Hello Everyone,
I owned a used 1981 Series II that a BIT student sold to me to fund a purchase a Steinberger in 1983. Unfortunately, I had to sell it to fund expenses when I was younger. Last month, I started playing around with the “Alembic Custom Quote” feature which led me to finalizing what will be an amazing instrument with some classic and some cutting edge features going all out in a Series II 4 string bass. I was pleasantly surprised at how reasonably priced the option pricing has been landing. Stay tuned (pun intended) for what will most likely be a delivery in February of 2019. Been dealing with Susan on this one and she’s been a delight to both work with and to talk about life lessons with.
I’m selling off some nice basses and guitars to fund the build however the experience is worth the price of admission, especially when you’re over a half a century old. So many things go into good design and manufacturing - the place is busy and Susan has sent me E-Mails at midnight her time. I saw a recent set of pictures on Facebook from someone’s tour of the Alembic factory and was blown away by how many custom builds that they have in production. The place is thriving. Ron Wickersham does the equivalent of tap tuning the electronics by hand to each instrument and some of the mockups that they will e doing for me pre-production are material and labor intensive. Plus, they treat their employees right with health insurance and a fully stocked fridge with meals and snacks to retain their engaged workers. You’ll pay more for an Alembic but value seldom equates to price. Susan can’t make them any cheaper with the who, what, where, when, why and how market that they serve.
Edward in St Louis
