Reviewed by Brady Muckelroy

I'm pleased to tell you all about the newest creation from BEE Basses! Fred Bolton now offers the option of a graphite neck for 5 string basses. We came up with the idea for this bass after many e-mails & phone conversations. You know the feeling you get... when you know you have an outdoor gig coming up/ you want great tone & playability; but you don't want to bring out your fancy boutique wood, hand-made instrument just to soak it with sweat. On the flip side: you don't want to drag out your back up bass that might say something like "Squire" on the headstock. I've owned a fretless bass with a graphite neck & it was the bass I would gravitate towards for anything outdoors. It was my worry-free axe. I wanted a fretted bass that would deliver the same peace of mind.

The body is pretty simple: swamp ash with a beautiful quilted maple top. The body shape is tweeked ever-so slightly. The upper horn is a tiny bit shorter than that of my other two BEE basses. The lines are more refined. Because the upper horn is a little shorter, the strap button is on the end of the horn instead of on back. This causes the bass to balance like it should. I've always loved that about Fred's work. Those basses balance! They do not "neck dive." The graphite neck, it'self is a beautiful piece of work. It DOES have a truss rod. Don't expect to move a grahite neck around like a wooden neck with a few little twists here & there. It's a VERY STIFF neck. It set up nicely, though. I'll tell you this: It's not going anywhere. That thing is stable! I did a 3 & a half hour wedding gig & didn't have to tune once during the whole evening. It's a wonderful thing. Not tuning for 3 & a half hours is a new thing for me. I'm the bassist who would check my tuning every 3 minutes if you let me! Not that I need to....I'm just o.c.d. that way:)  The fretboard is curly purpleheart that has been accrylicized. It, too, is a very hard wood. The accrylicizing process makes the wood more stable & adds a bit of "snap" to your sound/ while retaining the sonic character of the wood.