How it all began....

I've been a member of a bass guitar forum for about a year now, it' s been a great place to learn about new gear, see other peoples basses and talk about all bass and music related things.

Around the beginning of the year i saw a fellow bass player from Finland post some pictures showing off his new custom 6 string bass. The bass was stunning, a copy of a Fodera Imperial, with zebra wood top and ebony finger board.



(Jesse's basses, both built By Marko Ursin: Left: 5 String Matthew Garrison Fodera Imperial Copy with Figured Walnut top. Right: 6 string Fodera Fodera Imperial Copy with Zebra wood top)


For those of you who don't know (and probably a lot of you reading this won't), Fodera is an American Bass building company owned by two very talented luthiers, Vinny Fodera and Joey Lauricella. Fodera undoubtedly make some of the finest basses in the world, and this is very apparent when you look at the list of world renowned players who own Fodera basses.

One of the Fodera models is called an "Imperial". And its this model that Jesse's bass is based on.

I contacted Jesse though the forum and asked him more about the bass, and more importantly how much it cost him....
After a few messages back and forth between Jesse and i found out the bass had been built by a luthier in Finland called Marko Ursin, and he had built it at a very very reasonable price. Of course there are several differences between Marko's version and a real Fodera, but Jesse got a whole lot of bass for a great price in my opinion.

It was then i decided at some point i have to get Marko to build me a bass....


A few months later Jesse put up pictures of a second bass that Marko had built him, another Fodera Imperial copy, this time a version of the Matthew Garrison Imperial Model, a 5 string.
After seeing the pictures and listing to the sound clip of this bass, i decided to get things in motion and pull the trigger on getting Marko to build me a bass!!