Artistry with strings attached

Duncan of Jordanstone college lecturer Douglas Mullen shares his passion for designing bespoke bass guitars

From my workshop in Dundee, I design and build beautiful, bespoke, handcrafted basses. The care and passion that goes into each guitar has seen my company Eve Guitars establish a worldwide clientele of exponents of what I view as a misunderstood and under-appreciated instrument.

People see a bass as a normal guitar that is stretched out but technically it is an altogether different animal.

It originates from the double bass and was transposed into an electric guitar design. Because of its size, there are problems with weight, balance and scale and often bassists spend too much time worrying about holding their instrument up rather than just playing freely. These are things that haven’t been addressed properly in previous designs so I’m trying to redesign these components so it fits the individual better.

My first experience of being a luthier – someone who builds guitars – came at high school in Glasgow. I had formed a band with some friends, although my parents were reluctant to shell out for expensive equipment lest this latest interest fell by the wayside.

The limitations of my first bass became apparent fairly early so I soon got to work in the school’s woodwork lab.

I wasn’t particularly good at woodwork so it was all trial-and-error and best guesses. It worked out well and I won a couple of design awards for the guitars I had built.

My burgeoning manufacturing career was sidelined when I began studying at Duncan of Jordanstone.

After graduating I worked in teaching and as a freelance graphic designer before a chance conversation with a friend led me back to the life of a luthier.

Someone asked what happened to the bass guitars I used to make and it sparked the interest again.

I got to thinking that if I wanted to do it then I had to really commit to the craft. There were a lot of mass-manufactured cheap imports around in the 90s, which pushed many luthiers out of business, but the market has changed and now people are looking for more individual and bespoke instruments.

Since then I’ve built hundreds of guitars for clients ranging from professional musicians to passionate amateurs looking for an instrument that reflects their personality.

My custom guitars begin selling from around £2,400 and take at least 12 weeks to build, while stock instruments cost from £1,200.

Every aspect of the process is discussed with customers before we confirm an order and using my expertise I design an instrument that, first and foremost, sounds exactly as the buyer wants it to.

I spend months designing every aspect to make sure it is functional then consider the aesthetics later. Good design is not about how something looks but how it functions. Every single Eve bass is made by hand, which is very labour intensive. We produce around 20 instruments a year, which is testament to the amount of handcraft in every individual bass.

Each instrument is made of natural materials and I eschew the type of finishes associated with mass-market competitors. I believe that if something is to be built with high quality materials and precise workmanship, then it should be shown in its natural state rather than buried under paint and lacquer.

It is this dedication to the beauty of my products that sustains me through the arduous days and nights at the coal face. If someone asked me about making guitars for a living I’d tell them not to do it if they wanted to get rich and retire at 40. I’d also tell them it’s not very rock n roll when you’re stuck in the workshop for hours on end covered in dust.

But like most creative endeavours it is very rewarding on a number of levels and one of my next goals is to introduce a course in Dundee that will teach people how to make their own instruments.