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 OMEGA and it is one of Maruszczyk's original designs.
As you can see in the pictures this is a 5 string fretless bass and one of the most striking features is the incredibly low weight of just 3.75kg. Of course the poplar eye top with matching headstock is really cool too.
The neck sports 2 full octaves over a beautiful lined ebony board and there's unrestricted access up to the highest note.The 45mm nut and 18mm spacing at the bridge create an incredibly comfortable feeling. Lightweight tuners help keep the bass in place when playing seated or with a strap.
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 notes 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. An added advantage of the zero fret is that if you decide to use an alternate tuning such as EADGC you don't need to change the nut.
Maruszczyk basses always use top notch electronics. In this case we get a single Bassculture 38 HB pickup with ebony cover (matching the fingerboard). Electronics are 100% passive so you get Volume and Tone controls but the 3 way switch lets tyou choose between Single Coil, Series or Parallel modes. All 3 modes sound great and prove that you can actually get all the sounds you'd ever want from a fretless bass with just one pickup and passive electronics.
String to string balance is exceptional. The Low B is strong and clear as you would expect from a bass with an extra long scale. But the good news is that the other strings don't suffer from excessive tension because the scale is different in all of them.
To sum up: a High End fretless 5 string bass that is gorgeous, lightweight, versatile, powerful and has an amazing low price tag.
This bass comes with a quality padded gigbag, tools and documents.