Alembic Guitars Club
Alembic products => Alembic Basses & Guitars => Topic started by: El Thumpo on June 10, 2019, 08:11:48 PM
-
Yep, that’s my question.
I know the Essence was made with a body as small as possible, but I don’t know if “as possible” allows for an upgrade path. Europa electronics? Rogue electronics? The full Series II kit?
I ask because I love my Essences. Ergonomically, I haven’t found a more user-friendly instrument at any price.
-
My recollection is that the short answer is no. Looking through the examples on the Essence page at alembic.com, there are some with Europa, Signature, Anniversary, and East-Meets-West. But my recollection is that these require larger control cavities carved when built; and my recollection is that some, probably the Anniversary in particular, were quite tight. My guess is that Series would at the very least require a thicker body, and it may be that the circuit board is just too big.
If you're thinking of a new build, then talk with Mica and find out what's possible and what's not.
http://alembic.com/prod/essence.html (http://alembic.com/prod/essence.html)
-
The short answer is no.
The medium answer is on a custom build you'd have to make the body thicker to accommodate the parts, and not everything will actually fit, you can do something like Will Gunn did here with "Refinement I and II. (http://www.alembic.com/info/fc_refinement.html) He uses an SF-2 as the tone controls.
Otherwise, you'd have to modify the body shape to cram it all in there, and then, it won't be that Essence body shape you love.
Europa/Rogue do fit well (on a new build - hard to make them fit existing holes). We've crammed Signature electronics in there, but it is really really tight (hope you have skinny fingers!). Face-mounted jacks give you more room than side-mounted ones do.