There's a lot of info on the FAQ page... here is where we lay out for you in detail what we're about and why we do this. Those explain more about why our instruments are the way they are than any technical discussion or debate over Rosewood vs. Ebony...

The best of yesterday meets the best of today...
Here at Birdsong Guitars we believe it is best to respect and build on the best bits of knowledge of what HAS happened, and combine it with the best pieces of what IS happening. Our instruments are not made of space age materials, do not have state of the art electronic packages, and are not chock full of gadgetry. They are simple and roadworthy, innovative and full of tone... the right tools for the job. Combining the hand craftsmanship, passive electronics, real wood and human service of yesterday with the production consistency of CNC (for the necks, so each neck is precisely machined to my specs and extremely consistent) and the world-wide internet marketplace, we're able to build it right, put in a good day's work, be found by all who are interested in what we're doing, keep the workshop small, and maintain a "DIY" ethic. We answer the phone, do the website, design & order the parts, cut & shape wood, build & ship instruments all over the world, and take care of whatever you may need. No superstore shenanigans, no middle-man markups, no hard-sell spiels, and no bull.  

We build short scales because we love short scales and they're the only things that fit us. Jamie and I (Scott) are 5'4". In shoes. It could be said we have a personal relationship with the concept of "short scale." :) The problem with short-scale instruments that have been marketed is one of design. Most have been aimed at students through the years, and these generally are poor quality and their ability to stay in tune is questionable. And the "vintage" designs didn't balance or sound all that great. For example, Gibson has marketed SG-body basses since the '60s. They didn't balance well or sound all that great then, and they don't now. Plus most of them now are imported from Asian guitar factories for their Epiphone line. Professional quality, well-designed, American built, roadworthy short scales are hard to find... that's why we're here!

What's put in is what it becomes...
First off, everyone at our little workshop plays. It's my wife Jamie and I with our "right hand" part-time helpers. That's it. All of us are musicians, all of us are here doing this by choice not because it is a "job" but because it is our calling, our good work. We believe music is a sacred thing, a spiritual thing, and it is our devotion to further its ripples... some of those ripples are Birdsong instruments and we're grateful for the opportunity to be of service.

Every instrument we create we pour our heart & soul into in hopes that it becomes an inspiring tool for the player, spreads good vibrations to listeners, and serves as a ripple outward of our wishes of peace, love & music... and of the  blessings gifted to us.

We work at a steady pace, but there's only so fast we'll go. If you're not new to the world of custom handmade musical instruments, you know a four to six month wait isn't unusual. Most builders are going to take that or longer, into "years" in some cases. For those of you new to it, that seems like an eternity. It's not because we drag our feet, it's because we all live in McWorld. A hand built instrument is not "fast food"... the question could even be asked, "Is fast food even food?" but that's for another time. Point being if you want art, if you want craftsmanship, if you want something of quality somebody really made, with love and devotion, it costs more, you'll wait longer, and you'll probably be in line. Whether it's a gourmet meal cooked up just to your specs in a fine restaurant, a paint job on the ol' Dodge, or a handmade bass. For those who can't wait, there's McBurger's, Buster's $99 Paint Emporium, and Guitar Monolith. 

Do keep in mind that however strange it seems, we're not a factory... we're a small group of artists in a workshop crafting your new bass. :)
It takes a couple of months to start on your build, because of the builds we're working on right now. We work at a sane pace, we close down the shop & recharge during August and over the Holidays (About Dec. 15 - Jan. 15), and all of that helps us build these little jewels how they should be, and keeps us straight as to why we do it in the first place. So thanks in advance for your patience, understanding, and support of real people of the community trying to do something positive to high standards and live simple lives filled with craft & connection... and for this, we promise to build you the absolute best instrument we are capable of. 

Go with what you know...
We're not a custom shop and our basses are not trying to be all things to all people. We are what we ARE, and our instruments are what they ARE. Our main deal is short scale basses. Why? For me it was an issue of size... for others it's a back or hand issue, or you may just want a smaller, more comfortable bass. I know simplicity, an organic aesthetic, naturalness, warmth of tone, and what feels right to me. So naturally these facets of who we are as people manifest into our instruments ~ like an artist's personality comes through in their art. This is how you know the art is true and pure, and this is our art. 

Based on experience, there were tones I felt a bass should have. So we built our basses around them... a bridge humbucker that has punch, growl and a horn-like midrange when you dig in. A neck pickup that gives a round, woody tone that has elements of an upright bass in it... great for jazz or singer-songwriter accompaniment, fantastic with the fretless option. These two pickups together give a scooped, powerful, big-bottom tone with clarity and punch you've never heard in a short-scale bass. So we really designed the instruments "from the tone up."

And I knew about short, I've been 5'4" most of my life. And I got tired of wrestling with a big, clunky bass that was too heavy and too long. And the short scales of the past always had some glaring deficiency in tone, balance, or quality. Or all three. And I knew if I needed it, others would too, for their own reasons. And I knew that some big boned ol' marketing dude designing a short scale bass... well, he wasn't gonna get it right either because what balanced on his shoulders would neck-dive on mine. What I DIDN'T know was how well a short-scale really designed by a little tenor banjo of a person, this hairy guy in particular, would work so spectacularly well in the hands of so many different sized & shaped players! Tall folks tell us it's like playing a guitar, women rave about them, and for little guys like me it's a revelation.

Wood sounds good...
The Creator did pretty darn good in the material department as far as I'm concerned. And in an instrument, I want to hear the wood. The wood should be the voice of the instrument; it's not just something to hold the pickups & preamp in place. To best serve the voice of the wood, we don't put that much between it and the jack. All Birdsongs are "passive"; no preamps, circuit boards, or batteries. "Active" is great if you like it, but it's not what we do. Passive pickups have a richness of tone and a warm character that is not equaled by active electronics, in the same way graphite or carbon-fiber does not sound the same as wood. Technology makes it easy to "improve" the character right out of something. We carefully chose our pickups after much experimentation. I much prefer the classic tones, midrange voice and harmonic content of passive pickups and am willing to let my amplifier do the boosting & tone shaping work. An instrument's tone should come from its materials, not artificial enhancement. Just my opinion, in modern vernacular "IMHO", but I'm sticking with it.

Form follows function...
Yes, they're pretty... but they look the way they look for a reason. For example, the upper horn is long so the strap button can be placed where the bass will balance; to me this is more important than the aesthetics of a short horn. And the strap buttons are designed to keep your strap on and are placed so your strap doesn't twist as it comes off of your body. It's this type of linear thought that has gone into every system, part, and setup of a Birdsong. All that said, I still want them to look good! So all our instruments are proportional - not just short necks slapped on big bodies. They're graceful... we worked hard on the lines. But they had to work right first. And the basses ship in guitar cases because they're so compact... and that's a bit more functional than a big ol' bass case you can't fit in the car!

Life's too short to count pennies...
Why pick the cheaper jack? Why use cheesy pots? A high-end instrument should have high-end jacks and pots, among other things. We don't chintz you out on the stuff you can't see. That bridge is solid milled brass. That control cavity is completely copper lined, star grounded, and even has an anti-shock circuit in it. Those knobs? Ebony. Why? Because we care, and because we can. Nobody here asks why we buy pricey parts and hand-selected materials. And nobody who owns a Birdsong questions that either. :) 

The human element...
Sadly lost in the hustle and underappreciated is the concept of a craftsperson making something with devotion and good intent, and getting a fair price for something with some character to it. This contrasts with the "shopper's ideal" of perfect shine, lots of flash, right name brand and a discount big box store price. Who really made it? What's really under the gloss? Who cares. Well, we do! The Chinese & Koreans are turning out some fine instruments, but so often this is "perceived quality"; a flawless finish and good looking chrome is nice, but not if it's on a five-piece body of the cheapest wood money can buy and the hardware is all cheap cast or bent steel. And I'm sorry, no matter how many sweaty workers' arms on an assembly line perform their tasks, that's NOT "Hand Crafted", no matter what the label says. The cheapness will dog you long after you've forgotten how inexpensive it was. 

And I think perfection is highly overrated... frets? Function? Performance? Aim really high. But I remember the first real hand-worked guitar I had, a late '70s B.C. Rich in solid quilted Maple. If you ran your fingers over just the right spot, you could feel that this piece of wood was shaped by somebody's hands. It wasn't sloppy, it wasn't poorly done, it was really really nice... but it had character to it and you could feel that it was fine handwork vs. machine perfect. "Somebody made this." I've never forgotten that. I got it; it meant something to me. 

So we hand build instruments. Does this mean we start with an axe and a forest? Do we have a foundry, and mill every screw? Of course not. But we're also not just slinging that buzzword around... and screwing together the ubiquitous Fender copy from catalog parts. There are no assembly  lines, no conveyor belts, no robotics. What we don't obtain as parts  engineered to our specifications must be selected and bought as  materials, then cut and shaped. And it's all fitted & finished by hand. OUR hands. We have nothing more fancy than you'd find in a good basic wood shop. The sawdust doesn't lie; in our shop it could be 40 years ago!

And I love all my brothers and sisters but when I take time out of my life and call somewhere, I want to speak with someone who can answer my questions, and not just off a screen with a computer modified "Americanized" voice. When you call Birdsong, you speak with the owners ~ my wife Jamie or me, here in Texas... the folks who designed and took active roles in building your instrument and who built this company. 

And you buy direct from us. There may be some retail music shops we will be dealing with. Note: Hasn't happened yet, as of January 2008... we're selling all we can build. These will be small, independently-owned shops who know what they sell and don't play games... they will be listed on the site in the FAQ. We will DEFINITELY NOT be dealing with discount superstore chains because we don't believe predatory exploitation is what the founding fathers had in mind when they outlined Capitalism; we don't think a hypothetical 30% discount is worth what you as a consumer, your neighbors as a community, or we as a society give up in purchases of inferior product from big corporate chain stores; and we don't necessarily think a bigger piece of the pie gained by those means is worth what is lost in the process.

We will not have instruments built in a factory in Vietnam or China or Mars (or Uranus either, for that matter) and stamped with the Birdsong name; we will not have our Email or phones answered in New Delhi, Upper Volta or EBE; there is no "cover-up" veneer on our instruments, or on who we really are & what we really do either. We are simple living people who make musical instruments. Not kings of empires or out to take over the world, not out to separate you from your wallet by whatever means necessary. Quite frankly when you approach something from the craftsman's perspective, you make decisions about what you're willing to invest in your pieces that pretty much guarantee you stay living simply! In other words, by the time we're done loving on a Cortobass and fitting it with the parts we use, there isn't any room in the price to fit in a retail store's cut. Kinda makes you wonder what's really been invested in labor,  materials, workmanship, and parts quality in a guitar that can sit on the wall of your local Music Monolith Incorporated for $200, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Huh? Huh? Doesn't it? Huh?  Well it should! And it should concern you too - every dollar you spend is a vote for who you want to succeed and grow. 

We will send to your door the finest instrument we can build, give you a week to fall in love with it, and back it with a warranty. Your questions or concerns will be handled by us personally, and the reputation of the Birdsong Hand Built Guitar Co. is based on your total satisfaction, not how much "product" we can "move." Birdsong is a way of life for us.

Take it all the way...
Designing an instrument (not just a headstock and a logo) is a long dark tunnel and you've got to follow it all the way through to come up with something iconic, like a V8 engine or a Beetle or a '74 Dodge... well ok, that may be pushing it. But I wanted something that was a complete original. Sure it's still wood & wire and the neck bolts on, but beyond that most everything else is outside the box thought refined into a "something different" that really works. That's what I mean by "complete." I mean we've engineered it right down to the strings we put on. For example, why two volumes instead of a master volume and a blend? Because each pickup has its own signal path and I could optimize the component values for the particular response and voice I was looking for out of each one. Can't do that if you shove 'em both through the same value potentiometer unless they're the same pickups. And they're not. So we don't. 

There's so much more to it than "Gee, I think I'll slap a P-bass pickup right here." The woods were chosen for their tonal properties in this specific instrument (Mahogany's slight midrange "bloom" is that subtle thing that made it the standard wood), the pickups for how they transmitted that voice in this specific instrument, the controls how they allowed these tonal colors to shine through the jack. It's a combination of instinct & alchemy. There won't be much changing on the Cortobass (just evolution in details), there won't be fifty variations on it ("Look! This one only has 5 pickguard screws - it's a new model! Prepare the ads and find an endorser!"). It IS. And every instrument from the original prototypes to the Electric Jazz guitar and 5-string short scale bass we're working on now goes through the same evolution, right down to component values and the personality test of plugging it in and totally disregarding if it's all things to all people... is it the best SELF it can be? What does IT have to offer for someone seeking something different than the same old same old? Does it speak? Is it done yet? Does it sing? Is it a good tool and a tool of good? Is it worthy of the feather? 

Why Birdsong?
In the quest for a bass that fit better, we seemed only to find poorly balanced old designs and inadequate sounding, cheaply made beginner instruments. So we decided to build it ourselves. We design our short scale basses from the ground up as short scales with proportions, balance points, and ergonomics to scale. If you are uncomfortable on a full-size bass but desire something more than a student model or poor performing vintage instrument, we encourage you to contact us. Professional quality short scale basses are our specialty... we designed these, we build them, and we play them.

Gratitude...
Thank YOU so much for being so interested in what we're doing you read this whole page! We are honored. None of this is to say any of what we do is "the only way"... just to show what's behind what we do. If you are considering obtaining a Birdsong instrument or are just curious what's going on out here in the woods of Wimberley, Texas, please feel free to call us at the workshop - 512.847.6014 - so we can answer your questions.