What is a 'headless' bass/guitar?

The '80s were a wild time for music. Bass turned synthetic, jeans turned into lycra, and instruments turned into the most futuristic versions of themselves. The guitar was transformed in a variety of ways, from getting covered in zebra print to losing its head. read more

A headless guitar or bass reverses this, so that the strings are fixed just beyond the nut, so there is no head necessary. The strings then cross over the nut, go up the neck, over the bridge, and are connected to tuners on the body. read more

The headless guitar’s total body length is also much shorter. With the tuners at the base of the bridge, the body has to cut off right there, trimming the inches of extra wood that are typical of, say, a Strat. read more

Designed by Guenther Paal and built by Markus Kirchmayr, these headless basses are each made from a single piece of ebony. Photo courtesy markusguitars.at We began exploring Ned Steinberger’s groundbreaking bass in my previous column [“Introducing the Headless Bass,” September 2014]. read more