Favorite builders from a finished product perspective:
Mike Lull for building my perfect jazz bass for someone else without ever having met me or talked to me. My M5V is really a stellar instrument, superior in feel and sound to every Sadowsky, Fodera NYC, or any of the countless other 'takes' on the jazz bass I've played before or since acquiring it. Interestingly enough, that statement includes every other Lull I've played too. So yeah, this one is perfect. I do like his modern 5'ers too, though.
Sheldon Dingwall for building the most impeccably crafted instruments I've ever been privelidged to lay my hands on. They're hand built, but you'd never know it. The man is possessed of pure mechanical precision in his build process - My Afterburner would spend days without needing to be retuned, and this was back when I was playing 6-10 hours a day, throwing it into a gig bag to and from school, moving it through the wildly varied temperatures of my van in Atlanta summer, icy cold air conditioned performance rooms, and a practice lab that did its best impression of a sauna. This is not to say I never checked my tuning. I did, many times a day. Even on the days it was slightly out of tune, it was just one or two strings that needed the slightest bit of tightening to bring them back in line. Damnedest thing. I did end up selling my Afterburner, but I would LOVE to own a Super J 5 sometime in the future.
Carl Thompson because he makes a bass right. He doesn't make 'the best' or the fanciest or most immaculately constructed (Sheldon's the man to beat for that one, Ken Smith coming in a close second), he just makes them 'right'. It's hard for me to explain, and a lot of people disagree with me, but I remember the first thing I told a friend of mine after playing fellow TB'er CTBassandbirdsong's CT's: 'I was afraid of that, it felt like God made it'. I can't say as I was really surprised, there's a reason Stanley Clarke had Carl build him his first piccolo basses, and there's a reason Anthony Jackson had Carl build the first 6 string Contrabass - he's just got it. In spades. And I've really got to give credit where it's due: Carl makes a 36'' scale bass play as easy as a 34'' scale bass. I don't know how he arrived at the proper angling of the neck and bridge, possibly even the body to make it work so well, but if I didn't have the hand issues I do I probably would have ordered two 36'' scale 4 strings instead of two 32'' scale basses. Finally, one last thing I really like about Carl's bass necks: his multilaminate necks, since he only uses quartersawn pieces of wood, have laminate strips on the outside of the main neck wood rather than cutting through it, like most other luthiers do. Keith Roscoe's 3-piece necks are similar, but much more balanced looking than Carl's, which have a dominant center laminate with thinner outer laminates. I don't know if it really has any effect for better or ill, but it's nice to see something different like that, makes it a little more special.
Favorite builders from a customer service/ordering/just talking standpoint:
Bill Conklin: He is just the nicest guy, and really loves what he does. Not to mention talking you down from expensive options to make the bass you want better, instead of just paychecking like he could. I spent a couple of weeks e-mailing him back and forth about a great custom build idea I had, but it never came to anything, mostly thanks to getting the hook-up on contacting Carl Thompson. In the end I'm glad though, for one because I'd now be sitting on a $5k six string bass I wouldn't be too excited with anymore (5's enough for me, and I really prefer 4 strings) and because I turned him on to the Audere pre-amp, which he apparently hadn't been aware of. He seemed pretty excited about it. If Paul and Pete take waaay too long getting Electric Wood back up and running (in the production of NEW Wals), I may be spending some money with Bill - from playing a couple examples of the Groove Tools line of basses I don't think I'd be going wrong.
Carl Thompson: The man himself. Where to begin? I love this man, he's just so full of information, even if you don't know if you need or want to hear it. I remember vividly a 30 minute conversation about quartersawn woods that was interesting, informative, and pretty funny. He's an insteresting fellow, and the way he builds basses really appeals to me. His questions are simple, 'how many strings?', 'what scale length?' (he won't build anything with a B string shorter than 36'' though), 'how many pick-ups?', and my favorite, 'light wood or dark?'. That's as in depth as it gets, but it's enough to make the bass 'your own' even if it's mostly Carl's ideas. I didn't even need most of those questions when I ordered. I just wanted two 32'' scale 4 strings, one fretted, one fretless, and I wanted the fretless lined with a bloodwood fingerboard. Everything else was up to Carl. he immediately latched onto the idea of building them together as twins, so I imagine they're going to be pretty close to identical.
i mean, i could wax poetic for hours about what a great guy he is, what a great instrument he builds, etc. but my gear says it better : 
