Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: sonofa_lembic on November 09, 2024, 03:44:43 PM
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Alembic has been a huge part of my life since 1978, and the history of its craftsmen has always been of interest, and slightly mysterious. One of the luthiers who was more high profile due to the use of his instrument by John Paul Jones of Led Zepplin, was Bruce Becvar. If you are not familiar with that 8 string bass, it was among the first of the Triple Omega body shape which I believe Becvar designed. That particular bass was made in 1975, and while it is often described as an Alembic, it was actually a Becvar. Jones ordered an Alembic triple Omega later on, but the Becvar is distinctive with the inlaid mandala on the upper bout. It is Alembic through and through with typical hippie sandwich construction and Series electronics, but it was made by Becvar after hours at Alembic, and sold under his name at a Bay Area music store. In subsequent years, Becvar continued to use the construction methods of Alembic, but began using pickups made by Bartolini. The Alembic circuit basses were called Series II, and the Bartolini equipped basses were called Series I. You will still find the circuit components, like the pots and switches, to be sourced from Alembic on some instruments in the 77-78 era. For a short time he used the Bartolini EVQ humbucker bass pickups ( as pictured below) which were designed as Washburn replacements, and these had an onboard preamp in them. These pickups have the same footprint and design as an Alembic pickup, and did not yet have the Bartolini logo cast in them, so they look exactly like an Alembic pickup of the period. These pickups ran off a single 9V battery and were the first pickups to have a built in preamp. There are very few documented Becvar instruments out there, but from what I have found, it seems he continued to use Bartolini pickups after 1978, but when the EVQ pickups were discontinued in favor of the external EZQ circuit, he began using the Bartolini circuits with a standard Bartolini (Washburn style) pickup. I am always looking to amass more information on Bruce Becvar and his instruments, so please add anything you know to this thread. One of his highly adorned guitars is in the Smithsonian instrument collection, and there are a handful of basses known to exist. I own one of them, but would love to find more to add to my knowledge of this part of Alembic's history.
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I have 2 of the Becvar instruments.
One is a triple omega with Series 1 electronics as you describe. The other one I have has what you say are Bartolini (?) pickups with electronics mounted inside. I really thought that they were EMG's because the preamps were inside the pickups. I was not aware that Bartolini made electronics inside pickups.
I know no real history of either instrument, but the bass with the Bartolini's has an interesting shape, not like any Alembics of that era. Both are long scale basses and are too big for me to play on a gig. This bass has a cocobolo top and back and neck. It really is a nice instrument. The person I bought it from said that it was made for or belonged to Klaus Voormann. No clue.
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Well, now, Michael, you know you can't say something like that without us wanting pictures, right?
Peter
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I've always admired the long line of talented folks who have worked at Alembic. Bruce BecVar would surely be one of them. I'd love to see one of his guitars or basses in-person.
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I e-mailed Bruce around the onset of covid,
Bruce is a really nice guy, here is what he replied---
(Hi Philip,
Thanks for the inquiry! I originally made the 8-string bass for myself but found that it helped to generate business by displaying it at Don Weirs Music City in SF. John stopped by one day, played the bass and could not leave without it! Because he has relatively small hands it really suited his style and was easy to play for an 8-string especially because it was made with a medium fret scale length.
John later brought the bass to Rick at Alembic to swap the existing simple electronics for the premium Alembic pickups and harness. After he started playing the bass live, he named it the "Riff King".) .
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Showing off the BecVars
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Quasar1,
Could you get in touch with Bruce these days? Or maybe you could put him in touch with me? I would like to reach out to him and pick his brain on these 2.
Michael
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Quasar1,
Could you get in touch with Bruce these days? Or maybe you could put him in touch with me? I would like to reach out to him and pick his brain on these 2.
Michael
Sure!! E-mail me , I will give you all the details :)
Those are two bad-azz Ax's you got there
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Showing off the BecVars
Yeah, a little DNA showing there, eh?
Thanks; you know we loves us some guitar/bass porn!
Peter