On New Year's Eve I got a text from my friend from a Polish bass messageboard that he'd bought 2 Alembics on Ebay - an Orion and an Essence, both 5-strings - and, as he always knew my terminal case of Alembicophilia, he would be happy to welcome me for some bass testing (as well as liver damage derby, lol) as soon as they arrive. Well, they didn't arrive until last week. Last Saturday, armed with my old Aria bass which he was eager to try and a bottle of vodka, I headed for Tomaszow Mazowiecki where he lives. He welcomed me with some delicious spaghetti and slivovica (I don't know the English name for that high-percentage beverage of Czech origins) and the testing began... First, I tried the Orion.
The strings were dead and the setup was lousy which couldn't be helped for that moment - it occurred the guy my friend bought the Orion from unscrewed the truss rod endings (don't know the English name)... I hope they can be replaced! Anyway, the bass, apart from being breathtakingly beautiful, felt very solid and definitely held a promise but couldn't really show what it could do (and I assume it can do a lot - I'm basing my opinion on 2 Epics, a 4 and a 5, I had the opportunity to lay my dirty paws on; I can describe their sound as a noble but very angry Jazz Bass on steroids). Then, I grabbed the Essence...
...and I fell in love the very second I hit a string. It's PHENOMENAL. The sound is beautiful but cruel, clear but murderous, noble but shattering. What a bass! I couldn't get my hands off it. I later test-drived my friend's Music Man StingRay 5 which is a solid good-sounding workhorse, his custom-made GMR 5, an indestructible gig machine designed to take the worst abuse on stage, and a Fender Jazz Fretless, but they, while all very good, were simply no match. Yes, I'm still saving for an Alembic which is a hard task for a guy heavily underpaid even for Polish conditions. But I won't give up. Until I finally manage to get one, I have some memories... and photos ;-) You can see I'm in love here, it shows!
And you know what's the best here? My friend let me borrow his Essence for a recording session (probably this Summer)!
