Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Swap Shop and Wish Lists => Seen on craigslist, eBay, and elsewhere => Topic started by: gtrguy on January 23, 2025, 02:33:17 PM
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Interesting Alembic copy (with issues). I have not seen a Matao copy of an Alembic before.
https://reverb.com/item/86743311-matao-vintage-1980s-electric-bass-natural
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love the inlay work. wonder hwat it is.
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I had one of these ca. 1980 or so. It's got a loose Alembic vibe (which attracted me to it back then), but the electronics are quite different. It's the companion to a guitar with the same setup. It has bass and treble controls as well as a circuit that can be a compressor or expander, although I have forgotten exactly how it's set up and what controls it had. It's possible I still have the instructions somewhere along with the original electronics.
It played reasonably well, but I got tired of the silly dynamics circuit and replaced the pickups with very early EMG pickups (the jazz pickup had exposed pole pieces) and built a state variable filter from Craig Anderton's circuit that was a crazy, wild filter.
Eventually, I sold it, ca. 1985.
If I could do it over, I would have kept the '68 Jazz bass that I sold in order to buy it. I was young and foolish. I think the fingerboard was the best part.