F Bass BN5 Olympic White

F Bass BN5 — Olympic White

For over three decades, George Furlanetto’s workshop in Hamilton, Ontario has been building the BN5 – and it’s still the bass that defines what a modern boutique 5-string should do. This one is on its way to us right now and you can reserve it today: gloss Olympic White with gold hardware and a rosewood fingerboard, which is about as elegant as the model gets. Vintage colours on a thoroughly modern instrument, expected in stock within 5-6 weeks.

The BN5 isn’t a J-bass copy with a fancy price tag. It’s its own design from the ground up – the scale, the neck carve, the pickups and the preamp were all drawn to work together, and you hear it the moment you play one.

Body, Neck & Woods

The body pairs alder and ash — alder brings the even, slightly warm midrange that makes a bass sit naturally in a mix, while ash adds snap and definition on top. It’s a combination that gives the stacked single-coils something articulate to work with at both ends of the spectrum, dressed here in a deep gloss Olympic White.

The neck is F Bass’s three-piece quarter-sawn maple construction with a varnish finish — quarter-sawn for stability, three pieces to keep it that way for decades. The Indian rosewood fingerboard runs a 10 to 16 inch compound radius: rounder near the nut where you play chords and grooves, flatter up high where you want low action for soloing. The carve is asymmetrical, slightly more aggressive on the treble side, which makes the neck feel faster than its measurements suggest.

The 34.5 inch scale is one of the BN5’s quiet masterstrokes. That extra half inch over a standard 34 inch scale adds just enough string tension to tighten and focus the low B — without making the bass feel any different to play. Combined with F Bass’s nickel frets in their flattened pyramid profile, notes speak quickly and stay in tune under your fingers.

Electronics, Sound & Feel

The two F Bass stacked single-coils give you genuine single-coil clarity — open, woody, articulate — with the hum cancelled by the stacked design rather than by compromising the voice. Solo the bridge pickup and it barks; blend in the neck and the whole bottom end blooms.

The F Bass preamp is all-boost: with everything flat you hear the instrument itself, and the bass, mid and treble knobs only ever add what you ask for. It’s an honest design — no scooped starting point, no EQ guesswork. Pull the master tone knob and you’re fully passive, which doubles as both a fail-safe and a genuinely great vintage voice. Controls sit in two rows: neck volume, bridge volume and master tone up top, the three boosts below.

This is the bass for the player who wants one 5-string that does it all with class — studio clarity, live authority and a low B that spoils you for everything else. We rarely get to hang a BN5 on the wall for long, and in this colour combination we don’t expect this one to be the exception.