Alembic: Calling all bass players (Beau, Valis, etc)

[kdh]

I'm completely stoked about buying my 3rd bass, an Alembic short scale Essence.

Does anyone know the basses, anyone who works there, any advice?

I wrote them and haven't heard back, though they seem perfect for what I'm after.

[BeauV]

Sorry, I'm useless. I dearly love my '65 Fender P-bass until it was stolen. I have played a bunch of other basses, but the P-bass is still "home" to my fingers.

I did enjoy a Guild hollow-body Starfire like this picture. I could almost make it sound like an real upright bass. (which is wonderful)

[kdh]

So sorry about your Precision Bass, Beau. I still have my '78 P-bass that I bought in 1978. My 2nd bass, and it's been played a lot.

There should be a special place n hell for people who steal axes.

Part of my Alembic story is that they have a page on their website called "stolen basses." They simply ask that we not buy a bass that is someone else's, and they provide serial numbers and pictures (the veneer woods they use are like fingerprints). I found a stolen bass listed online that's close to what I would like to own. Told them about it.

[Rob McAlpine]

I believe that Alembic #1 belonged to Jack Casady of Jeff Air and Hot Tuna. They are gorgeous instruments, the neck-thru design seems a step up from set necks, maybe 2 steps from bolt-ons.

I have a p-bass but, being a gentleman, I choose not to play it. I'm spending a lot of quality time with a Collings I-35 lc.

[kdh]

That's exactly my understanding Rob.

[Rob McAlpine]

I wasn't going to mention that a founder of Alembic was also a legendary LSD maker. Doesn't matter. I'll have a guitar and amp back east this summer. We should make some noise.

[Soñadora]

Too bad Bob doesn't come around here anymore.

[BeauV]

So this guy is in Santa Rosa, where my #2 son lives. I might swing by and take a look.

[Olaf Hart]

So, what is the bass thing? Do you play by yourself or in a group?

I like them, but don't have one, I have a Maton 12 string from the late sixties, an early seventies Maton classic and a sixties US Ovation six string classic with built in pickup.

Maton are the top end acoustic maker here in Oz.

Play mostly by myself, sometimes jam with family and friends, but don't get playing base alone.

Are there any melody pieces?

[JoeP]

There's a great track in the soundtrack for Standing in the Shadows of Motown, a documentary on the Funk Brothers who backed most of the Motown stars. It is the bass track for "You Keep Me Hanging On" I think (Valis can confirm this). The movie is pretty cool as is the soundtrack.

[Rob McAlpine]

Jeff Tyrell, who is a member here but never drops by, is the son in law of Herbie Flowers, a renowned British session bassist, who did the bass on Lou Reed's "walk on the wild side", Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire", Bowie "Space Oddity", Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection, and about a zillion other recordings.

[kdh]

I wasn't going to mention that a founder of Alembic was also a legendary LSD maker. Doesn't matter. I'll have a guitar and amp back east this summer. We should make some noise.

They seem ready to take my money, finally. Interesting place. I have high hopes for the instrument. It'll be roughly like this, 4-string though.

[Rob McAlpine]

Is it going to be a 30" scale length?

I went to their website and spec'd a lefty. With options, got to $20K pretty easily. That's fun! You NEED the Alembic Birds of Prey inlays, at $3700.00 additional. And a bass ain't a bass without front and side LED's (+$2,500).

Seriously, I'm sure yours will be very tasteful, and I hope to hear it sometime.

[kdh]

Is it going to be a 30" scale length?

It is, 30.75". This is the length of the neck on their "Stanley Clark" basses. The upper horn should be a lot smaller than in that pic.

[BeauV]

You guys are making me want to own a bass again.... hmmm.....

I bought the BanGuitar (Baritone 6 string banjo) that is tuned like a 6 string guitar and is a GREAT rhythm instrument for bluegrass. But I've basically given up on bass playing. The bluegrass folks I know only want an upright, I'm not hauling that around! I test played all the acoustic bass guitars I could find and could not find one that sounded at all well acoustically; I'm always open to suggestions!

I'm slowly losing mobility in my fingers, I noticed it first on the piano. The fast passages are tough now.

[Rob McAlpine]

K, I want to hear it some time. Super happy for you. Those basses look off-scale beautiful and functional.

Beau, FWIW, Clapton says he's going through the same thing.

[kdh]

Is it going to be a 30" scale length?

I went to their website and spec'd a lefty. With options, got to $20K pretty easily. That's fun! You NEED the Alembic Birds of Prey inlays, at $3700.00 additional. And a bass ain't a bass without front and side LED's (+$2,500).

Seriously, I'm sure yours will be very tasteful, and I hope to hear it sometime.

They are works of art. They call the bodies, with all the different species of laminates, "hippy sandwiches." It's easy to look at that flame maple and think it's kind of out there. Not even close, as you discovered.

[kdh]

You guys are making me want to own a bass again.... hmmm.....

I'm slowly losing mobility in my fingers, I noticed it first on the piano. The fast passages are tough now.

Beau, my ability had gotten bad. But I can say without a doubt that my chops are now as good as they've ever been just from playing a lot lately.

I'm getting together with my old band from college in a few weeks. The other two guys play professionally. The drummer, Marty Richards, is phenomenal, a bassist's dream partner. Here's Marty at Fenway playing with J Geils.

[Rob McAlpine]

So cool. Was the bass player named Danny Klein?

Our keyboard player used to tour with the late R.L. Burnside, a great hill country bluesman who, I'm pretty sure, never played Fenway.

[BeauV]

Keith, as I'm sure you know, a base player with a bad drummer is a track star with one leg 2" longer than the other. Everything is just off. I can remember two amazing drummers I played with "back in the day" who were just rock-freaking-solid. It made all the rest of us sound great!!

[kdh]

Rob, that's Danny Klein. I've found pictures of him playing a Steinberger, but no Alembics from what I can tell.

[Rob McAlpine]

I remember him from the early 70's. He wore the same kind of hat, but brightly colored and feathered, like a day-glo Robin Hood. And he wasn't even the flamboyant one. Those were Peter Wolf and Magic Dick.

Memories. They opened for Yes at Brown Spring Weekend, among other mismatches. Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra with New Riders of the Purple Sage. A gallon jug of beer could be refilled for $1.00, even though we were 16.

Yes never stood a chance. J. Geils had people bouncing off the walls, they were the east coast version of ZZ Top, a badass boogie band. If you can sit through Whammer Jammer, there's something severely wrong with you.

[kdh]

Marty's played for both Peter Wolf and J Geils (the person who plays guitar). Marty has some stories, but the short one is they're fighting over the band name and don't like each other. Geils is a drunk and Wolf is a douche. Wolf is all hung up on his "art" and respecting his legacy.

I saw Tom Petty back up Geils at the Cape Cod Coliseum in the 70s. "Breakdown" was a (drug-induced) religious experience. Geils were a good party band in the day. All that "Wooba Gooba, Reputa dah Buta" shit was fun.

[VALIS]

Sorry I haven't checked in lately --

Yes, Alembic is in Santa Rosa, and I will be in that area for the next week or two (grandkids and Easter). I visited Ron Wickersham at Alembic about a decade ago, and they're still in the same location. Ron is a fun guy. I can drop by if are any specific questions or details that I might be able to help with.

Alembics are beautiful basses, but would probably be wasted on me -- I've got all I can handle with my Fender J-bass.

The last time I played was almost a year ago at Bob's place. I did recently get a call to play with an old friend and his band for a small Memorial Day benefit. I'm going to do it, but these guys aren't exactly what you would call "good" (11-1/2 bar blues, anyone?), and the last drummer they had (perhaps still do?) practically fell asleep at his kit. They had a good guitarist the last time I played with them, so between him and me it didn't turn out too bad (I had to drive the drummer as well as enforce the root).

[Rasp]

https://youtu.be/h0JvF9vpqx8

Too bad Bob doesn't come around here anymore.

[kdh]

Thanks, Valis. So far they've been completely accommodating. Ron seems the quintessential engineer. My request to his wife Susan for "a two-position Q switch, but with a 3db rather than an 8db boost" was met without a blink.

By the way, the standard tone control on their basses is an op-amp based active low-pass filter, state-variable style. Curiously, there's a resonance, a band pass element, at the low pass cutoff frequency. These things are sometimes called "resonant low pass filters." The standard arrangement is to have this band associated with an 8db boost. There is some evidence, of which I know nothing, that band pass characteristics are associated with "natural sounds." I guess I can see this, as resonances, from rooms, any regularity associated with an instrument, are everywhere.

The resonance can be switched off with this "Q switch." The whole thing (the resonance at the cutoff) seems gimmicky to me. Any thoughts?

[BeauV]

Keith, am I reading this right? They have an artificially created resonance in the bass so that it'll have a "hot spot" (as we used to call them when we built speaker boxes)? The "Q" switch turns off that hot spot? That sounds very odd to me. I spent years with a spectrum analyzer removing that sort of resonance from speakers. With the first bass speaker box I built, it was right on top of low A. A truly terrible place for it. Some struts in the box removed that resonance. We used to try and get high frequency resonance in the box, to make the bass sound a bit more like a real bass.

[kdh]

Beau, yes, you are reading this right.

I wired out the simple RC low pass on my P-bass.

To me the appeal of a resonance is likewise questionable. With an 8db resonance one could make a wah wah pedal sound by rotating the tone control back and forth. Alembic players that I've talked to online seem to never use more than a 3db boost.

To me it's interesting to think about the hollow body shapes of violins and classical instruments. My thinking is that they're irregular precisely to avoid resonance. The box amplifies frequencies across a broader spectrum by being irregularly shaped.

On my Alembic there's a through-neck made of laminates of maple and ebony. The idea is to simply support the string and use pickups to amplify the pure (full harmonics) sound. With a hollow body electric the body plays a much bigger part in coloring the sound.

[BeauV]

I strapped a oscillator to a violin once. Then ran the frequency up and down, while looking at the spectrum analyzer. The violin has very specific residences, but they are outside of the range of the normal tones a violin can produce. So the response was extremely flat, just as you suggest.

(Sorry about the typos, I am dictating)

[kdh]

Beau, I think that's key. Resonances near one of the fundamental frequencies that the instrument can produce are disastrous for the sound. If they're at harmonic frequencies they're "coloring" the sound.

To me the most sensible way of emphasizing different harmonics, the best way of coloring the sound, is to switch the pickup position, or the blend between two pickups. Bridge pickups see more harmonics than neck pickups. Any electronic filter has characteristics that are at fixed frequencies. Thus the color depends on the note being played, which seems dumb.