Michael Tobias Design (MTD) is a

Kingston, New York Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with the New York metropolitan area around Manhattan by the United ...

-based manufacturer of electric bass guitars founded by luthier Michael Tobias in 1994. Tobias, along with two part-time helpers, currently builds about 10 electric basses per month at his shop in

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 200 ...

. MTD's Kingston, Heir, and Saratoga basses are manufactured in China to Tobias's specifications. Tobias also designs and develops electric and acoustic basses in collaboration with musical instrument makers that have included

Lakland Lakland Guitars is an American manufacturer of electric bass guitars based in Chicago, Illinois. The company's first bass combined elements of the Fender Jazz Bass and the Music Man StingRay. The company's current line-up includes basses inspired ...

, Modulus, Alvarez, Brian Moore, and American Showster. MTD is a successor to Tobias Guitars, established in Orlando, Florida in April 1977 and sold to

Gibson Guitar Corporation Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was for ...

in 1990. Following the sale, Tobias moved to

, where he began building basses under the Eclipse name before settling on "MTD" (Michael Tobias Design) for the company name and trademark. MTD handmade American basses come in 35 inch-scale 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-string models and are available in a variety of configurations. Necks are made from maple or ash with a rosewood fingerboard. Wood bodies are made from medium weight ash, domestic tulip wood (aka Eastern yellow poplar), alder, and mahogany. MTD bodies and necks are ergonomically carved to allow access to the instrument's extended scale and feature an asymmetrical neck, a design where the neck is thinner on the lower side than the upper. Pickups and active electronics are a proprietary design for MTD made by Bill Bartolini. All currently manufactured MTD basses, including Kingston basses, employ the Buzz Feiten Tuning System. Lower-priced Chinese-made MTD Kingston bases include the Precision Bass-inspired CRB (or "classic rock bass") and the Kingston Saratoga bass, billed as "a modern re-imagining" of the classic

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

-style bass.MTD Kingston Basses
MTD Kingston Website. Retrieved 2011-02-27. Features of the MTD Kingston basses include an ergonomic body shape and asymmetrical neck.

References

External links

Official website
Bass guitar manufacturing companies Musical instrument manufacturing companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in New York (state) {{US-manufacturing-company-stub

See also

References

External links