Kauer

Kauer Electric Basses — Sacramento's Fire Breather

Everything that makes a Kauer guitar extraordinary carries directly into the bass. Doug Kauer and his team of six dedicated builders have spent more than fifteen years perfecting their approach to instrument design in Sacramento: modern playability with a nod to the golden era, CNC precision paired with genuine hand craftsmanship, PLEK'd fretwork, UV cured finishes, and a design sensibility shaped equally by 1960s American muscle cars and 1980s European performance vehicles. When it came time to introduce a new bass, the first in over a decade, the result was exactly what the Kauer name demands: something entirely their own, and entirely uncompromising.

The Draken is named after the mythical fire-breathing dragon of Norse legend, and the name fits. Angular, cubist, and unapologetically aggressive in its visual identity, the Draken is built around the same aerodynamic body concept that shaped the Gripen guitar, Kauer's newest and most forward-looking guitar design, adapted specifically for bass with the lessons of every previous Kauer instrument built into its architecture.

The Draken Bass

Kauer's approach to the Draken was direct: take the winged body concept they developed for the Gripen and realize it as a bass without the drawbacks that have historically plagued instruments with dramatic extended body wings, specifically poor balance, awkward weight distribution, and upper-fret access compromised by the body shape itself. The Draken solves all of those problems through careful engineering of the body geometry, producing an instrument that looks as angular and aggressive as its name suggests while sitting comfortably on a strap, balancing naturally, and playing effortlessly up and down the full length of the neck.

The neck is roasted maple with carbon fiber reinforcement, a bolt-on construction that delivers the snap and articulation of the bolt-on format with the long-term stability that carbon reinforcement ensures regardless of climate or humidity changes. The body design channels the angular, cubist aesthetic that sets the Draken apart from every other bass on the market, and the available finishes, ranging from vintage bursts to the bold metallics and splatter options that have become a Kauer signature, give players a degree of visual individuality that production instruments simply cannot offer.

As with every Kauer instrument, each Draken is built to order, PLEK'd in the Sacramento shop before it ships, and set up to Kauer's exacting factory standard. Custom orders are welcome, and the full Kauer color gallery and hardware options are available to players who want to configure their instrument exactly as they envision it.

Browse our available Kauer bass inventory, and reach out to discuss a custom Draken build directly.