Hi all,
I'm on the cusp of coming back into the Alembic fold, after an almost 5 year hiatus (or, digression, depending upon your perspective). Here it is, in a nutshell:
Way back in 2013, I stumbled across my first and only Alembic, a 1994 Epic. I knew the brand, but had never seen one in real life, much less had the opportunity to play one. This walnut-topped mahogany beauty easily became my go to recording bass for the next several years.
1994 Alembic Epic (34" scale)
However, GAS had gotten the best of my better judgement, and I let her go in the spring of 2015...like an idiot.
By early fall of 2015, I had eased the pain of losing the Epic, by overindulging in my *gasp* Warwick obsession:
(
left to right: 94' Corvette Proline 6, '04 FNA Jazzman LTD, '03 Thumb Bleached Blonde LTD...all 34" scale)
Growing up, I had also been interested in Warwick's, mainly due to Stefan Lessard and P-Nut.
By the Spring of 2016, I had gotten rid of the Proline 6, due to my primarily being a 4-string player with small hands, and by that fall, I sold both LTD's to fund this beast:
1989 Warwick Dolphin Pro 1 (34" scale)
Wow! The height of Warwick's 'golden era' handmade in West Germany. I do have to admit, the Dolphin is a pretty killer bass! Very ergonomic.
This satisfied my GAS for nearly two years, when I stumbled across this:
2010 Ritter Roya (33 ⅓" scale)
Very, very punchy! The Roya was my first foray into 18v preamps and it sounded damn good. It was also an extremely light bass.
In 2019, I caught a great deal on an early '03 Parker Fly FB4 (34" scale):
Great tone, but weird ergonomics. I've always loved the pre-refined Parker guitars, so I had to check the bass out.
So, again, I had built up a triumvirate of 3 pretty incredible basses: Dolphin Pro 1, Roya and a Fly. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen personal circumstances, I was forced to liquidate all three basses in a 3 month period...but hey, at least I had the opportunity to try them out for awhile!
The last phase of my GAS attack, quickly landed this in my lap:
94' Pedulla Pentabuzz (34" scale)
As much as I've tried to embrace more than 4 strings over the years, I just have never been able to. My fingers don't have the wingspan for it.
I loved the tone and it was my first fretless, but it left almost as quickly as it came.
So, at the bottom of this very long and winding rabbit hole is my desire to get back into the Alembic camp. I feel like I've done my due diligence over the last 5 years by trying out some of the best basses I could get my hands on. My only experience with Alembic has been a '94 Epic, which was a formidable bass in its own right. But, I think I'm looking a lot more closely at the short scale signatures or series 1 instruments. If I play live anytime soon, it will be very little, so this is primarily going to be a home studio instrument.
Hopefully, I'll be joining the club once again soon!
