As many of you know, two years ago (at nearly age 50), I finally got together my first real band. We've been going pretty strong since then. Nothing over the top...once a week rehearsals and we try to gig once a month. When we started, I was playing one of my Alembic customs exclusively. Maybe for a change of pace, I started playing an Historic Les Paul. After several months, I got bored and was looking for something different, So I bought a Charvel Guthrie Govan. Easiest guitar I've ever played and super light weight.
It's been about a year since I stopped playing the Alembic and I decided to pick it up again. It felt like home. After all, it was made for me and there's just something so special about it. Other guitars of mine almost feel borrowed, even though they're mine. Playing this one again just seems "right." The problem is that we've got a few songs in the set list that a really need a whammy bar for me to do them absolutely perfectly. Now I'm faced with five choices...
1) Bring two guitars to practice and gigs, which I really don't want to do.
2) Play the Charvel again or this really nice PRS I have. Now that I've re-bonded with the Alembic, I don't want to do this either.
3) Forget the idea of the whammy bar all together and just play the songs without it...we're really only talking like three or four songs here.
4) Have a tremolo installed on one of my Alembics. I'd never do this in a million years.
5) Have another Alembic made with a tremolo. I'm definitely considering this. After all, I might wind up playing more songs down the road that require one. But, of course, there's the expense and the wait to consider.
Before I started playing out, the idea of a tremolo on an Alembic was pure sacrilege to me. Maybe not so much on an Orion or Spectrum, but certainly on the five Darling and Darling variants that I've got. Now that I'm playing in places other than my den, though, I need to consider the practical aspects of the guitar and not simply the aesthetics. Then there's the whole matter of which tremolo to even choose. I love the Skyway that Alembic installed on a custom Darling awhile back. But I can't seem to find anything about those units anymore. My understanding is that the builder no longer makes them. So I thought about a brass Kahler. Mica posted pictures on Instagram of a coco bolo Further that had one. Sure, I love the look of an Alembic bridge and bird tailpiece as much as the next guy, but the Kahler didn't look too bad.
If anyone has any experience with a tremolo on their Alembic guitar, I'd love to hear your thoughts...specifically whether you'd do it again.
Regards,
Jonathan
