I still build my basses the old-fashioned way, using routers and fixtures to cut the main dimensions and surfaces of the bodies and necks. No CNC here. But I design my basses in AutoCad, and print out patterns to make the routing templates. Does that count? There are a lot of us Luthiers who still do it that old-fashioned way.
It's really hard to define "handmade" these days. Many small high-end builders now use CNC in place of the traditional pin routers to rough out the wood parts. But they still put a huge amount of skilled, detail labor into trimming and fitting the parts together. CNC routers are a big help, but they don't save as much labor as you might imagine, as compared to the traditional pin routers with good tooling. Remember how many millions of instruments Fender turned out with pin routers, very efficiently, a few decades ago.
To me, the gradation between Mass Produced and Handmade is about the total number of hours put in on each instrument, regardless of the types of machines and level of technology used. Inexpensive basses are built in large quantities at one time, putting only a few labor hours into each one. Expensive instruments are built in small quantities, putting 50 or 100 labor hours into each one. It's really a simple as that.
Expensive instruments can be built using CNC machines and still require 50 hours of skilled detail labor. Doesn't that qualify as Handmade?
I'll probably eventually build myself a couple of specialized CNC machines to do some of the grunt work in building my basses. The machines are getting cheaper every year, and the technology is getting easier to work with. But I'm always going to build my basses in small quantities with lots of hand labor (by me).
