Attitude, a 30-a aniversare

The style of the Attitude 30th is inspired by “The Wife” - Billy’s iconic and heavily customized bass that he used during his early career. It was on that bass that he first experimented with features like scalloped frets and dual outputs, which became hallmarks of his signature Attitude series.

Attitude 30th evokes The Wife with its sunburst finish, tortoiseshell pickguard, tinted neck, satin nickel hardware, and pickup covers. With the aesthetics of his original bass and features refined through three decades of the Attitude series, this instrument pays tribute to the full history of Sheehan’s remarkable career.

Attitude 30th is remarkably versatile but simple to control.

The bass features a Yamaha-designed DiMarzio Woofer and a DiMarzio Will Power split pickup with custom-milled covers. Each pickup can be routed to a discrete output, which Billy uses to process the split pickup while always keeping the deep low end of the woofer pickup.

Three knobs control the individual pickup volumes and woofer pickup tone. Push-pull switches combine both pickups in each output and activate a high-cut filter on the woofer pickup.

The Hipshot tuner instantly drops the E string down a whole step to D with the flick of a lever. A gear adjustment provides precision tuning.

Frets one through 16 use jumbo fretwire for full, round tone. Frets 17 through 21 use medium fretwire, and the fingerboard is scalloped under the top two strings for the fast runs and bends that are characteristic of Billy’s masterful technique.

The neck joint includes two bolts installed at an angle, which pulls the neck tightly to the body. This effectively fuses the two parts together, and provides the stability required to stand up to Sheehan’s energetic performance style.

Compared to a conventional bolt-on joint, miter bolting transfers string vibration throughout the body with much greater efficiency. This increased resonance makes each note come alive.

Yamaha has developed two processes that give new instruments the response and resonance of instruments that have been played for years:

Acoustic Resonance Enhancement (A.R.E.) treatment process uses temperature, humidity, and pressure to replicate the effects of time on the tonewoods. Impulse Response Acceleration (I.R.A.) releases stresses between components such as the body, neck, fingerboard, nut, and bridge.

Each Attitude 30th will include:

- A Certificate of Authenticity personally signed and numbered by Billy Sheehan

- An autographed second pickguard, fully drilled for players who want to install it on their bass.

- A copy of the Helix Native plugin from Line 6, for Mac and PC. Billy is a Line 6 artist who uses the Helix processor on stage and in the studio, and this plugin will allow players to get even closer to his signature sounds. (Audio interface and Digital Audio Workstation required, not included.)