Michael Tobias Design (MTD) is a
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany, New York, Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with t ...
-based manufacturer of electric bass guitars founded by luthier Michael Tobias in 1994.
Tobias, along with two part-time helpers, currently builds about 10 electric basses per month at his shop in
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...
. MTD's Kingston, Heir, and Saratoga basses are manufactured in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
to Tobias's specifications. Tobias also designs and develops electric and acoustic basses in collaboration with musical instrument makers that have included
Lakland
Lakland Guitars is an American manufacturer of electric bass guitars based in Chicago, Illinois. The company's first bass combined elements of the Fender Jazz Bass and the Music Man StingRay. The company's current line-up includes basses inspire ...
,
Modulus, Alvarez, Brian Moore, and American Showster.
MTD is a successor to Tobias Guitars, established in
Orlando, Florida
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...
in April 1977 and sold to
Gibson Guitar Corporation
Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was forme ...
in 1990. Following the sale, Tobias moved to
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany, New York, Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with t ...
, where he began building basses under the Eclipse name before settling on "MTD" (Michael Tobias Design) for the company name and trademark.
MTD handmade American basses come in 35 inch-scale 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-string models and are available in a variety of configurations. Necks are made from maple or ash with a rosewood fingerboard. Wood bodies are made from medium weight ash, domestic tulip wood (aka Eastern yellow poplar), alder, and mahogany. MTD bodies and necks are ergonomically carved to allow access to the instrument's extended scale and feature an asymmetrical neck, a design where the neck is thinner on the lower side than the upper. Pickups and active electronics are a proprietary design for MTD made by Bill Bartolini. All currently manufactured MTD basses, including Kingston basses, employ the
Buzz Feiten Tuning System.
Lower-priced Chinese-made MTD Kingston bases include the
Precision Bass
The Fender Precision Bass (often shortened to "P-Bass") is a model of electric bass guitar manufactured by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. In its standard, post-1957 configuration, the Precision Bass is a solid body, four-stringed instr ...
-inspired CRB (or "classic rock bass") and the Kingston Saratoga bass, billed as "a modern re-imagining" of the classic
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
-style bass.
MTD Kingston Basses
MTD Kingston Website. Retrieved 2011-02-27. Features of the MTD Kingston basses include an ergonomic body shape and asymmetrical neck.
See also
*Tobias (bass guitar company)
Tobias is a brand of bass guitars originally made by luthier Michael Tobias starting in the 1970s, and later bought out by Gibson. Nowadays, Tobias bass guitars are sold under the Epiphone division.
History
Tobias Guitars was established in ...
References
External links
Official website
Bass guitar manufacturing companies
Musical instrument manufacturing companies of the United States
Manufacturing companies based in New York (state)
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