Vierhund | guitars

Siggery RoadBass 4

"Vierhund"

This is my third Siggery guitar, and what a bloody lovely piece of ass she is! LOOK at that flamed maple top ... and that RED ... shit ... it's almost overwhelming ... SUCH a pretty bass.

Anyway, that aside, the write-ups for my other two Siggerys ("Siebenhund" and "Achthund") should be sufficiently clear to let you know that I LOVE Marty Siggery's work. The fact that he has traditionally been the recipient of boat-loads of shit from internet trolls who REALLY should have known better makes my frigging blood boil ... so he took a long time to build some custom guitars? Get OVER it ... the sweetness of the end result overpowers any bitterness caused by delays and shit. The bottom line is that Marty is a BLOODY GOOD GUY, who has gone out of his way to help me out in the past when he stood to gain very little from doing so. He's also one of the more hard-working builders out there ... I'd quite often ping him emails while I was writing reports for work late at night, and would routinely get a response immediately ... he was ALWAYS grafting. Once I emailed him at about 3am just before I logged off for the evening, and he (as usual) responded there and then ... turns out that he'd just finished installing a truss rod!

This was all clear evidence that he'd taken on too much work I suppose, and that kind of situation isn't sustainable.

So, it was a very sad day when I heard in February 2015 that Marty had thrown in the towel, and that he'd not be building any more guitars. Bollocks.

If you read this, all the best Marty ...

Anyway. The bass. This is a "Roadbass 4", and is the very one that is featured on the Siggery website ... I've copied screenshots below, as I guess the website won't be live for much longer. It's a poplar body with a cap of the most beautiful flamed maple ... that flame along with the intense deep, blood-red stain make it look like it's ACTUALLY burning like the gates of Hell ... or something. Maybe that makes me sound like an overly theatrical twat ... (truth IS, I'm just a twat!) but the finish REALLY IS stunning.

The two J-style pickup are from the Fender Custom Shop (and both sound GLORIOUS), and are controlled by a common volume, tone and a blend-pot. Easy. The square heel of the neck joint is held by four recessed bolts, and the neck is awesome birdseye maple with a rosewood board, fitted with 24 chunky and immaculately finished frets ... access to the dusty frets at the top is good and easy, thanks to the deep cutaway of the lower horn. All good so far!

The downside? Really ... have you been paying ANY attention?! This was handmade by Marty Siggery using premium materials with painstaking attention to detail ... there IS NO downside!

This sat for sale on one of the inter-web-net forums for bloody AGES and received no love whatsoever, which I maintain was VERY odd, and following a tip-off from a forum-buddy that it was on the market, it became evident that the asking price was sufficiently low for it to be a bit of a piss-take, really. It sat on my 'want list' for a few months, then the seller put it on eBay ... that was my cue to make a move, as I couldn't risk the thousands of eBay-eyes flirting with the 'Buy It Now' button. So, I threw in an offer (... three-figures; probably less than a third of the original build price) and shook on a deal. Result! I guess that the fact that this had been sitting for sale for a while, combined with my offer to pick it up with cash (so no nasty fees from eBay and PayPal, no packing and no trip to the Post Office...) won him over.

So why would this have sat for sale for a while at a piss-takingly low price with no takers? I think that it is a common problem with custom-build luthier stuff ... folks seem quite willing to drop £2000+ on a custom build, AND to put up with a potentially long build time, as they know that they'll get EXACTLY what they want ... the exact wood, the exact pickups, control layout, neck profile ... whatever you want. That's why it's called a CUSTOM build I guess. But most builders (including Jaden, Marty, Jon Law, Rich Atkin ...) also make guitars to their own specs in the hope that someone will like it ... made with the same care and attention, using the same top quality bits ... and still priced way up there with the custom built stuff, and justifiably so. The used value of such guitars seems to be SHIT for whatever reason. I don't pretend to understand it. I've got a dozen remarkably good luthier-built guitars that cost less than a basic Chinese starter-guitar ... so you get the best of the best for the price of some low-end plywood thing. Crazy. As is the case with this Siggery ... probably the best spec that I could imagine, for less than the price of a Mexican Fender Jazz. That's like buying a Bentley / Ferrari for the price of an old Ford. Bizarre. And before the flaming starts, I've got NOTHING against Mex Fenders (OR old fords!) but hopefully you see my point. Anyway ... it's my gain, as I'm snapping up as many of this sort of thing as I can find.

In use? It's as buttery and smooth as a Werther's original. The neck is a JOY ... no other way to put it. It looks like I'll be playing a lot of bass for a while!