De Gier Bebop 5 Candy Apple Red
Available for pre-order.
Est. shipping: A couple of days.
De Gier Guitars and Basses has been hand-built by Sander de Gier in Schiedam, Netherlands since 1996. About forty instruments leave his workshop each year, every one a personal project for a specific player. The Bebop is Sander’s nod to the classic ’60s Jazz Bass – vintage at heart, but with modern construction details that make it a working musician’s tool, not a museum piece. We’re proud to carry De Gier at Bass Buddha; few builders today balance respect for tradition with this much considered improvement.
Body & Finish
The alder body is the foundation of this bass, and it’s the right call for a J-style instrument. Alder gives you that balanced, vocal Jazz Bass voice – clear lows, an open midrange that lets the pickups do the talking, and a top end that sparkles without ever turning brittle. It’s the wood that defined countless classic recordings, and it earns that reputation by simply staying out of the way of the music.
Wrapped in deep Candy Apple Red metallic, the body has that unmistakable muscle-car shimmer that shifts in the light. The white pickguard cuts a clean classic contrast across the face, and the natural maple headstock keeps the look from leaning too retro. It’s a thoroughly considered visual package – tasteful without being precious.
The craftsmanship and the aesthetics of this bass are just amazing
Neck & Fingerboard
Maple neck with carbon fiber reinforcements and a double-action truss rod, capped with a rosewood fingerboard. The compound radius (7.25″ to 12″) gives you a comfortable vintage feel down at the nut where most of your chord work happens, then flattens further up the neck for clean intonation and low action without choking out. 21 frets, 34″ scale, 46mm nut width, 19mm string spacing at the bridge – classic Jazz Bass measurements that work equally well for fingerstyle and slap.
The neck profile is De Gier’s medium C – fast but with enough shoulder to give your thumb something to rest against during long sets. Gotoh GB528 Res-O-Lite tuners on the back keep weight off the headstock for excellent balance.
The alder/maple/rosewood combination has been a cornerstone of bass design for decades, and once you understand what each wood contributes, it’s easy to see why. Alder is the neutral foundation – balanced across the spectrum with a punchy, controlled low end, present mids that cut through a mix, and clear highs that never get harsh. It doesn’t impose a strong character of its own; it lets the rest of the build do the talking.
The maple neck brings the bite. Maple is dense and hard, which transfers string vibration efficiently and gives you fast attack, longer sustain, and crisp clarity in the upper frequencies. Pluck a string and you feel that immediate response – notes pop out with definition, especially when you dig in. On its own, maple can edge toward bright; that’s where the rosewood fretboard earns its place.
Rosewood is warm and rich, and it does its job by softening just enough. It rounds off the sharper edges up top and brings depth to the low mids without dulling anything. The highs are still there with plenty of articulation – they just have a smoother, more musical character than an all-maple setup.
Put the three together and you get a bass that’s full and rich in the lows without going boomy, present and articulate through the mids where most of the music lives, and clear in the top end without being brittle. It’s a balanced voice that works for funk, rock, jazz, fingerstyle, and slap alike – which is exactly why this combination has lasted as long as it has.
Electronics
This Bebop 5 is upgraded with hand-wound Lollar Jazz pickups. Lollars are wound to vintage spec with Alnico 5 magnets, fiber bobbins, and cloth push-back wire. Period-correct construction that delivers an open, organic tone full of detail and dynamic response. The neck pickup gives you a round, woody thump with a singing top end, ideal for warm fingerstyle phrasing. The bridge pickup runs slightly hotter for that classic Jazz Bass growl when you favor it solo.
The control layout is De Gier’s signature passive-meets-modern arrangement: Volume, Volume, Tone, and Fatboost. The tone pot is push-pull, switching between two distinct treble roll-off tapers – a standard modern voicing and a vintage taper that nails that mid-hump, Jaco-style burp when you favor the bridge pickup. The fourth knob activates the De Gier/Vanderkley Fatboost – an active, ultra-low-noise low-frequency boost set to about 4dB from the factory, and adjustable up to 12dB via an internal trimmer in the rear cavity. When the Fatboost is off, the circuit is true bypass, returning you to a 100% passive signal path.
Specs
Body
- Body Wood
- Alder
- Colors
- Candy Apple Red
Neck
- Neck Wood
- Maple
- Fingerboard
- Rosewood
- Neck Shape
- Medium C
- Scale
- 34"
- Fingerboard Inlay
- Dots
- Frets
- 21
- Fingerboard Radius
- 7.25″ to 12″
- Nut Width:
- 46mm
- Strings
- 5
- HeadStock
- Matched
- Tuning
- Standard
Weight
- Weight
- TBA
Electronics
- Knobs
- Volume, Volume, Dual-tone and Fatboost
- Fatboost
- The De Gier/Vanderkley Fatboost is an active but subtle bass boost. It is designed to keep the sound as close as possible to the original passive sound. The boost is activated by a switch and gives you a maximum of 12dB boost of low frequencies. (We set it at about 4dB standard). It is ultra low noise. The result is as if your passive sound grew up intstantly. In the off position it is true bypass for a 100% passive sound.
- Pickup
- Lollar Pickups
Hardware
- Pickguard
- White
- Gig Bag
- De Gier