The values of a vintage make...

[georgie_boy]

Well said John!
Seems that hum from older Alembics happens more outside theUK.
When I got together with the Scottish gathering members, my Series bass was dead quiet, an she is from 1976.
 
George

[terryc]

white cloud..yes you a definite right, I don't hate fenders, I own a lovely Squier Fender from the early 80's(even these have 'vintage' value now!)
The fact is I have said Leo wanted to make these guitars and basses affordable to every kid who wanted to play rock 'n' roll and emulate the great Buddy Holly. he made them simple, with the simplest connection joint, a pocket, a block shape at the end of the neck and four screws with a spread plate and it bloody worked, my God did it work.
The sound of P bass in the hands of James Jamerson is the end on all Motown records as well as Carol Kaye.
The funky growl of Jaco on his Jazz, what I cannot understand is why people who pay huge amounts of dosh for these old instruments and to say whether they sound better is again maybe some sort of brainwashing that clouds our ears.
As jimmyj says, it is down to what we all like personally.
To give an example , I have been using a Peavey bass whilst my Alembic is away, its got two jazz style pu's, twin vols and tone and to be honest it sounds absolutley brilliant, it is my girlfriend's son's bass and I set it up but it has never been gigged so I thought I would air it in the live situation.
So, maybe s wood is right that new materials, construction and components of today do make better instruments.

[white_cloud]

Spot on Terry,
 
When I was referring to some of the most important music ever recorded I had James Jamerson in my mind as I typed it!! I also agree about a collective brainwashing - I own a wonderful 57 re-issue Fender Precision that to my ears sounds better than any vintage Fender I have ever owned and I have had a few!
 
I read somewhere that Leo originally wanted to build a bass that players could use at fighting country & western bars - something that you could use to play good sounding bass lines, something that you could use as a bat to smash flying beer bottles back into the crowd with, something that you could use to fight your way through the bar to the exit at the end of the gig!!!! I think he succeeded and built the toughest basses ever conceived - have you seen many Fenders with snapped off headstocks?? Take a look at Gibsons with their fragile neck/headstock joints - I have seen countless (and one or two Alembics might I add) with broken off headstocks!
 
Fenders are simple and solid but I guess that isnt in keeping at all with the subject matter of this thread.
 
Funny thing is, Im also using a Peavey as a back-up bass live at the moment - it was really cheap but is almost as good as my Fender!!  
 
Perhaps you dont have to spend big nowadays to get a good axe!!!

[serialnumber12]

whenever i pull out my 'very Old alembic' it literally makes jaws drop simply because most people have never-ever seen an alembic up-close & Bass players today don't see old alembics ever!!! so to actually touch one of the first ones ever built they automatically assume that thing must be worth close to a million bucks? I just tell'em ......yep it is!

[lbpesq]

My '76 Series I guitar and '77 Series I 12 string have never been upgraded electronically ... and they don't hum.
 
Bill, tgo

[terryc]

The first Alembic I saw was on 'The Old Grey Whistle Test'  a BBC music programme from the 70's.
It RTF with Stan using his first brown bass(the one that was stolen).
They were unheard of over in the UK..it was a mystical sound, nothing I or anyone had heard before.
The first one I played was in the Bass centre in 1994, a Stan clarke Signature..it was awesome and in 1998 I eventually got my MK signature.
Oh yes..it has arrived back from SIMS custom shop today with it's front LED's in red and let me tell you all..the work is impeccable..you think it had been done at Alembic.
I will open a new thread with pics tonight or tomorrow for you all to see.

[georgie_boy]

Can't wait!!
Does he do side LED's as well???

[hendixclarke]

Barnes,  
 
who own Alembic #12?  
 
What am I missing?
Please explain...

[serialnumber12]

what can i say .........................Mr Ron Wickersham is a Wizard!

[serialnumber12]

I'm just wondering were in the hell is serialnumber's 11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,.....they must worth a Million Bucks!

[serialnumber12]

Old alembics are worth Millions,dont let them fender freaks tell u differnt!

[hendixclarke]

Serialnumber12 = Keavin's Bass.
 
Legend has it, he found it in the San Francisco Bay Area deep down under, in the Octopus Garden (in the shade)...
 
I call this bass, one of the original WOLF ...because it started all the other Alembic breeds.  
 
This bass should be sent to the Smithsonian in DC, and preserved in a vacuum sealed chamber with 12 inch thick Plexiglas; for children of 1000 generations to see.

[olieoliver]

I locked myself in my little studio last night and played for a few hours. Switching out on the 89 and the new S-2's. And they BOTH sound incredible. They sound very different but both good. And no RF on the 89.
 
OO
 
(Message edited by olieoliver on May 22, 2009)

[sonicus]

Hi serialnumber12  Thanks for the pic , I LOVE IT . Was that a product from the old  Brady St location?  I remember going there quite often back in the Seventies.   This is a serious work of art.
 
Wolf

[JimmyJ]

Yeah, #12 is a sweet looking machine!  A beautiful example of inspired Northern California technological innovation and the formative years of Alembic, Inc.  That was an exciting time!
 
Yes, Ron is a wizard, this is true.
 
Friends, my comment about hum was not meant to infer that the older instruments are somehow compromised.  The huge, open sound of the Series Alembics is in part due to the large single coil pickups.  If they had used humbuckers it wouldn't have sounded the same.  (Hey, I'm not putting these down either, whatever works for you is fine by me!!)  But like a Fender Telecaster these single coil pickups tend to also hear whatever electromagnetic interference may be flying around the area and amplify that along with the sound of the strings.
 
The brilliant scheme that Ron came up with to deal with this non-musical component of the signal was to use a shared hum canceling coil between the pickups and include accessible hum balance trim pots.  A truly innovative idea!  But because the two interacting coils are physically separated by more than an inch, they don't hear the EMI or RFI in exactly the same phase and thus can't perfectly cancel 100%.
 
As it turns out, each bass is also slightly different electronically, or maybe magnetically...  The exact placement of the pickups, the metal plates, screws, and maybe even the wood and glue are all factors in how much noise can be rejected by the circuit.  Bill and Ollie may be lucky and have extra quiet instruments - or extra quiet environments.  (I used to work in one poorly shielded studio here in LA where the lobby was the quietest room - so I would set up and play from there...)
 
Recently, Ron had another stroke of genius and found a way to fine tune the hum rejection for each individual instrument further reducing the noise floor by something like 20dB.  These must be the quietest single coil guitars on the planet!
 
So the context for my comment was simply that the progress of Alembic instruments, their construction, design, and circuitry, has been linear.  The NEW instruments are AT LEAST as incredible as the old instruments and noise rejection has in fact improved.  Again I am only a player, a user of these great tools, I am not a collector and can't really think like one.  So #12 might be worth a million bucks but only to those of us who hold it in that light.  If I hit the lottery I would probably order a few new custom Series IIs before I started buying up #1 - #10 Alembics.  But that's just me!!!
 
Best to all,
Jimmy J