Fret-King Dave Roe Signature Bass w/ Original Gig Bag

Fret-King Dave Roe Signature Prototype Bass
This bass is truly one-of-a-kind!

This Fret King Dave Roe signature bass is a bass that unfortunately never ended up in production, thanks to the pandemic. This bass is made with a Maple top on a Mahogany body, a Mahogany neck, and a Rosewood fingerboard. It has a 1.65" nut width, a 30" scale length, and it weighs 8 pounds 4 ounces. It features a 16" radius and a C shaped neck for a really fun playing feel, it's a joy to play. The controls are interesting: Neck volume, Bridge volume, Neck second coil blend, Bridge second coil blend, and a master tone. It comes with a pack of Dunlop strings and a Vintage brand gig bag, which is in excellent condition.

This bass is in great condition. It plays great and there's very little play wear to be seen. There are no cracks or splits, and the frets are in excellent condition. There is a crack on the pickup cover for the neck pickup, but that's about the worst of it.

This is just one instrument in a series of instruments that came from the estate of the late Dave Roe, who sadly passed away last September. He played with huge acts like Johnny Cash, Dan Auerbach, Dwight Yoakam, Carrie Underwood, CeeLo Green, Brian Setzer, Sturgill Simpson, and many others. There's no telling how many sessions, rehearsals, or shows this bass has been played on!

My thoughts:

• It's definitely a prototype, you can tell across the bass in various little details: the pickup covers are cracking and had to have been made just for this bass; the pickups are not radiused for the carved top, so you can see that on the sides; the bridge is something I've never seen before; I have no clue what these pickups are, but they do sound good!
• Pickups and the extra coil "options": I'm not sure if it is a mudbucker at the neck, but it is definitely big sounding and brings TONS of low-end; the bridge pickup sounds great too. The added volumes for the second coils add just a bit of subtle change when dialed in, most of the time I left them full on. this bass still sounds great and has its own voice - it just doesn't work for my projects right now.
• The nut seems to have been broken at the E string but seems to be repaired and very stable, it works perfectly well but I wanted to call it out (see photo).
• The original tuners were replaced with Hipshot ultra-lights, it helps bring this bass to a nice comfortable 8lbs on the dot, maybe slightly lighter - the original weight with the original tuners was closer to 8lbs 4oz. I will be including the original tuners!