Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: BeenDown139 on March 23, 2023, 12:34:45 PM
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But this time it's from actually pulling the trigger on something.
So what we have here appears to be a 2003 anneversary coc0-bolo unlined fingerboard fretless 4 string long scale bass with neck LEDs and stereo output. i really wanted a 5 string series but ya cant always gets what ya wnats. i might be long in my grave by the time the next one pops up for sale. or it might be tomorrow. who knows? i got tired of waiting so i killed something to paraphrase the vultures. the fretless essence has been consigned to the polka band and is set up for thump and i wanted to have a fretless around the house that can sing, so i made my move.
it's been hanging in a shop for a long time. not sure the seller really knew what they had. i had looked at this one several times over the last year wondering the same thing. but after some discreet inquiries and some dickering, here we are. Somebody had fooled with the LED wiring but it all works now. i had to tone them down, they were blinding almost. the fingerboard was so dried out that we're now on our 3 lemon-oiling. the batteries looked like they'd been in there since clinton was in office (my favorite prez, btw). the strings were so nasty i didn't even attempt a playability test. i'll spiff the brass up the next string change. got a new set of thomastic flats on the way so we'll have to wait till they get here to see if it actually makes noise or not. so i let the truss rods all the way out and we'll see what kinda shape they're in by-the-by.
so in the meantime i have a freshly lemon-oiled very pretty fretless bass hanging in the living room, don't really know how it's gonna sound until the new strings get here. it's kind of a chypher - got me feeling antsy. in the meantime the house smells nice and lemon-y. plus it fills the glaring empty slot on the wall vacated last summer by the koa exploiter. stay tuned. this has gotta be the strangest bass transaction i've ever done. this will be alembic #14 for me. i was pretty sure i was done the last time. i'm starting to feel like this is some kind of compulsive obsession with me. my money manager agrees!
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Good looker there.
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Very nice, cool looking bass, congratulations! Looking forward to hearing what you think after the strings are on and you make some souse with it! :)
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man this bass is nasty. not sure how non-functioning LEDs and corroded hardware qualify as excellent condition but i'm gonna STFU and clean the old girl up. furtunately, i have some experience in these matters.
in hte meantime, my supervisor will be looking over my shoulder and critiqueing my work
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Nice score Tim, have fun getting it cleaned up while you wait for the strings to arrive. When I got my Series II I had a dimmer put in for the LEDs since I also found them to be way too bright... at first it was a "be careful what you wish for moment" but dialed back they are great to have on a dark stage. Please don't get me started on what I think of modern concert lighting and having bright white lights blasted into your eyes during a show to "heighten the visual experience". Enjoy... eager to hear what you think once you start playing it.
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the fretless essence has been consigned to the polka band....
OK, that is a sentence that shocks at first!
But why? Alembics have shown their magic in (obviously) psychedelic music, but also hard rock, metal, jazz, funk; I have seen them used in blues & country, and one of us uses them in reggae - so why would polka be different?
I guess because it seems unlikely that even Ron could make an electric bass that can sound like a tuba.......
Lovely axe, congrats!
Peter
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doesn't look like the mailman's gonna make it here with the new strings today. btw a shoutout to the guy that runs juststrings.com. sounds like he's a one man show. called me personally to let me know my order got hung up. from new hampshire, no less. it was kinda like speaking another dialect of english. but i digress..
once again, i took my cue from the vultures. got tired of waiting so i boiled the daylights outta the old strings and used them to get the truss rods, intonation and string height somewheres in the neighborhood and see if it can be made playable. had to unstick all of the screws in the bridge. sigh...
but after some elbow grease, the brass shined up and the action dropped right in. at least it came with flatwounds on it. probably rotosounds. at any rate, i tuned her up to pitch and let her rip. once i get some good strings on her, i'm pretty sure she'll sing. that much is clear even with these beater strings.
haven't played a 4-string in a while. it's kinda like running barefoot after wearing ankle weights for a while. i hardly use the B string on the fretless anyway so my left hand is happy. very happy. this neck is so thin and delecate compared to my 5-strings i'm kinda afraid to get too rough with it. so i'm gonna get thourghly baked, sit in the hot tub, watch the sun go down, do a re-bake and take her through my fretless set and see how it goes. once i get new strings on her i'll post a video. probably.
i had some misgivings about the no master volume thing. it's why i've never been able to bond with a fretted SI. but once i have a stereo 1/4" cord, i'll patch this into the stereo setup that my SII uses. with it i basically set my master volume and juggle the pickup volumes depending on if i need more twang or thump. i keep the filters wide open, my fretted tone is all fingers, wood and pickups. each pickup having its own amp and signal chain really adds another dimension to my sound and i'm really looking forward to getting this one fully integrated.
...electric bass that can sound like a tuba
a lot of people i know look down their nose at bass played on a tuba. or polka music. myself, i love horn phrasing done on a fretless bass and i emulate it any chance i get. the essence just happens to be really good at it. but these days she's got heavy guage flats on her, tone cranked all the way to zero. she no longer sings, but she sure packs the grunt! right now she's my gigging bass. kinda like my working girl. sorta
looking a little better with all the schmutz cleaned off, a rough setup and string on. this bass is so dark, it's hard to photgraph well without doing something special. just. not. in. the. mood.
wheee!
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rest assured, Ben - I love a good tuba, or an electric bass playing a tuba line. Heck, I even lime polka in small doses. I am just an inveterate wiseass.
But tell me, do the polka purists react to your Alembic like bluegrassers tend to react to electric bass?
Peter (who once - and once only, when very young and foolish - asked a 'grasser why he played a doghouse rather than an electric..........)
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But tell me, do the polka purists react to your Alembic like bluegrassers tend to react to electric bass?
well i play in a spanish band so we do spanish polkas. and cumbias. etc. & so forth. the bigger hurdle is when i show up for an audition and i'm the only guy que quien no habla la lingua if ya catch my drift. but i've been doing this a long time and i can pound out the roots and fifths like no old white geezer they ever saw, so my bass is a secondary distraction. usually.
the new strings showed up right after that last post so on they went. i gave this bass a pretty good workout shortly thereafter. like all my other alembics over the years, this one is unique. maybe more uniquer than the others. dare i say it may be the coolest bass ever (sorry, rob :-) )
so we're gonna have a little honeymoon of sorts. snuggle up to each other. gonna get a stereo cable. dial things in a little. more on this later....
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Spanish polka?? That's a new one on me! I'll have to check it out.
Peter
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Nice score. Ruby is a beauty also!
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Nice score. Ruby is a beauty also!
thanx! you've met my dog? <oops, never mind!>
this honeymoon is gonna cripple me. haven't got a stereo cable for it but i will once i get out & about. this bass reminds me of a '76 series I fretless small body (almost like an SC body) long scale (a.k.a. the steve fossen bass) that passed through my hands many years ago. it's light (10.5 lbs.) small petite body. probably why it neck dives like there's no tomorrow. very narrow neck, almost like a jazz bass taper. kinda like fingering a very nicely appointed broomstick. satin finish. absolute killer sound. kinda like what the ebony amazon would sound like were she were fretless. it's that good. imho. ymmv. etc. & so forth.
the top is so dark that it's really hard to photograph well. i think the term for this is open grain top, the first non-gloss top finish alembic i think i've owned.
so here's a slightly better picture. not a bad looking instrument imho. once i get the stereo part going i'll post a clip.
wheee!
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I enjoy the non-gloss wood look.
Yes, the dog. Fur babies are better than most people.
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Peter said, "Spanish polka?? That's a new one on me! I'll have to check it out."
It is probably Conjunto or Conjunto Tejano music. When you hear Mexican music with an accordion, though there are other instrument mixes, it is most likely this style. The style has a lot of German influence from German immigrants and is based on the same structures as polka but with a Latin feel.
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That is sweet! 8)
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Very nice looking bass!
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Fur babies are better than most people.
indeed. right now we're in the full-on golden puppy stage. sounds fun but i can tell ya it's not the picnic ya'd think it would be.
Very nice looking bass!
thanx! it grows on ya after a while.
so i'm back up to 4 basses again. if i gotta trim the collection down (forsooth!) these two are the keepers: a fretless-sorta-kinda-sure-looks-like-a-series I with the coolest blue built-ins and a fretted boy-howdy-series II with all the trimmings. they make a nice pair imho. kinda like to play red rocks with this pair someday.
gotta get that stereo output going. so much pressure. not sure i can deal with it. sigh...
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getting this bass to use the stereo signal path the SII uses was kinda tricky. it's gonna be an issue going forward until it's solved, methinks. to test it out, i wound up using what i had on hand as a trip to GC was futile and disappointing. on a number of levels. so i scabbed a 1/4" TRS onto a decapatated 12-foot 1/8" stereo headphone extension cable and put the split signals into their own 1/4" jacks on the end where the DS-5 patches into my stompbox. a little solder, heatshrink, cursing and hi-grade pot later i had a candidate. good thing it's all relatively low impednance. needless to say, it hums a little. not too much. really!
the difference between running this bass in mono and stereo is striking. attached is a picture of my home rig. i made a stompbox that paralles the iamp nputs for the mono basses and splits thhe bridge PU directly to the PJB and the neck PU directly to the ampeg for the stereo basses. with this bass i can A/B the difference with the mono switch on hte bass. i suspect the switch just shorts the TR together at the jack. i'll have to look. no matter. in stereo it's as if each PU signal path is unburdened from the other. the dynamic headroom out of each amp noticibly changes. sonically it's like going from HD to 4K. i can hear every detail of my fingers on the strings and fingerboard with crystal clarity (not always a good thing!). the E and A strings rattle the house. the D and G strings sing. while i'm playing it, i can intonate to another instrument with precision i've never felt or heard on another fretless. ever.
so somehow i gotta make this play in my ecosystem. i play all my instruments on any given day and i don't like jacking around when i swap basses (pardon hte pun). hence the stompbox. the best solution would be if it had a 5-pin instead of a TRS. pretty sure the hole pattern with the switch placement would accomidate this. then it could use the SII cable. or maybe a male 5-pin-inline hung off a male TRS that plugs into the bass should i want to keep it "pristine". however, i would be perfectly fine with this bass being 5-pin-stereo-only (like the SII) as it's a keeper (again, famous last words..). my kids can worry about the resale value after i kick the bucket.
so i'm gonna work on this. i love a challange especially when i know what the end result's gonna be. once i get the glitches out, i'll post a video. it's pretty wild.