Maruszczyk is one of the brands that we've been exclusive dealers for in Spain for a longer time. We've always loved these instruments and it is great to see that they do not just rest on their laurels but keep improving and growing. Every year we get a lot of new Maruszczyk basses and it is great to see that the quality and number of options just keep improving but the price tag remains incredibly affordable.
Adrian Maruszczyk is a professional bassplayer and a true visionary when it comes to bass designing. The headquarters of his brand are located in Aldenhoven, Germany. Maruszczyk's motto is "From Player to Player" and it basically means that they are bassplayers who really understand what bassplayers need and can react to those needs really fast. Just check Public Peace's Youtube channel and you'll find Adrian himself doing most of the demos of his basses. We love this personal approach.
The basses are built in a small factory in Poland and Adrian Maruszczyk is really on top of the whole production system. For him it is simple: "if my name is on the bass, it has to be good".
All the hard work for years has made these instruments to be considered as some of the best European made basses.
What other brands call "Custom Shop", "Custom Built", "Masterbuilt", etc., means just standard at Maruszcyk basses. This means you won't be charged extra money just because a paticular component of piece of wood is a bit different. You just pay what you get for. We love this honest attitude. Also each bass is made to order, meaning they are actually all Custom Shop Basses. No standard series here or runs of dozens of similar instruments. In short: these are Custom Shop basses at Standard series pricing.
This model is called FROG and it is one of Maruszczyk's original designs. This instrument in particular is the signature model of the great Polish bassist Wojtek Pilichowsky, one of the funkiest players in the world.
As you can see in the pictures this is a 4 string headless bass and one of the most striking features is the incredibe balance it shows.
We love the beautiful ziricote top
The neck sports 2 full octaves over an ebony board and there's unrestricted access up to the highest note.The 41mm nut and 19mm spacing at the bridge create an incredibly comfortable feeling.
The use of individual bridges is a great idea to transmit more of the string's vibrations to the body and the angle at the break point also helps for quick string changes.
Two added bonuses are the cool "Pi" inlay at the 12th fret and the Hipshot D-Tuner that allows you to tunbe down to D (or more) at the flick of a switch. Cool.
Following the German Tradition (Höfner, Framus, Marleaux, Sandberg, etc.) there's a zero fret. There are two main advantages for using this: first of all, open strings will sound the same as fingered ones. But most importantly, a zero fret means perfect string height at the nut. A poorly cut nut can either damp the string's vibration and even cause buzz if the grooves are too deep or it can make the nots up to the 5th fret (aprox)sound sharp if the strings sit too high on it as you have to press harder than needed to make the note ring.
Maruszczyk basses always use top notch electronics. In this case we get a set of Delano X Tender 4HE. These pickups sound great. Deep and clear and completely noise free. There's a Single-Series-Parallel switch for each pickup, making this a really versatile bass. We also love the new Maruszczyk Toneformer preamp which performs flawlessly and offers 3 bands of EQ with the added extra of letting you choose the Mid Frequency (473Hz/800HZ/1,8KHz). To top it all, the Treble Pot acts as a Passive Tone in that mode so you can also get that traditional treble cut that you'd find on a passive bass.
String to string balance is exceptional
To sum up: a High End 4 string bass that is gorgeous, balanced, versatile and powerful as well as a Signature instrument.
This bass comes with a quality padded gigbag, tools and documents.