Bay Area Luthier Recommendations

New Working Space for luthier Tristan Cole-Falek

Ace doublebass luthier Tristan Cole-Falek is now living and working on the Central Coast in Goleta, CA. Just north of Santa Barbara, Goleta is within easy reach of Ventura County up through San Luis Obispo County. Tristan is a close ally and friend of Jason Brown and he can do professional level repair ranging from neck resets, top-off crack repairs and regraduations, fingerboard replacements, All manner of setup modifications, and endpin or tuning machine installations. Tristan has iffy cell signal response, but if you text at (831) 247-7662 or email at doghousekid@gmail.com, he can walk down to the end of his driveway for a proper phone conversation !!

New Working Space for luthier Jason Brown

I had the pleasure in the last year of meeting ace southern California doublebass luthier Jason Brown at his working space in Laguna Hills, CA to perform setup work and for custom C extension installations. Jason performs all manner of repairs, restoration, custom setups, and C extension installation. With decades of luthier work, honed with years of gigging and touring experience, he has developed quite a professional doublebass following in both the orchestral and jazz worlds

After regularly fabricating and installing his custom 4-capo C extensions for the shop at the rate of 1 per month this year, we’ll get cracking on my fun project: regluing the bass bar and fabricating a TIG welded aluminum Deuce Bridge for my 1962 Wandre Naika Lux detachable neck bass. The futuristic looking Naika Lux is, to my knowledge, the first commercially available detachable neck bass. It its thought that there were only about 6 detachable neck versions in the total production run of 25 Naika basses made 1959-62. I have been on the hunt for one of these for about 15 years and was thrilled to locate one in fine shape after all this time.
Jason Brown can be reached at (949) 870-5075.

El Cerrito shop space for luthier Nathaniel Rich

Nathaniel Rich, a shop favorite doublebass luthier, has been enjoying his new work location is just a few miles north of his old digs at the String Bass Studio in Berkeley, CA. The shop is located just off of the Central Avenue exit of I-80 in El Cerrito, CA. We continue to be very happy with Nathaniel’s fine repair and setup work, complete and clear communication skills, and his easy-going, steady personality. Nathaniel is performing all of the work that he was able to perform in the now defunct String Bass Studio workspace in Berkeley. I now have three older basses in the shop inventory that have had complete restorations by Nathaniel. Nathaniel does superb work to exacting specifications.
Nathaniel may be reached at www.basslutherie.com and richbasslutherie@gmail.com