2021 NS Design CR4 Fretless & Headless Electric Bass Guitar

NS Design instruments are the Czech-made branch of the official Steinberger empire of oddness. This is an evolved take on those classic headless instruments of yesteryear and it arrived here -- last year, I think? -- via Mr. John -- who was really into them at the time. I converted it from fretted to lined fretless for him and the whole job went smoothly and it looks factory at a glance -- though the factory-made fretless version of this bass has "lines" and dots that are not as easy to follow as on this guy.

He hasn't been playing a lot of bass, lately, so it's now back here for resale and I get to finally take some photos of it and snag a video before it wanders-off again into the wild. It's a sci-fi kind of vehicle, you know? It's exciting!

It also sounds lovely -- it's got all of that fretless burr and nuance and gets to convey it through a ridiculous amount of tonal options. This bass has twin active magnetic pickups and then a separate in-bridge piezo "acoustic" element along with 3-way switches that allow all sorts of blending between the two. You can dial-in sounds that relate to a ton of various other basses... though the emphasis is, of course, firmly on fusion-y, funky, modern-forward sorts of voicing. It's fun.

Ergonomically, these fit just about perfectly and clearly that was really well-thought-out. The concave back of the body holds you close and the headless design means it's balanced very well. I have it setup to play really fast and the owner has a set of LaBella black nylon tapewound strings on it which are perfect for this sound. The tuner mechanisms on these tend to chew-up flatwounds, though, so there's a little bit of a learning process to get them installed without the windings coming-up.

Repairs included: conversion to lined fretless, setup.

Body wood: maple body with thicker flamed-maple veneer

Bridge: piezo-element embedded

Fretboard: ebony

Neck wood: flamed maple

Pickups: 2x EMG active magnetic, 1z piezo in-bridge

Action height at 12th fret area: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble 
String gauges: around 105w-45w

Neck shape: medium C

Board radius: ~15"

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: none

Scale length: 34"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

Body width: 13"

Body depth: 1 3/4" + arching

Weight: 8 lbs 0 oz

Condition notes: it's almost as-new save I converted it from fretted to fretless. There's only the very most minor signs of use I'd imagine, because I can't find any offhand though I know it got some use.

It comes with: its original gigbag.