Musicman Joe Dart Signature Bass Limited Edition #15 of 50 (pre-owned)

When Ernie Ball Music Man launched Joe Dart’s signature bass on March 1st 2019, the entire run of 50 numbered instruments sold out the same day. This is number 15 of those 50 — signature and edition number engraved on the chrome neck plate. Everything Vulfpeck’s bass sound stands for is built into it: no preamp, no tone control, no pickguard, no gloss. Just wood, one pickup and a volume knob.

Music Man built it in San Luis Obispo, California, on the StingRay/Sterling platform but stripped to the essentials Dart actually uses. The result divides opinion beautifully: to some it’s a joke about minimalism, to the rest of us it’s the most honest funk bass of the last decade. Originals from the first run rarely come up for sale in Europe.

The body is lightweight ash under a thin Velvet Natural satin finish — no pickguard, no binding, just open grain you can feel. Ash is what gives this bass its snap: a tight, quick attack and a punchy low-mid bark that cuts through a dense mix without any EQ help. Which is convenient, because there is no EQ.

The neck is the luxury item on an otherwise ascetic instrument: heavily figured maple with a matching figured maple fingerboard, finished in Music Man’s gunstock oil and hand-rubbed wax blend. It feels broken-in and fast from the first note, and the flame on the back of this one is genuinely spectacular. 22 high-profile stainless steel frets mean the board will stay crisp for decades of playing.

Scale is the standard 34″ with Music Man’s sculpted 5-bolt neck joint, so upper-fret access is easy and setup is completely conventional. Factory spec is Ernie Ball flatwounds (45–105) — the string choice that defines the thumpy, dry Dart sound this bass was designed around.

This one has been treated like the collector’s piece it is. The satin natural body is clean with no dings or wear-throughs to note, the figured maple neck is straight with a perfectly working truss rod, and the stainless frets show next to no wear — stainless steel barely ages, and this bass hasn’t been road-worn to begin with.

The electronics do exactly what they should — with one pickup and one pot, there is very little to go wrong, and nothing has. All original throughout, including the numbered #15/50 neck plate, and it ships in its original Music Man case. At 3.7 kg it’s as light on the shoulder as it looks. Want close-ups of any detail before you commit? Ask and we’ll send them.

The single pickup is a custom-wound Music Man Sterling humbucker — ceramic magnets, coils wired in parallel, no phantom coil — parked in the sweet spot. Fully passive, straight into a 100k volume pot and out. What you get is the dry, percussive, immediate sound you know from every Vulfpeck record: huge fundamental, fast attack, and a natural compression that sits in a pocket like it was mixed there.

No tone control turns out to be a feature, not a limitation. Your right hand becomes the EQ — move toward the neck for warmth, dig in near the bridge for bark, palm-mute for instant motown. With flats on it the bass practically mixes itself; put rounds on and it turns into a surprisingly aggressive passive rock machine.

Who is this for? The funk player who has been chasing the Dart sound since “Dean Town” — and the collector who knows that a numbered, first-run signature model from a run of 50 doesn’t come back around often. This is the rare instrument that’s equally at home on stage and as the centerpiece of a collection. When it’s gone, it’s genuinely gone.