Hey Guys, have you ever heard about this twisted neck Bass?
 
http://littleguitarworks.com/torzal-natural-twist/
 
http://littleguitarworks.com/instruments/custom-instruments/

i've seen these before, never played one though... aren't the dingwall fanned fret basses like this, too? or any instrument with fanned frets, for that matter.

This is completely different than fanned frets.  
 
It looks interesting and I'd like to try one.
 
Fanned frets have a different (optimal) scale length for each string, whereas the twisted neck is an ergonomic proposition in a different (twisted) plane with nearly equal or equal scale lengths per string.
 
There are some creative problem-solvers out there..  
 
John

I'm holding out for a twisted AND fanned fret neck.

i've definitely seen a bass that has both. i'm looking for it... i'll post it when i find it.

I never thought about warping a neck on purpose.
 
Keith

http://www.elutherie.org/2007/06/bass-guitar-magazine-reviews-the-torzal-twist-bass-guitar.html

Burrell guitars makes guitars with twisted necks and bodies.  I played one once.  Very unusual and interesting.  It played better than I expected, but I didn't notice any advantage over more traditional shapes and the action was a little high for my taste.
 
Bill, tgo

I once worked shortly for a company doing prototypes of a guitar marketed by a pickup company that had a 'twisted' neck/fingerboard.
 
This was conventional spaced/length frets, normal fingerboard radius, etc.  It was as if you put the body in a vise, grabbed the head with vise-grips, and twisted it, taking the fingerboard with it.
 
This was a neckthru piece, so it was a challenge to get everything right, then be able to repeat it reliably in a production run.
 
The guitar in question is for sale now, with a conventional (Non-twisted) neck.
 
In retrospect, this is on of those ideas that seems correct . . . your hand does rotate its grip somewhat as you reach out . . . but duplicating this in wood is hard.  I could see molding it in carbon fibre, but can't see making ANY money doing it.  And of course, there's a practical limit as to how far you can rotate the nut in relation to the end of the neck before the strings dampen out just from the twist.  And as always, most guitar players do NOT want the wheel reinvented.
 
Now, let me show you my flying car with the 100 mpg carburetor . . .

Joey:
 
Isn't that the one that runs on water that the government won't let us have?
 
Bill, tgo

Bill mentioned the action, and I'm having a hard time imagining how a truss rod adjustment is going to work on a twisted neck.

Truss rods would be in different planes.
 
A friend of mine mentioned that Ed Friedland (guy in the video I linked above) has awful left-hand technique...
 
john

Yeah, water, and . . . oh hell, gotta go, black helicopters incoming  ! ! !

John; yeah, he keeps pinching his wrist.  It almost makes you wonder if he's pinching his wrist because the neck is twisted in that direction.
 
That's a nice job he's doing of that jazz standard who's name I can't think of at the moment.  Can anyone help me out?

St Thomas
 
This guy is quite a bass player indeed!