A little factory tour: Rob Allen Guitars!

Rob packing my Solid 4

Hi,

In July i visited the Rob Allen Guitars Shop in Gardena, CA, USA. I was there to pick up my new Solid 4.
On Facebook there is a Rob Allen Bass Owners group that fellow Rob Allen player, Christian H. started. He asked me if I could take some photos of the shop so other Rob Allen players could see where their instruments were “born”. Rob Allen makes a lot of instruments for direct orders from players all over the world. He also builds instruments that he sells in different music stores. So many owners have not been able to visit the shop. My first Rob Allen bass, a walnut MB-2 model, was bought at one of those stores in Nashville, TN.

Since the first priority of my visit was to pick up the new bass I only took a few photos. But I hope these will give a little glimpse of his lovely shop.

It was lovely to step into his shop. I was greeted by some nice ambient music and his dog!

Sit back and enjoy the tour! (Click pictures for full size!)

Link: roballenguitars.com

Garden

“Wood room”

Bodies on a shelf

Bodies

6 string head

Necks on shelf

More necks

Machines

Bodies before added top

Body and top wood

Bodies

Setup bench

Pickups being made

Instrument wall

Rob packing my Solid 4

Garden

Me and Rob

My new Rob Allen Guitars – Solid 4 – “The Magnus”

I recently bought a new bass made by Rob Allen. I have wanted a really nice solid body 4 string fretted bass for a long time and now I have found my dream bass! In 2003 I played my first Rob Allen bass at the bass floor at Rudy’s Music Shop in New York City. I felt it was something special about his basses and bought my first one at Corner Music in Nashville back in 2011, a fretless MB-2. Robs basses are so well built and he makes almost everything himself in his shop in Gardena, CA.

Monday July 13th I took a Uber-cab from my hotel in West Hollywood to Robs shop. I had only seen a picture of the body prior to my first steps inside his shop and was of course super exited and extremely curious about how it would look and feel! I knew it would be a very good instrument since I have played my fretless MB-2 for four years and absolutely loved every second of it!

The bass hang on the wall with the pickups facing the wall…and then Rob took it down and showed me “The Magnus” for the first time…WOW! It was so beautiful and every detail is so refined and lovely. The design is simple but so very powerful!

I decided to go for two pickups to be able to get both the classic P-bass sound and the J-bass sound. the controls are super slick and simple. One volume pot, with a pull/push function (when pulled it engaged a special tone circuit to get that vintage tone roll off sound of a p-bass) and a balance pot so I can go between just the neck pickup and all the way to the bridge pickup. And boy there are so many nice tones to explore. 

Rob makes, as I stated above, almost everything in the shop including the pickups that he has designed. They are hand wound in the shop! The bridge is also a work of art and has no moving parts and is a through body design!

I will go into more details and also make some videos in a future blog post. Stay tuned!

Now it’s time to get to know the bass. First gig is tomorrow. Can hardly wait!