Alembicized Guild M-85 II

[hieronymous]

My Alembicized M-85 II is here! I still haven't been able to take good pictures but I just can't wait to start this thread! The original Dreaming thread is here. The pickups are a brand new design, meant to be dropped into the original pickup rings for the Guild humbuckers that replaced the Bi-Sonics around 1971. The electronics in mine are Anniversary (volume, filter & Q switch for each pickup) but mono instead of with the stereo option, and with just a 3-way selector instead of the 4-way rotary. So I don't get stereo or a standby position, but that doesn't bother me at all.


Here's a picture of the whole body:





I'll try and post more pics as time goes on, as well as soundclips!

[edwardofhuncote]

Looks great, Harry. 

Interesting about the pickups... wonder if they'd be a drop-in on my DeArmond Starfire. The rings look right. Hmm.

[rv_bass]

Beautiful, Harry!  I look forward to the sound clips! 

[soflbass]

 Beautiful! I'll bet it sounds nice too.
Enjoy!

[hieronymous]

Thanks everyone!


Mica sent me the Alembic studio shots she took when I picked it up:

[fmm]

I'm not a big Guild fan but that's a beautiful bass.

[edwardofhuncote]

Congratulations & Compliments, Harry. Looking forward to your fretless posts. 

[hieronymous]

I've been playing and enjoying this bass! Sounds great with just the neck pickup or with both mixed to give a little bit of bite from the bridge pickup. Did a recording tonight, running through my CAE tube comp & newly refurbished Alembic F-2B, playing along with Mr. Green Genes from Hot Rats by Frank Zappa, plus some free playing afterwards.

Congratulations & Compliments, Harry. Looking forward to your fretless posts. 

And here's the hard part - I gotta practice! Gonna keep recording now and again to check my progress. Whether any gets released is another story - noticing it can be hard to hear in tune while I'm playing with headphones, easier in hindsight listening back...

[hieronymous]

Finally got in a set of fresh LaBella flatwound strings - I had a set lying around but they were short scale and Guilds really need medium scale because of the extra distance between the ball-end and the saddle. So I thought it was a nice chance to post another pic:





I've been playing the bass a lot with the old strings - they are probably fine (especially since no frets to mash them up and mess up intonation), but considering that they are 8-9 years old and have been undone and restrung when the mods were being done, I want to put on a fresh set. I noticed the G string around the 7th "fret" is dead - is it a dead spot on the instrument? I'll know more soon. Plus I haven't bothered setting the intonation (seems fine, harder to tell on fretless?), which I will do now.


I also unearthed the pictures from the eBay auction from when I bought the bass back in 2009 - will post those later!

[David Houck]

That does look nice; like an Alembic in stealth mode.

[edwardofhuncote]

...like an Alembic in stealth mode.

Funny coincidence Dave; Mica used those exact words yesterday when we were talking briefly about my project. You must have been using The Force. 

Hieronymous, I'm wondering if your bass has any side markers? 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.?  Looks like some very faint side dots, though to be fair, I'm looking at them on a little-bitty mobile screen... I highly recommend a 1st 'fret' marker if you don't have one... adding it was extremely helpful on my fretless Distillate when landing those notes in the lower register. There's a lot of really useful ones between the nut and 3rd. 

*and a lot of really bad ones if you miss. 

[hieronymous]

Yes, it's got markers at 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, etc. (19, 22  & 24?) (EDIT: I checked last night - it's 22 "frets" so no 24 lol)


I'm enjoying playing it - I try and play at least 10-15 minutes every day - definitely working on intonation - that nut-3rd fret is quite an expanse! I'm actually kind of enjoying exploring it markerless - I think I really need more work on the higher frets!


Gotta run, psyched for your impeding DeArmond Starfire mod! Just haven't had a chance to comment anywhere.

[hieronymous]

Been in conversation with edwardofhuncote in a couple of places so not always sure where and when we talked about different things, but here is an issue I was having:

With the old (circa 2009?) strings I was having a dead spot at the 7th "fret" position on the G string (D note) - the initial attack sounds great, but dies quickly. Other positions on the G string sounded fine. Well, finally put on a new set of La Bella flatwounds and it is much better, but still seems like a dead spot. Not a big deal - I'm not going for big sustained tones, I approach this fretless more like an r'n'b thumper - but I did notice something else about the saddle - it's almost like two grooves were cut next to each other:







You can kind of tell that the saddle looks darker than the others - might be a replacement, badly set up? Unfortunately these saddles are really rare to come across. Do you think it might have any effect on the string? Possible contribution to the dead spot? Something I would like to get fixed, even just for my OCD's sake, but I'm not worrying about it right now.


A lot of people don't like the "harp bridge" but I kind of like it for this bass - if it was fretted I might have upgraded earlier on. I do have some metal replacement saddles which I might switch to at some point, I just like the idea of wooden saddles - what a kooky design! Apparently these were made by Hagstrom and shipped to Guild with the saddles in place - see this thread at letstalkguild.com where someone exchanged emails with Karl Hagstrom Jr.:


http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?153290-Saddle-Talk

Maybe someday there could be further Alembicization of this bass - Alembic bridge/tailpiece (in chrome), and also if the fingerboard ever got really chewed up maybe they could replace it with ebony, and install LEDs! I guess this should go back in the dreaming thread...

[keith_h]

I think you have a version of the Fender dead spot. It has to do with resonance and sadly isn't limited to Fender basses. You might be able to move it to a less conspicuous location on the neck by adding some mass to the headstock (i.e. Fat Finger). I just live with it on my Fenders and if I really need the sustain move to the D string for those notes. 

[hieronymous]

I think you have a version of the Fender dead spot. It has to do with resonance and sadly isn't limited to Fender basses. You might be able to move it to a less conspicuous location on the neck by adding some mass to the headstock (i.e. Fat Finger). I just live with it on my Fenders and if I really need the sustain move to the D string for those notes. 

Thanks - I actually do have a Fat Finger - I should experiment!