(x) Pre-owned Alembic Essence 4 - Serial Number 92K7436

[davenorman]

Good afternoon from the Isle of Man.

I recently acquired my first pre-owned Alembic Essence 4 string; arrived by courier last Friday and I have spent the weekend on bass set up. The neck was back bowing so much that all the strings were sat on the frets in normal playing position. I have put some relief on now loosening the truss rods and set it up with a new set of TI Jazz flats. Intonation is perfect however the action is still a little high but cant really go any lower due to awful fret buzz. Tried nut adjustment too.

I have two questions which I would be very much obliged to receive your input on:

1. String heights for Alembic Essence 4 (what would be the factory setting)
2. Any information on this Alembic Essence 92K7436

Thanking you in anticipation; happy Sunday everybody !!

Dave

[adriaan]

Hi Dave, welcome to the club, and congratulations on your Essence!

The classic post on setting up an Alembic is Joey's, and it's filed under the Must Reads section here at the Club. http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=311.0

[davenorman]

Hi Adriaan and thank you for the welcome ! Glad to be here. I shall read Joey's post right away ! Thanks again Dave

[mica]

top: Flame Maple
accent: Walnut pinstripe
body: Maple
neck: 3-piece Maple
scale: 34 long
fingerboard: Ebony
inlays: none
pickups: MXY
controls: Essence volume, pan, filter, mono output
originally made for: not recorded
birthday: September 29, 1992

There is one previous registered owner of this bass in 2015 in the UK.

[davenorman]

Hey mica, thank you so much for the information, I'm thrilled with my alembic, albeit pre owned, can't put the thing down, and wishing you all the best fom the TT races Isle of Man x

[mica]

I'm sorry I didn't reply about the string height thing... We don't actually have a specification for this. We generally set the basses up with EXTREMELY low action and very little relief. Then we raise the action and increase the relief a touch so that normal humans can play it, but we know it can go lower in the right hands. There's a wide range of adjustments available, and we fully expect each player to adjust it to their preferences. Same with the gain of the preamp - set it at will

That being said, your choice of strings are very low tension, and may not add much forward pull to the bass. I would expect you need to loosen the truss rods (equally) to see if they work.