# RSS News Feeds > RSS News Feeds >  Terrifying, yet fascinating at the same time.

## NewsFetcher

JazzMando What's New - This would put fear in the heart of any decent, self-respecting mandolinist. Still, it's an intriguing concept, a bass made to resemble a banjo, AKA "Bass Banjo."


Photos courtesy *Marcia Claesson*

Its player a local friend of ours, *Evert Claesson* weighs in, _"The guy playing the guitar (Gem Miller) made it. Some years back he was playing with a group of banjo players and there was an upright bass accompanying them. He thought the bass looked "out of place" so he decided to roll his own bass banjo. He usually describes it as an "Obscure Hungarian instrument" whose name is spelled Biggaatz. He's not sure about the pronunciation, but, according to him it's a "Bigass" bass banjo. It's fun to play (much easier to play than an upright) and it sounds fairly decent. I had been thinking of getting an upright but a decent one would set me back about 1200 - 1500. I get to play this one for free and it doesn't kill my hands."_ 

Nice!





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## Jake Wildwood

Totally missed this little newsflash...!

I'm currently building a banjo bass for myself because I've been playing a lot of bass and singing lately to bulk up our small group's sound, and (at least for practices and acoustic sessions) I'm not interested in having to amplify myself -- the blend is never quite right when I'm the only one plugged in.

Mine's going to be a 23 1/2" rim with a fretted neck, but I have high hopes for the volume and low notes because the bridge should be smack center on the head. The idea is to make it as lightweight as possible and have it (possibly) fit in some sort of small bass or cello gigbag.

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## oldwave maker

I built this one so I could remember all the banjo jokes on the fretboard, still need to inlay the uss enterprise, but no frets left. Fits in a banjo gig bag, great for irritating delusional hackers at blues and funk gigs.......

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