Very nice, the Zebrawood looks much like that of my 1980 Series I. Great picture, she looks new. How did you hook up with her?
I really like the grain on the zebrawood on this bass. It's interesting and beautiful, but not in a really obvious or 'stand-out' manner, I like it's subtlety.
I remember seeing them advertised a long time ago, then read positive reports of them on some of the bass forums, so I kept a look out for one. This particular beauty showed up on ebay a while back, and as the seller was really helpful and sent tons of high res photo's trying to show her 'faults' (+ had perfect feedback), I took the risk on buying sight unseen from the US. This bass is an '89 build and it looks like it was made yesterday, there is nary a mark on her. Even the brass backplates shine brightly and don't have a scratch. Price paid, incl Fedex to Oz and all duties etc was about the same as an MIM Fender with HSC at local retail.
Wow! That's a real beauty. That really looks like an Alembic. At the least, you can see the Alembic influence all over it.
Thanks. I think it's a beautiful looking and playing bass. Looking at it, it's easy to see that the designer was influenced by the Alembic's in terms of general design, control layout and tone. In many ways it reminds me of my SC Signature Deluxe, and the body on the Kawai is just about the same area (maybe a 'bit' bigger) as the Small Standard bodies. Tonally it is very big sounding with a lot of clarity, sensitivity to playing touch and a rich tonal palette that's easily varied over quite a range. It uses proprietary active pickups and if these ever fail, I think I'll add some Alembic pickups in their place.
Overall, it's such a nice bass that since I have two shortscale Alembics, I think I'd have to find the funds to stretch to a Series 1 to significantly improve on it.
