Hello. As you can see from my name, I am from Artisan Bass Works. I appreciate you discussing our instruments. I would like to address a couple issues raised here.
Our claim to be "The worlds easiest playing bass" centers on the angled neck design. The neck of our basses stays in a proper playing position with no effort by the player. This eliminates the need to lift and or hold the bass in position. It allows the fretting hand to be free to fret, not hold the bass neck up AND fret. A recent customer stated "you don't realize how much effort it takes to hold the neck up until you don't have to," in his unsolicited review.
It also has to do with setup, comfort, and ergonomics. We ship our basses with a setup on par with the best, as we agree, proper setup does make a bass easy to play, which is why they need no adjustment after purchase like so many of the well known brands. The ergonomic benefits help players who struggle to play because of various issues and has impacted many players in a positive way, extending careers, mitigating pain, allowing longer playing time.
If you like your bass neck pointed down or horizontal, there are plenty of options available to you. If you want your neck to stay in a proper playing position with no effort and no dive, there is one option, an Artisan Bass.
As for tone, we use Seymour Duncan pickups and preamps, I assume you all know why. If you like to dig tone from high action, all you have to do is raise the action.
For the person who said maybe we didn't have time to test it, I must laugh. If only you knew, we spent years testing all sorts of players. We have a large database of feedback and results. Our current basses reflect the results of those years of testing. We prototyped dozen of basses, tested, refined. It was a painstaking process over 5 years. So, yes, we did have the time, and the quality of our current basses reflect that. We have assumed nothing.
Regarding the aesthetics, this is our version of the "standard." We were asked over and over again to use this traditional design and the bass pictured is our version of it, but it is certainly not the only shape available. We offer several standard body designs and we do custom builds using any body design you want. Such things are very subjective, if you just can't get over that the neck is angled, again, there are many options available. It doesn't make ours bad, it's just not for you. I find several basses many people think are beautiful, to be quite ugly. To each his own.
Thank you for looking at our product. I would be happy to answer any questions you have.
