Thought everyone might enjoy checking out this 1978 Double neck that I saw on the internet. I assume it was originally made for someone who is well known. I can't imagine anyone else having something like this built. If anyone knows the story behind it I would like to hear it.
http://www.gguitars.com/al781000.html (http://www.gguitars.com/al781000.html)
The John Judge bass. It gets talked about from time to time here. A search should turn up a few discussions including one about the rather interesting inlays. As to who John Judge is/was I am no help. If you can find anything on him please pass it along.
Sam
I think for $10k it's quite a deal, if for nothing other than the value of owning the legendary John Judge bass. Realistically, though, you could get three nice used Series instruments for that kind of money on ebay if you were patient. Sam's right; although his instrument is the stuff of legends, there is precious little known about the man himself.
John (wishing he had $10k laying around)
I know someone who used to own a double-neck Wal (not the Jonas Hellborg bass).
20 pounds, he says.
Not I.
the description of the electronics seems either very un-Alembic or is surprisingly uneducated for a store that's an Alembic distributor.
i love that tailpiece. what'd that sorta thing cost?
20 pounds? I believe it. My Series I is more than heavy enough for me. I can't imagine lofting a doubleneck around all night. Hartmut has a sweet double Alembic bass also, if you haven't seen it already: https://club.alembicguitars.com/info/doubleneck.html (https://club.alembicguitars.com/info/doubleneck.html)
John
I see this bass quotes a weight of 18.4 pounds. . . surely a back breaker.
Ah, it is nice to see more pictures of this double-neck bass. Mika once faxed me a photocopy of it when I was about to order mine, but I never saw many details on that fax. Thanks for the link!
10k$ isn't bad at all for this one! Except for the fact that 10k are a lot of money whatsoever. Don't forget you indeed get two instruments in one, so look at it as 5k per single neck instrument. There are some beautiful inlays worth a lot, side LEDs etc.
You would be surprised at how long you can wear 20 pounds around your neck, although not long enough for me not to fancy about solutions of getting the weight off the back and onto the hips instead. Then again I would love to have that for all my instruments just the same, regardless of the actual weight.
Something that would throw me off the most on this double neck bass would be the fact that you probably can't put your right arm around when seated. And I play a lot in the sitting position except for public performances. Oh well, regarding it this way 18.4 pounds MAY become an issue... At least that is something I made sure on my double neck bass: The body is reshaped so that reaching around isn't a problem at all.
In any case this John Judge bass is an instrument its owner should be proud of!
Now, regardless of who John Judge was, this bass is surely a rare fellow in the Alembic history as there weren't too many double-neck basses made so far, as I know. The same probably goes for 8-strings Alembics as well.
I know for sure I will envy the new owner. But then again I do envy most Alembic owners for their particular instruments already!
Hartmut
Hartmut,
You sparked an idea. Are you familiar with a Steadicam? it's a series of levers, springs, pulleys and counterweights that puts the weight of a camera on the hips. Certainly overkill as it is, but surely a simpler version that rests the weight of the instrument on the hips is within the realm of possibility. Maybe a cross between a Steinberger system and a Steadicam. I wonder if it's been done (or attempted) already?
John
John,
Yes indeed, I am very familiar with Steadycam as film making is my field of profession. That was actually my long term idea when thinking about the weight shift problem. However, as you said, the Steadycam system would be overkill as is. It would be too clumsy for regular music making and of course have features you'd never need on an instrument after all. Now, if I could stick my head together with some brilliant minds at Steadycam and find ways to build a harness sufficiantly invisible behind the instrument and a light weight carrier arm system, that would be something. Unfortunately I am not too positive they would be willing to do that for the money I'll have available for that purpose...
What is the Steinberger system?
Hartmut
Oh my! A Steadybass! Imagine all the cool moves you could do with your bass without the risk of dropping it!
Greetings. Sorry for resurrecting a 21 Year Old thread on a 47 year old instrument but there are SO MANY threads on the John Judge Doubleneck that I am the current caretaker of. We have the complete provenance of this fine instrument from a previous owner / forum member that I wanted to put it on the record here at the Alembic Club. Six of the eight owners are club members. I'll use their screen names for privacy. The two non-club members will have abbreviated names. Many have posted over the years on the various Goliath threads. Here goes:
#1 John_ Judge 2/1979 to 7/1981 Arrived with a partial de-lamination of the 8 String headstock. It was NOT broke off. Repaired @ Alembic.
#2 keurosix 7/1981 to 1994 Repaired the LED's on the 8-string neck.
#3 Paul C 1994 to 2005 This was the fellow who sent Goliath to Alembic for a refinish in 1996. The cavity cover is unrestored so you can see what the checking was like.
#4 speicky 2005 to 7/2011 Goliath hits the road and spent 6 years in Germany!
#5 Bonde J 7/2011 to 5/2015 Not much info on him but Goliath returns to Connecticut again. Purchased from Station Music in Germany
#6 dinan 5/2015 to 10/2018 Goliath relocates to Denver. Electronics / soldering refreshed and everything working (except the dragons eyes)
#7 alembicbassjeremy 10/2018 to 12/2025 Goliath relocates to LA. His father was the owner but it pretty much stayed in storage and wasn't played.
#8 Garyhead 12/2025 to Present.
Excellent job of piecing together all this info. There was a custom Dragon leather strap at one time but is lost somewhere around Connecticut. I hope to start a provenance check of my other Alembic doubleneck - Leviathan. 4-String Fretted bass + Six String Guitar with Series 1 electronics. There are two non-Alembic toggle switches added that are not hooked up to anything. Another mystery to solve. The original owner, also a Club member said he played it live twice then put it under a bed for 30 years.
So there it is Goliath is back in the USA, NOT in a case but on a stand in the living room and getting played again. It's probably here to stay. I haven't sold any gear in 51 years!
It's kinda strange. I went 20 Years without buying any instruments then two doublenecks 18 months apart.
Great to have this archive here. 😊 Sometimes you have to dig for things. Even knowing the right word or words to dig for... but it's here.
BOY! It was Hard to find this thread again. It's Not in the Series I showcase thread. As of mid-October 2026, Goliath is at Alembic. I brought it down for an evaluation / repairs. What I thought was a 3-detent pickup selector switch is actually an 11-detent pickup selector switch! The switch feels like it's in peanut butter. It probably hasn't been cycled in decades. From talking to Mica, the 8-string neck has Stereo 5-pin pickups. The E & A strings are on one channel and the D & G strings are on another channel. Repeat for the other pickup and you have 11 combinations to choose from. I'll need to find out what this switch is called....multiplex circuit? James may suspect one of the pickups may be faulty ($$$$) Only 1/2 of the 11 settings have output. I was later informed there are "spare parts" in the control cavity.....like a washer.
A complete setup is in order. Probably a new set of strings too. The gold strings look kinda cool but they are a bit brutal to play if your callouses are not in top shape. The original fretless setup was black tapewound strings. I might switch back to them. I'll probably put flatwounds on the 8-string.
So. I'm just waiting to hear the report on what is needed to be done. I'll also check out to see if an RF upgrade is in order.
This thread will continue where the "Road Trip" thread ended.
Would love to see some pictures of this Goliath.
Quote from: VicDiesel on October 25, 2026, 10:46:53 AMWould love to see some pictures of this Goliath.
There are a few pictures of it in this thread- https://club.alembicguitars.com/alembic-basses-guitars/john-judge-alembic-doubleneck/
More here- https://club.alembicguitars.com/miscellaneous/the-john-judge-story/
There are more threads with some candid pics.
Just do a club search for John Judge : Superwound strings : Goliath : 781000 or 78 1000 Lots of photos. Even more if you google those words.
Thanks for the links
@edwardofhuncote . I read it all with interest.
V.
Here are a few internal photos taken by a previous owner of the internals.
1. The 11-detent stereo selector switch located between the neck pickups. Also notice the 5/pin pickup connectors.
2. Bottom knob - Master Volume. Middle knob - neck selector. Top knob - above mentioned stereo selector. Only the 8-string neck is stereo.
3. Goliath's sub-basement...below the removable pickup mount / height adjustment screws. Notice the LED wires going to the necks.
4. With / without pickup height adjustment block.
A few more photos.
The inlays were a tribute to animator Ray Harryhausen. From "The Seven Voyages Of Sinbad." Skeleton warriors fighting a Dragon in front of a maiden tied to a post. Larry Robinson did the inlays. The dragons eyes used to light up. Alas, shorted out decades ago....to repair would destroy the inlay. The side LEDs still work on both necks.
Goliath has a Brother....Leviathan 2 years younger. It will go to Alembic next when Goliath is finished...(and if I still have a bank balance. )
Bought a stand to hold these beasts in their playing positions.
In some of the older photos, Goliath had a toggle switch as pickup selector. It now has the original rotary pickup selector switch.
How stable are those stands, i've seen them on stage a few times but the base doesn't seem like it would stay upright after the slightest knock. :o
Quote from: garyhead on October 26, 2026, 03:12:55 PMGoliath has a Brother....Leviathan 2 years younger. It will go to Alembic next when Goliath is finished...(and if I still have a bank balance. )
Bought a stand to hold these beasts in their playing positions.
I don't think I'd realized before seeing them in the same frame, but the the bodies of those two (four?) are quite close. Might be a good question to ask; was the pattern for Leviathan an adaptation of Goliath's? I remember well when it was for sale not far from here... I must have looked at that thing a hundred times. It would be incredibly impractical for most to deal with, but a Series bass and a Series guitar would have broken two windows with one rock for me. The end all of practice instruments. Epitome of "set it and forget it."
Quote from: jazzyvee on October 26, 2026, 11:58:58 PMHow stable are those stands, i've seen them on stage a few times but the base doesn't seem like it would stay upright after the slightest knock. :o
Pretty darn stable. It's a Beefy stand....not like your usual guitar stands....German-made and spendy $350.00 I had that guitar in that stand in the living room for 4 months and no problems. Roomba took pot shots at it every morning.
Quote from: edwardofhuncote on October 27, 2026, 02:31:45 AMQuote from: garyhead on October 26, 2026, 03:12:55 PMGoliath has a Brother....Leviathan 2 years younger. It will go to Alembic next when Goliath is finished...(and if I still have a bank balance. )
Bought a stand to hold these beasts in their playing positions.
I don't think I'd realized before seeing them in the same frame, but the the bodies of those two (four?) are quite close. Might be a good question to ask; was the pattern for Leviathan an adaptation of Goliath's? I remember well when it was for sale not far from here... I must have looked at that thing a hundred times. It would be incredibly impractical for most to deal with, but a Series bass and a Series guitar would have broken two windows with one rock for me. The end all of practice instruments. Epitome of "set it and forget it."
Yes....and maybe.... I think the genesis of all this is Harry's instrument.*** It is a Series I fretless 4 and a 6 string baritone guitar. John Judge was shown a picture of Harry's instrument as a "mock up." and I think Gerald was shown John's instrument. Leviathan, being two years younger, looks a little more refined than Goliath. It has a satin (oiled?) finish that makes the grain really pop. The Gloss on Goliath is too glossy The controls are not between the necks anymore and down with the rest of the knobs. The smaller bird tailpieces look better too. Notice the two chrome toggles on Leviathan. They are not hooked up to anything...I need to revisit but I think they were never in a circuit because I saw no solder residue. I need to make contact again with Gerald. He was on FB and I am no longer on it. Last I saw, he is an author now (search on amazon) and living in Las Vegas. I do not know who did the drilling.
I'm a little at a crossroads with the switches. Leave as is? Replace with Alembic-correct switches and not hooked up? Remove the switches and replace with inlays.......like dragon eyes!.....if I really want to go full-blown Alembic....add LED or Lazer eyes! This instrument doesn't have side LED's.
A funny story in Larry Robinson's book. "I cut my first inlay in 1975 after I had been building guitars for three years. Having been trained in acoustic guitar construction, I thought that building electric solid body guitars would be comparatively easy; so in my first week at Alembic, Inc., I managed to drill completely through two $2,000** basses while installing pickups.
While I mentally started looking for a new job, I called my boss, Rick Turner over to the bench and showed him what I had done. To my surprise and everlasting gratitude, he shrugged and said, "Just put an inlay over it. Then we can call it a custom and charge more for it."*
Your comment of "set it, and forget it" is not the case with Leviathan. Once all tuned up, the guitar easily goes out of tune. I do not know if its the 46 year old tuners? or maybe the mass and vibration of the bass neck causes it to go out of tune. Mica thinks it could be the tuners. I'm not a guitarist so I do not know if this is a common problem with guitars. All my other Alembic basses are "set & forget.
I must admit I'm getting a little Gregory-brained as I seem to have A Lot of info in my head regarding these two doublenecks. I'm thinking of getting a hold of Larry Robinson to find out if he has any recollection of Goliath's build. There is an inlay on the headstock of Leviathan but I do not know the years he worked at Alembic.
*The Art Of Inlay by Larry Robinson 1994 Pg. 11 - 12
** $2,000 in 1975 is $12,526 in 2026
*** 75-025AC (Canada Export) Thread: 1975 Series I doubleneck
If I were guessing, (which is usually where really expensive trouble starts);
I'd expect the John Judge "Goliath" bass originally came with Sherwinn Williams Polane finish. A bunch Alembics finished in that stuff after the formula changed checked very badly. Some, way worse than others. My '77 was very mild, I thought attractive. Some of them it just flaked off in chunks. Could be that's why it needed a refinish, and thus wound up with a high gloss? I think it looks nice in pictures.
The other, Leviathan... being a 1980. Study the satiny finish on that walnut Series bass you just brought home. I believe this is the first polyester finish and rubout after the earlier iterations. I love that finish and degree of gloss... had it on that bass, and two Distillates. I loved it so much that I asked Mica to replicate it on my Custom. Your 'other' doubleneck there is just a few numbers off 'Joy'... who knows, they may have been sprayed with the same bucket of paint.
That's curious about the tuning. If it's just the guitar neck, I'd go insane figuring out why or how. I would first try isolating it from the bass neck to make sure the guitar neck pickups weren't receiving any sympathetic frequencies from the bass strings. Try to dampen all four strings first. Use a block of foam under the strings as a mute. (like that stuff I posted in Rob's thread) Failing that, loosen the bass strings a half-step, so they can't be an open pitch that's an octave below anything on the guitar. I can't imagine a physical reason beyond the tuning machines that it won't hold tune. They should be Schaller M'6's... check the tension screws. I'll think about this some more. I just can't think of what else would influence the guitar part. My Series guitar was a rock, setup-wise.
*You're on your on with those switches!
QuoteYour comment of "set it, and forget it" is not the case with Leviathan.
FWIW i have kinda the same issue with the ebony amazon. this bass has its quirks, one of them being that i can't just pick it up, tune it and play it. if i do that, after about 5 minutes i'll find that i'm
noticiblyoutta tune. there's not always a good time for that to happen. so now i do my finger warm-up exercises on it,
then tune it and it seems to hold its settings after that. tuning the B and E strings is particularly tricky, i think partly because the neck is so resonant and has so much sustain that it takes a while for the out of tune note to die out which fools my tuner clip. i think i recall from earlier discussions about this bass the hipshots were chosen to help with the neck dive. not so sure it made a lotta difference. i like the action of the alembic tuners on my other instruments better.
i kinda thought about making a play for goliath the last time it went up for sale. sorta glad i didn't.
cheers!
Quote from: BeenDown139 on October 27, 2026, 09:58:09 AMQuoteYour comment of "set it, and forget it" is not the case with Leviathan.
i kinda thought about making a play for goliath the last time it went up for sale. sorta glad i didn't.
cheers!
It's been 11 months now and I have no regrets. Once I saw it in person I knew I could live with the quirks of a 48yo instrument. I think the main problem is dirty contacts in the 11-detent switch. And that switch is still used as the pickup selector switch in Series II basses. It can be configured for 2 to 12 positions so it's still in production. The stereo pickup is a different story. Alembic still makes it own pickups so skill still available. The main thing is it's not a "practical" instrument to perform with. It has it's own voice and history tho......
I will probably never perform on stage again. I do enjoy playing here in the house experimenting with effects and loops. And I'm surrounded by Art that makes Sounds!
I'm with Gregory on the tension screws on the tuners. I bet that is the trick. My Essence & Orion are Very tight and those are the two basses that are like a rock for intonation. I have a Korg rackmount tuner. I remembered most of the comments from folks at performances about "that wandering light."
I just did a search for Larry Robinson and found a podcast at Luthier On Luthier:
https://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcasts/luthier-on-luthier-larry-robinson/
It's an hour long but it passed by so fast. Lots of talk on the craft. He did inlay work on the Millionth Martin. Said his bit took 2 Years. Talked about CITES restrictions and stuff he can't get anymore. About 35 minutes in, he tells the story about starting / getting hired at Alembic. Was told to report to Cotati Monday morning. Hitchhiked from San Francisco to Cotati on Sunday and slept in a field to start Monday morning. His first day was 13 hrs long.
Discussed NAMM. By putting inlays on Guitars, it attracted folks to the booths looking at a sea of instruments. Something was different about them and they came closer to check it out.
Something else for gathering information on Goliath.
Quote from: edwardofhuncote on October 27, 2026, 09:48:19 AMIf I were guessing, (which is usually where really expensive trouble starts);
I'd expect the John Judge "Goliath" bass originally came with Sherwinn Williams Polane finish. A bunch Alembics finished in that stuff after the formula changed checked very badly. Some, way worse than others. My '77 was very mild, I thought attractive. Some of them it just flaked off in chunks. Could be that's why it needed a refinish, and thus wound up with a high gloss? I think it looks nice in pictures.
The other, Leviathan... being a 1980. Study the satiny finish on that walnut Series bass you just brought home. I believe this is the first polyester finish and rubout after the earlier iterations. I love that finish and degree of gloss... had it on that bass, and two Distillates. I loved it so much that I asked Mica to replicate it on my Custom. Your 'other' doubleneck there is just a few numbers off 'Joy'... who knows, they may have been sprayed with the same bucket of paint.
*You're on your on with those switches!
Here's a side-by-side with 80-1684 & 80-1662. The lighting isn't the same as the sun isn't coming around the house yet. Greg's Joy is glossier than Leviathan. As you stand off-side, you can see a reflection in JOY. Beautiful photo Innit?
Oh....and I've finally found an app to resize photos. Here's another add to the stable that I impulse-purchased last month. Rickenbacker 2030 in Bentley Racing Green! One of fifteen made. It has a guitar-scale neck...24.5" scale.
......and here's a side-by-side of my shortest bass and longest bass!
Quote from: garyhead on October 26, 2026, 03:12:55 PMGoliath has a Brother....Leviathan 2 years younger.
That 4/8 double neck is just wild. That's something I could get behind. Who needs an ordinary 4 string fretted configuration.