In this late-’70s photo,
Ned Steinberger holds
his first carbon-fiber
prototype—the same one
recently discovered after
more than 35 years.
So many of the features were
similar in concept to later L2
basses that there was no way
it could be anything else. The
most obvious giveaway was the
carbon-graphite neck-through-body design. But the bass also
had the same phenolic fretboard that was used on later
Steinberger instruments, and
the iconic swiveling pivot-plate
was also there, as well as the
fiberglass faceplate.
We could also see the influence of Stuart Spector in many
areas: The brass nut was a dead
giveaway, because Ned later
decided to use a zero fret. The
bass also appeared to have an
adjustable truss rod, which is
I’d lost the yeti of bassdom.
The missing link had slipped
through my hands, never
to be seen again.
standard on most wood-necked
instruments, though Ned determined it was unnecessary and
removed it from his final design.
Perhaps the most unusual
feature was an appendage at
the base of the body that held
four conventional bass tun-
ers. Obviously, Ned had not
yet designed his own tuning
system, so he merely incor-
porated off-the-shelf tuning
machines. The pickups were
also unusual—they looked
homemade, and therefore were
probably from the period before
Ned began his association with
Rob Tuner at EMG pickups.
Me: Ned, did you receive
the photos and e-mail that
I sent you yesterday?
Ned: Yes I did, Don. This
is quite amazing! I sold this
bass to Steve Freidman in
