Fretless Excel Music-go-Round [was: Orion]

[ojo]

i saw this come up in a email today, so I headed out to play it.


http://www.musicgoroundkenosha.com/p/798311/used-alembic-xlb4f-fretless-4-string-bass-guitar-natural



A) I've never played an Orion, and
B) I've never played a real Alembic fretless (only played my Alembicized fretless basses)


It's a beauty, and looked rather clean. Metal side dots where the notes are. Triple at the octave. Neck felt good, though the action was a little high for my tastes. The pan pot was reversed, and the treble control also seemed reverse. I mentioned it to the staff, and the fella pulled it down to fix.

I passed on it because it didn't work for me totally. I prefer a more neck heavy sound, rather than the bridge bark. Very musical though, and has some sweetness.


It's suuuuuuuper aggressive with flats, and I'd wager that is a fatboy in the bridge. Harmonics like crazy, and very articulate. No icepick in the ear with this one. The neck pickup was a considerably lower than the bridge.

Now that I've played one, I really do want a fretless Alembic. Guess it's time to start saving, and keeping my eyes open for a Rogue.


Hope this one finds a good home, so I had to share with the group.


Joe

[title edited for model reference]

[hieronymous]

Looks good for sure!

[adriaan]

Nice Excel!
http://alembic.com/prod/excel.html

And yes, that's definitely a Fatboy in the bridge position. As you can see on the product page, Excels have been known to sport different pickup configurations, and if you say the neck pickup is considerably lower than than the Fatboy then a little pickup adjustment *might* already help getting the tone you prefer.

Perhaps throw in a Pan Preamp module http://alembic.stores.yahoo.net/panpreamp.html to get the full potential out of the pan pot.

But it probably will sound more bridge-barky than it would with the regular pickup configuration. Then again, if you're looking for variety among your basses, this might just be the one that will take you elsewhere.