. A Hipshot heavy milled solid brass bridge anchors the strings to the body, offering either through-body stringing or stringing through the end of the bridge. The control plate cover is distinctively styled and can be made of several different materials and finishes. All knobs are high quality metal attached securely to smooth shaft pots.
Inside the control cavity, the Cortobass has better shielding than I've ever seen in a guitar. Real copper lining and shielding in the cavity and the back of the control plate cover. The wiring is carefully done and star-grounded to limit any chance of hum or interference. You can't control everything in the user's environment, but Birdsong seems to have done everything humanly possible to keep your Cortobass from being the source of any unwanted noise.
The "Gripper" strap buttons are a nice touch and really do make a nicer fit into your strap to keep your bass on. I've seen people lose a guitar on stage and I bet it wouldn't have happened with these buttons. There is only one design element of the Cortobass where I don't completely agree with what Birdsong has done - the location of the output jack. I appreciate what they were trying to do - make the jack easy to find - but I could feel the jack when playing and it distracted me. Fortunately, Birdsong offers mounting on the edge of the body which is where I had mine moved to.
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I saved the best for last -- the high quality pickups and the Varitone control. Rather than use a standard "tone" control that simply bleeds off treble frequencies as you turn it from 10 to 0, Birdsong has configured a six position "tone selector". Each position cuts various frequencies, creating a particular filter for the pickup's natural sound (one of the positions is a true bypass). Each position is meant to give a certain voice to the guitar, not emulate the sound of some other guitar. (You may have noticed that the new Seymour Duncan "Tweak Fuzz" stomp box uses essentially the same 6-position Varitone for "six positions of tone".) It's probably best to let Birdsong describe the Varitone's configuration (used with permission from their web site):
From the first setting (bypass), the next few will cut the high frequencies at increasingly lower points resulting in funky midrangey tones. The last two are very deep sounding; with some sonic tweaking on your amp these could provide interesting main tones, huge sounding with distortion or great for reggae or dub clean. With the neck pickup and a deep setting, it has an "upright bass" flavor. Some varitone settings may be more effective than others depending on your personal amplifier settings. Use your imagination and explore!
And they didn't hook the Varitone to just any pickups. The neck position pickup is a Lace Sensor Gold that delivers warm and smooth tones -- unless of course you attack the strings with a pick. I've gotten some of the coolest, grittiest, growling sounds from my Cortobass's neck pickup when using a pick. When I mentioned this to Birdsong, their response was that the Lace Sensor pickup is the Cortobass's "secret weapon".
The EMG Select in the bridge position is punchy and strong and sounds great with some distortion effects. Despite its sophisticated looks and hand-built pedigree, you can make heavy metal noise with a Cortobass. I like the sound of the Lace Sensor so much that I only occasionally run the bridge pickup, unless of course I'm blending them together. Between the two very differently voiced pickups, infinite blending control and the Varitone, you can find just about any tone you want from a Cortobass before you hit your outboard effects.
Did I mention the SUSTAIN? I've had to get better at muting notes since I started playing my Cortobass. The mahogany body assisted by the tiltback head stock, high quality brass bridge, and through body stringing, just rumbles. I can feel what I'm playing in my belly.
Okay, enough talk, here is what it sounds like. These clips were done running the Cortobass directly into a Mackie mixer's XDR input, using the gain of the mixer's pre-amp to amplify the tone. I can't imagine a better way to get you a completely clean "this is just the bass" sound.
The clip that you'll here over and over in many of the clips is from Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" (credit goes to Dan Lasley at GuitarNoise.com for suggesting this as a great bass/amp testing riff). Here is the music and TAB:
Here are some clips intended to show how the Varitone sounds in the different settings. I played "The Chain" riff above and captured a clip with each pickup and Varitone setting, trying to play as consistently as possible. Then I put them in series (from position 1=bypass to 6) so you could hear them back-to-back. Play them on the best speakers you can as many computer speakers don't reproduce bass all that well. Decent headphones will work.
To offer something a little higher up the fretboard, I also did an approximation of that memorable bass lick from the chorus of Alice Cooper's "Be my lover" (you know, the part that goes '...you better take me home da-dum-da-da-dum-da-da'). Don't hold my playing against the guitar:
 Fender "Sting" Precision Bass and Birdsong Cortobasslined up at the first fret wire |
But, you ask, how does it compare to a "real" bass? You've heard that short-scales don't have as good sustain or low-end as a full 34" scale bass. I borrowed the best 34" scale I could put my hands on, a Fender Precision Bass, "Sting" model made in Japan. If you want to read up on that one, check out Harmony Central's reviews. This particular model is known for having a bit more low-end growl, so it seemed a way to push the comparison. The single coil pickup in the Fender was particularly high output.
In the sound clips below, a variety of licks I either wrote or borrowed are played first with the Cortobass's Lace pickup, then with the Fender P-bass, then with the Cortobass's EMG pickup. You can use your own ears to decide if there is enough bottom end in the Cortobass to suit you. The Cortobass's Varitone is in the #2 or #3 position for most of the licks.
Also, these licks were recorded with brand new DR strings (Nickel Low Rider mediums). They were put on the Fender, stretched and played a bit, then the recordings were made. Then the were put on the Cortobass and the same samples recorded again. In all of the sound clips, the bass is run straight to the XDR pre-amp on a Mackie Mixer with gain set per Mackie's instructions. Output from the mixer was set based on reasonable recording volume through a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card, recording into Adobe Audition. No processing of any sort was done on the sound clips except small amounts of volume bump so that clips in a series would sound at a similar volume.
You may have noticed that there is a little less low-end in the Cortobass than the Fender P-bass (or maybe not, it isn't that easy to spot). Mostly, that's simple physics: the 34" string length can get a little lower than the 31" string length. In my opinion, the trade-off not as important as the increased playability of the shorter scale length bass. With a little EQ tweak, I can get the low-end up and keep the playability and comfort.
As a perfect example of the playability benefits, I recently wrote some bass parts for a friend's acoustic material. While playing around with some different parts, I happened across this little bendy thing that was perfect for one of the songs. It followed the melody line, yet added a bit of tension at the same time. I tried playing it on the 34" scale P-bass and just couldn't make it happen reliably -- the bend was just much harder to do, especially getting it up and the releasing it nicely. Yeah, I could practice it a lot and improve my technique on the longer scale instrument, but it would never be as easy to play. When I did get it to work on the P-bass a few times, it didn't sound as good anyway because the Fender didn't sustain as well as the mahogany body on my Cortbass.
I wrote and performed better music on the Cortobass, how much more of a recommendation could I give it?
 Epiphone Rumblekat, Fender Mustang, Birdsong Cortobass |
In case you are a short-scale shopper, I'll share my experiences with the Cortobass, the Fender Mustang, and the Epiphone "Allen Woody" Rumblekat. It won't be any surprise, that the Cortobass is by far my favorite. The Rumblekat went on eBay. The Mustang is a disturbing shade of orange and I don't take it out often. Both the Rumblekat and Mustang had terrible balance with lots of head stock dive towards the floor. I significantly improved the Mustang's balance by replacing the existing tuners with HipShot(r) Ultralites and moving the end strap button up an inch or so.
The Rumblekat rumbled and did it reasonably well and was reasonably playable. It was just a bit one dimensional, particularly compared to the Cortobass. Because of the Rumblekat's body style, the neck sits further to the left, making it feel and play more like a longer scale model than the other two. It's a fine enough guitar for its under $500 street price - it just ain't a Cortobass.
The Fender Mustang was my original short-scale bass. With the modifications mentioned above, it has turned out to be reasonably playable instrument and goes to gigs as the backup (at least until I can get a second Cortobass). It has that "vintage" Fender sound and nice quiet pickups and I like the nice thin profile neck. I'll be keeping it even though I hate the color.
I was engaged in a constant search for a great short-scale bass. My persistence really paid off because what I got by continuing to search was a great sounding bass that plays and feels the way a professionally made instrument ought to. Personally, I love the aesthetics of the instrument - the naturalness of the wood, the lack of paint, the perfectly fitted and installed components. I love the way it sounds and the way it cuts through. I love the nice things people say about my tone and my instrument.
The best way I can think to summarize the design elements of the Cortobass would be to say that it is a bass truly designed and built by a player. Not reviewed and signed off by a player or built to a player's specifications, where little details can get lost in translation or just plain left out because the builder didn't understand how important they were, but built by someone who intended to play it himself, sparing no detail that would improve his enjoyment of the instrument.
With the money-back guarantee and my excellent experiences working with Birdsong, you really can't go wrong. You have a week from receipt of your finished instrument to make sure it is really what you want. I can't imagine that you would send it back, but it is there to help make sure you are happy. With the 5 year warranty (details at the Birdsong site), they plan to make sure that you stay happy. You have nothing to lose but that ache in your back.
PS: Don't buy "short scale" bass strings as the extra length required to string through the body will make these come up short. Medium scale strings should work okay or just use normal bass strings.
Click on the small picture below to see a much larger version.
 bridge details |
 head stock |
 zero fret, neck |
 tiltback |
 neck pocket |
 head stock details |
Comments? Spelling errorz? Shoot me an email at millard@MarshMellowStoneBand.com.
About the author
Millard Ellingsworth lives and makes music and writes and develops software in southern California. He has been playing bass and guitar on an off since high school, more on than off in the last several years. After stints with Taking Fire, Oceans Apart and dear jane, he has settled into a great group of musicians with The Marsh Mellow Stone Band.
Millard used to own and publish a competition shooting web site, sportshooter.com, before it was purchased by The Outdoor Channel several years ago as supporting content for a new show they were developing. He wrote many detailed articles on all aspects of competition shooting including many equipment reviews.
There is no financial relationship of any sort between Millard and David Eden Electronics or Tech21 NYC or Adobe (except that he is a customer). No compensation of any sort was provided for writing this review. But you can send money and gear if you want to. Or just buy my band's CD and a t-shirt.