Travis Bean

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Travis Bean is an American luthier and machinist from California.

In the 1970s, he made high end electric guitars and basses featuring machined aluminum necks (an unusual design that provides incredible sustain, running through the instrument body with the pick-ups solid-mounted to the aluminum.

The majority of these instruments featured solid koa wood bodies and humbucker pickups. Models included the Artist, Standard, and Wedge (rare), with Artist models being played by musicians including Joe Perry,Slash), Stanley Jordan, Jerry Garcia and Status Quo. The TB500 model (rare) with single coil pickups is favoured by Steve Albini and Scott Paterson of Sons and Daughters. The Travis-Bean basses were played by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, Status Quo, Matt Gentling of Archers of Loaf, Rose Marshack of Poster Children, Bob Weston, who plays in the group Shellac with Albini, and Mick Karn of Japan. Bean produced several more similarly designed guitars and basses in the late 1990s, though no more than 9-10. Peggy Foster played Travis Bean Fretless Bass serial #248 on Steve Vai's Flex-Able and Anthology albums.