Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: glocke on August 10, 2019, 05:23:38 AM
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Wow. Apparently this is at Gruhns guitars in Nashville. I might have to make a pilgrimage just to see this. Of all his basses, this is the one I dug the most from a sound and aesthetic standpoint.
Surprised this wasn't posted here before...I searched and did not see anything.
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Several posts near the end of the Showcase Thread on that particular bass. ;)
http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=8076.0
"Mission Control" is my favorite Phil sound too, and I'll never get enough of the Omega-cut Alembic style.
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Simply gorgeous!
Greetz
Oliver (Spyderman)
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Would be remiss not to mention how great it is to have Phil back playing Omega-cut Alembics again. He seems to be doing just fine with Series II electronics and some sweet cuts of cocobolo these days. ;D
http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=8067.0
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Looks nice, beautiful bass! My favorite Phil sound came from Big Brown, that one could provide a unique growl when warranted (i.e., jams on ‘72 & ‘73 Playin’, Dark Star, Other One, Weather Report, etc). Big Brown had a more open sound as well, to my ears anyway. All great basses! :)
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Gabriel Grizzard got to play this bass at a show with the Dead cover band Stolen Faces in Nashville on July 3. Lucky dude!
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That is really cool...
It would probably take me 3years to figure out the controls on that monster of an instrument!
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I have two questions:
1. What's the story behind the 10 MOP circles. Are they plugs from a previous control layout?
2. What doesn't Phil own this bass anymore...or does he?
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I have two questions:
1. What's the story behind the 10 MOP circles. Are they plugs from a previous control layout?
2. What doesn't Phil own this bass anymore...or does he?
Regarding question #1- quoting Rick Turner, who was working on this bass back in 2014...
"I'm not even going to try to duplicate all of the micro-processor pickup assignment switching that was touch switch operated on the original setup. That was all the white circles on the bass side of the face."
I would assume George Gruhn owns the bass now, though I don't know that to be so, or how it came to pass if true. If you look back through the Showcase Thread on Mission Control, there's a lot of information there, a lot of which points back to the Grateful Dead movie.
Mystique surrounds that instrument... those who know the most don't tend to say much. ;)
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Thanks for the info! :)
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... What's the story behind the 10 MOP circles. Are they plugs from a previous control layout?
In the showcase thread linked above, it is mentioned that those were push buttons that controlled routing of the quad pickup individual string signal channels to the various columns in the Wall of Sound.
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Amazing that they could fit all of that wiring in there at one point.
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Cramming all of the electronics inside was a big part of why it was “in the shop” for a lot of the time Phil played it. Pictures of the inside show tiers of circuit boards on both sides, most of which would be better placed on pedals or racks. There are good reasons why that bass was admired but not imitated.
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Does anyone know what pickups are in there ? I am guess they are not the original quad pups/
I fell in love with that bass when I first saw photos of it..At one point I even contemplated have a tribute of sorts made of it by Alembic.
For me, it's the most amazingly awesome bass that every existed.
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I fell in love with that bass when I first saw photos of it..At one point I even contemplated have a tribute of sorts made of it by Alembic.
For me, it's the most amazingly awesome bass that every existed.
When I was up at Alembic in early April Mica showed me a "Mission Control" tribute bass they were building for a customer. The carving on the body and the inlays looked quite nice, pretty sure it was going to have Series electronics but can't remember.
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Does anyone know what pickups are in there ? I am guess they are not the original quad pups/
I fell in love with that bass when I first saw photos of it..At one point I even contemplated have a tribute of sorts made of it by Alembic.
For me, it's the most amazingly awesome bass that every existed.
I was wondering about the p/ups, too (but on the original set-up, it was "quad p/up", not "p/ups"; the outer 2 were standard AXYs (or their immediate forebear). Only the center one was quad. As Rick says he didn't try to duplicate the wiring, I assume that extends to the quad capability - but I may be wrong.
I just think it's a shame it's sitting in a case in George "Top Dollar" Gruhn's celebrity-memorabilia store, instead of in Phil's hands.
Peter
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There have been a couple nods toward that bass built in recent years, Featured Customs' "Starry Night" http://www.alembic.com/info/fc_dm.html and "Rhumba Retro" http://www.alembic.com/info/fc_rhumbaretro.html both drew inspiration from it, but neither were as close as what I hear is coming. Exciting!
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Rick may have started on it, but I think Gruhn's guys finalized the restoration on it. Looking at the pictures from a couple years ago, I wonder if they didn't undo some of what Rick did in the way of putting wood back in the top and neck beam. He was talking about a piezo, John East filters, (and yes a quad) rigged for stereo output, but never got around to it. I don't know if Gruhn got impatient with Turner or if there was some other disagreement... no earthly idea, but I can well imagine, knowing both of those guys various... ummm... eccentricities. Whoever did the actual work on "Mission Control", they did a very nice job. That bass was a heartbreaking mess that it didn't deserve to be, and now it's a playable instrument again. I'm with Greg [glocke]... I'm thinking about making a pilgrimmage to Nashville and play it!