Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Swap Shop and Wish Lists => Seen on craigslist, eBay, and elsewhere => Topic started by: lbpesq on April 20, 2005, 05:22:24 PM
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Check out these pick ups on e-bay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=22670&item=7317047371&rd=1 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=22670&item=7317047371&rd=1)
I've never heard that Bartolini made Alembic's pick ups in the 70's! Is there any basis for this claim? I thought Alembic always made their own, am I mistaken about this?
Bill, tgo
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You aren't mistaken, Bill. We have always made our own pickups. I don't know much about the Hi-A, but I do know we didn't make them, and that it's unlikley they are the same as the 70's Alembic pickups - we only had single coils back then.
I've heard many times that Bartolini an EMG made Alembic pickups, of course, both examples are incorrect.
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I was wondering too if there was a connection. I remember seeing an Alembic Series 1 guitar with Hi-A pickups in it. This was in 1975 or so. It was the type of pickups that Alembic used to make with 1 screw per side. The pickups were the diaper tan color that Alembic used to make, but had Hi-A cast in them. Strange.
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Sounds like the pickups were swapped out.
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Back in the early days, Bill used the same epoxy potting compound to pour his pups as Alembic used. We all did, because it was over-the-counter and nobody made the better casting materials that came later.
If you look at the earliest black Hi-As, you'll notice they're quite glossy; the matte texture finish material came later, still.
But so far as I know, Bill never made pups for Alembic. Certainly, no instrument that ever went through Brady St. while I was there had factory-installed Bartolinis in it.
That said, we did do a few experiments with a few of Bill's units to see how they'd interface with the PF-5 and 6 setups. No match at all; we had to virtually rebuild the preamp front-end to get it to even sound remotely musical. And it never sounded good.
When Lane Poor was working at the shop, he did a few designs that matched up electronically with the PF-6, and sounded okay, but he was looking for a different aperature arrangement and never built a set with a shell that would fit a standard Alembic bass. (IIRC, he was trying to see if he could adapt the Alembic system for use in a Jazz Bass, long before Ron designed the narrow aperature setup used today.)
On the guitar Dela remembers, it was definitely a swap-out, as we probably did it at Brady St. We did that once or twice; strip out the standard electronics, send the guitar up to the factory, where it was re-routed for standard humbuckers, then we'd install hot-rodded Gibson HBs and standard Clarostat pots. Some people found the factory setup to be too clean for what they were playing, and wanted more of a Les Paul sound. Usually, we talked them into trading the Alembic in for an actual Paul, then resold the Alembic to someone who appreciated it.
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I emailed the seller this morning; but he hasn't, as of this writing, changed his listing.
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Same here. He claims to have removed them from an Alembic guitar, therefore they MUST be made by Alembic. I offered the suggestion that the pickups had previously been swapped out, and he didn't feel the need to respond or change his listing.
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(Finally went and looked at the listing).
No effing way those were ever put in a factory Alembic. 7.1 and 7.5k coil DCR? Those are full-on Humbucker replacements (very nice sounding ones, but still...) and would have to have been swapped into rerouted holes.
Oh, maybe an employee special (IIRC, Armstrong's original Big Red six-string was cut for HBs; his second one, with regular Alembic narrow coils, can be seen at http://home.att.net/~z6string/PixPages/MI/alembic.html) but certainly not a production line instrument.
(Message edited by sf-nic on April 21, 2005)
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Nic,
Please drop me an email at the address in my profile if you don't mind. I've just got a few 'vintage Alembic' questions for you that I'd rather not clutter this thread with.
Peace,
Adam
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Email incoming in a sec, Adam.
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I e-mailed the seller a link to this thread. Here's what I got back:
thanks for your concern. However, I've worked on quite a few Alembics from the '70s when I worked in a store that for a period in the '70s was the largest selling Alembic dealer. I've seen Alembics with both the original Brown pickups and Black ones with the Hi-A logo. I went to your link, and yes dela217 is correct! Mica, if I remember correctly, was a baby when I met her in the '70s. I doubt that she would remember! These came off of a guitar that the store needed to have a trem installed and hotter ( Dimarzio, ooh! ) pickups. I'm sure whoever owns that guitar currently would love to have these back.
Again, why do you care? Next Alembic will be saying that Turner never worked at Alembic. And again, thanks for your concern and only believe half of what you read.... Regardless, once an auction has a bid- the seller cannot revise the listing. Hell, I'd love to change it to I removed these from an Alembic, so that I wouldn't have to waste my time with emails from people who apparently have much more free time than I do. And for the record, I've owned over a dozen Alembics.
gr8guitars
Can you say attitude?
Bill, tgo
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I suppose we could file a complaint with eBay that Great Guitars is deliberately giving false information in his listing. Even though eBay would do very little, it could be enough to piss him off enough to justify his apparent screw the customer attitude. That's assuming he's worth the powder to blow him up with, which I doubt.
Hell, Mica was a baby when _I_ met her back in the 70s (one time, when Susan brough her by Brady St.). And, working as an entry-level, commission-based Accessories clerk at a Sam Ash or GC does NOT make one an expert in what Alembic did or didn't put on an instrument.
Why do we care? Because some yahoo is lying about Alembic's history and manufacturing philosophy, simply to squeeze a few bucks out of a set of pickups. Trading on a company name that's known as being the best in the world in order to make his crappy little auction venture produce another sandwich or two.
And what's his bitch about Alembic and Rick? I know from reading here that Alembic is proud of the work Rick did, both in designing instruments and in guiding the company back in the day. And Rick is proud of the work he did here and his place in the company's history. Which he confirmed to me when we talked about exactly that, last summer. Yutzboy has his head up his butt if he thinks anybody has any interest in rewriting history or in denying anyone their rightful credit.
Bozo.
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Okay, I stand down a bit on this guys general character: he's pulled the listing.
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I bet you folks saw some instruments made by Alembic employees back in the day. Bruce Becvar who worked at Alembic made guitars and basses that had all the construction of an Alembic, but he often used Hi A pickups or Bartolinis in his guitars and basses. It would be easy to mistake one of his instruments for an Alembic.
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https://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=8986.0 (https://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=8986.0)
ALEMBIC installed the bridge and tail piece for me at the 60 Brady Street ,San Francisco location in 1975 and then Doug Irwin installed the HI-A pickups shortly there after when I took the bass to him where he also made the pickup rings. He obtained the HI-A pickups from Bill Bartolini whom I was told made those passive pickups. I had a conversation with Mr.Doug Irwin just a few years ago where he recollected having worked on this bass .
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I have owned several Hi-A pickups and they are hi fidelity clear sounding pickups. I currently have some in guitars I own. I understand the company later morphed into Bartolini. Some of the Hi-As had complicated wiring setups that were quite innovative, like a separate output wire for each pickup pole, and they were used in cutting edge instruments made back in the day. I am pretty sure they were not stock on Alembics though, but I am still surprised by what new things I learn every day.
This is a pic of the set I just put in a vintage Cort double neck on the 12 string part and they sound fantastic.