Alembic Guitars Club
Alembic products => Alembic Basses & Guitars => Topic started by: mb94952 on April 25, 2023, 02:15:47 PM
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Hey there !
So, I am just like 99% of players out there who have their gigging bass, and the Alembic that never leaves my sight or house.
I was playing my Orion last week and somehow it fell and hit a Hofner violin bass and made a small dent on the side. I was devastated initially because my Orion was spotless, but now it has a dent. My Essence has dings and scratches all over and I don't care. I bought it like that, so I didn't suffer the psychological warfare of your first dent.
Part of me was devastated, and part of me was relieved that I passed that hurdle and can take a breath now.
I saw a thread online regarding the same question and a guy showed his completely buckle rashed and dinged Sadowski that was a $5k bass. It was beat up and looked... BEAUTIFUL. You can see how much he loves it.
Are you a play no matter what, or I will only take my backup non-Alembic to a gig / out of the house ?
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Some people have admirably kept their Alembics in showcase conditions- I’m not one of them. Growing up as the 4th youngest son I never have been good with keeping things pristine. My Distillate will go to my son when I pass, there is no consideration about resale value.
100% use it. My Distillate has been with me for over 35 years. It plays like a dream, it is a tone machine… she goes where I go. She has dings, dents and scratches as well as weathering from playing outside gigs in Wisconsin which means all types of temperatures and dew point variables. She is a survivor, she is a favorite, she is home.
There were several bands where I would drag along my fretless mish-mosh bass (Warmoth neck, Fender style body and Bartolini pickups), played on maybe 10% of the songs, the rest was old trusty dusty Distillate.
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I play every single one of my Alembics.
I fretted about my Custom fretless for the first month or so, but after that, the self-evident conclusion was that a racehorse had to run. Sure, it has a couple tiny little dings, but I had a heluva good time while they were trying to earn their place on there.
*Now I just wish I had somewhere to play them. :-[
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Years ago a band mate dinged my Essence on a brick bench at a gig. So, it’s the dented one. I dinged the Classico myself but had them removed at the mothership in 2017-19. I couldn’t handle those dings, they screamed at me every time I saw them. The Spyders are flawless. For some reason, I’m fine with the “working bass” being dinged. The Orion is like the “middle child”. No dings, but always under the radar.
I’m fine with rack rash on the electronics and keeping the cabinets spotless is pointless. At least the pubs here are smokeless and few band mates drink while performing so my cabs are not beer mats.
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I bought my Alembic’s to play them, so that’s what I do. :)
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I've told this story to some of you before, but bte extreme version is when I was taking bass lessons at Stanroy Music in the 1980s, one of the guitar teachers just purchased a Lowden Burl Walnut guitar, and was opening it up in front of a few people. He had waited a long time to receive it, and when he opened the case, everyone gasped at the beauty. He didn't pick it up, he just looked at it for a while. Then he pulled his keys out and made a good scratch on the top and said, "Phew! I'm so glad that's over." We all thought he was nuts!
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Great story Mica! Reminds me of the one about Billy Idol keying a brand new Hamer that Steve Stevens had just got when they had just started working together. ;D
Myself, I play all my basses in most any situation with the exception of my Ric 4001CS Chris Squire Ltd. Ed. (#425/1000). Bought new in '92, it's only been on stage a handful of times, but I've used it in the studio a lot. I bought my current Alembic last fall, and having the Exploiter body, I've been kind of waiting for its first mishap. Surprisingly nothing yet! I did whack the ceiling of my home studio with the headstock, and I was concerned. Looked at the bass, and it's totally fine. But now my ceiling has a dent, LOL! The Bishop is pretty pointy. ;)
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Wow, some great responses here and honestly I didn't know what to expect. I LOVE my Excel so much. I said in the post I dinged my Orion, but it was my Excel, the black one I traded with an Alembic Club member from Korea. It was SPOTLESS when I got it and now I sanded the back of the neck with 2000 grit to make it glassy smooth, and that darn ding, but now I feel like I can really play it with 100% attitude for fear of dings is gone, so I can actually concentrate on playing.
That is a GREAT story, Mica. I've never heard it before and I can see all of your jaws in disbelief, yet I can SO relate the his response of, "Whew, I'm sure glad that's over with." That is wisdom there !
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There seems to be weird exceptions to the 'scratch and ware' of a Guitar. For instance, the fender basses are praised to have wear and paint worn off so much that Fender decided to mass produce that appeal for years! "The worn look". Infact, if you do own an old American made Fender DO NOT REPAINT, because the worn look bumps the value up like gold! I have a 73 Fender P and sanded it down and had it re-painted. It looks and sounds nice, but.... It lost full value. As for our beloved Alembics, I get worked up if I bump it. I pamper it at gigs when i put the bass down between sets. Sometimes I just put it back in the case. I wonder if an old 82' Alembic series 1 with a worn look like a Fender will gain value? If so, then I shouldn't worry about it. As long as it's not broken.
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My aim is to keep my guitars and basses in pristine condition alembic or not. However careful I have been over the years some minor dings or marks have appeared on some of my instruments with only two I recall being a direct result of my carelessness, and only one on my strat is immediately noticeable (mainly because there is a bit of black tape covering). I decided not to re-spray it to give me a visual reminder to be more careful. I have gigged and will continue to gig with all of my alembics, none are for home use only and like the OP, on a gig i keep it with me or sit where I can see it. Most back stage area's i gig at don't feel are secure enough to leave my bass there, and neither do the brass players in the band.
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Being a Luthier , I am a bit fussy about finishes on my instruments , but realize I can repair any damage so I gig carefully . I cautiously lend instruments to artists who I trust , with the caveat that they returned unblemished, so far all have come back pristine.
Instruments are made to be played , and IMO benefit from it .
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I believe that the marks you make on your bass are what makes the bass “yours”. However, I feel that Alembics looks better with little to no marks because of it’s natural wood finish. I think colored basses/guitars looks good relic’d.
I toured China for a couple of years using a Reunion Blues continental gig bag before covid. But now that we are back to touring China, I’m a bit reluctant to bring my Alembic on tour because of a couple of recent horror stories of airlines breaking acoustic guitars and stuff 😂
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I doubt if i would buy a new ‘relic’d’ instrument but would buy a genuinely old instrument that has genuine wear and tear as long as it was in good mechanical and electrical condition, and sounded good.
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I hate the fake relic look for some reason and can't imagine a company first making a beautiful instrument (aka: 'custom shop') and then 'applying' a fake relic look to it, no matter how well done. However, I like honest play wear on old instruments. I also like mint looking old instruments too. Go figure...
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"I hate the fake relic look for some reason and can't imagine a company first making a beautiful instrument (aka: 'custom shop') and then 'applying' a fake relic look to it, no matter how well done. However, I like honest play wear on old instruments. I also like mint looking old instruments too. Go figure..."
I'm with ya 100%. My JetGlo Rickenbacker is slowly turning MapleGlo, thanks to hundreds of gigs. ;)
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"Relic" = "Pay extra so your new instrument can be damaged enough to kinda-sorta look like it spent years with someone who didn't know how to take care of it."
Peter
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I've thought about this relic-ing thing for years... and there's one thing that cannot be denied. Whether someone cares for the look or not, there is absolutely an art to performing it correctly. I'll tell you all something else too... it's not anything new. Violinmakers would commonly distress their finishes and even etch the wood at the pegbox to suggest a graft, all in an effort to make instruments appear more antique than they were. Just in the acoustic guitar world, there are whole companies that have grown from being able to replicate the look and very much of the sound of the 1920's and 30's American steel-string guitar. These guys are among the most successful at it- https://www.pre-warguitars.com (https://www.pre-warguitars.com)
*cut to the point- https://www.pre-warguitars.com/distress-levels
It's even trickled up to C.F. Martin & Co. who traditionally are last to the party in realizing their competition is their own vintage guitars. You can now order a Martin D-18 or D-28 in just about any grade from a plain standard model, to an Aged Authentic, that was built in the Custom Shop on CT Scans of a 1931, 1937, 1939, or 1941 source instrument, to the exact specs, using even the same hot hide glue. They will even artificially age the thing. Or not. Get your credit card charged up though.
Then this year, they jerked everybody's chain with these Street Legend guitars... another D-18 or 28, but the wear pattern; it's spray-printed onto the spruce then finished over in satin. As you'd expect, those who hate it really hate it, and they're loud about it. I've yet to read a report that they sound bad. Much more affordable price tag.
I'm at a weird place. I don't love it, but I don't want one either. I do admire the ingenuity it takes to stay on top of the game.
*FWIW, my 1950 D-18... 100% of the play wear it has was from the people who had him before me. At least one of them was left-handed. I did most of the repair and restoration back in the 90's.
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My instruments are far from pristine, they also are not intentionally marred.
Hearing that Martin is kowtowing to the 'distressed' look has me perplexed.
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You're not the only one, Paul. There have been several threads locked over at the UMGF they got so beyond civil. I'm just not that opinionated either way, surely not enough to criticize someone's NGD thread. (which is what happened a couple times) Like Mom said, if you can't say something nice, keep scrolling... or something like that.
As far as Martin goes, you won't find a much bigger fan of them than me. I don't care for these new 'printed top' Street Legend guitars at all, would not buy one, not even second-hand. But looking at the Aged Authentic Series from a couple different angles;
1.) Not building them is simply leaving money on the table by refusing to compete with Pre*War Guitars, (for example) who are basically carbon copying Martin and Gibson patterns and building methods from the so-called Golden Era of Guitar-making.
2.) Most players of medium-to-moderate means will never have a chance in a lifetime to otherwise afford a pre-1941 Martin Dreadnought. Those guitars are not affordable for the average player anymore. These things are as close as possible to the genuine article. They are expensive, but not unobtainable. If some degree of artificial aging (relic-ing, if you like) gets you there, it's available. If you'd rather have your vintage reproduction guitar mint-new, they do that too.
Gibson is making reissues of J-35 and J-45 (and others) in pre WW2 specs too, with this 'thin nitrocellulose VOS' finish option now. Let me decode that; it wears through to a distressed look, real fast. Sounds good out of the box too, without a lot of heavy finish cured over the spruce. They've done distressed varnish finish on F-5 Master Model mandolins for years.
We can shoot ducks in-season, but the quacking goes on... I think it's just a fact of business in the world now for these guitar-makers.
The curious part of me wants to know how they do it so accurately.
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Gregory - I appreciate your succinct reply.
Marketing to today's societal needs is interesting indeed...
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Here's some authentic play wear on a middle-aged Gibson guitar. I've been watching one of my good musical buddies put this wear on his guitar for over 20 years. Late 50s - early 60s J-45.
And back to the original topic in this thread... played my Alembic in a local brewery a couple nights ago. I'm a little selective about venues I'll bring it to, but how could I have such a nice bass and not gig with it?
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The only time I will not bring my Alembics to a gig is when: (a) It's an outdoor show, REALLY likely to rain, and the show is not being called off; (b) The band is located at ground level and there are likely to be kids running around (at one gig pre-COVID we had a 3-year old run through the band at least 3 or 4 times with a good number of spectators applauding thinking it was cute); and (c) I'm meeting the band somewhere and someone else is going to be transporting my bass. Other than that its Alembics all the time. I guess I'm fortunate to have been able to have purchased enough used Alembics that most have already been baptized so to speak and are naturally "vintaged" so one more ding is not going to bother me. To be honest, what bothers me more than dings are cracked finishes especially when the finish in question is on the neck. In cold weather, fellow bandmates are always chastising me for taking so long to get my bass out for the sound check while I wait for the bass and case to warm to room temperature.
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I gigged on the road with my Martin for years. The dent in the top from the salt shaker thrown at the stage in Timmins, Ontario at the Rendezvous Tavern seemed like a calamity at the time but now it wears like a badge of honour. It’s all perspective I guess. I gig with my Alembic exclusively when I’m gigging on electric bass. It’s just so much better than anything else.