Another Alembicized Starfire, owned by Dan Horne

[edwin]

Something about this bass looks familiar. Alembic has worked on it before.

[jazzyvee]

I'm just watching this video.

[rv_bass]

Pretty cool!  My guess is HGX pickups (as was done with Dave Schools’ Alembicized Starfire...love the rainbow foil lettering on this one), Anniversary electronics with bass boost for each pickup, mono/stereo switch for the quarter jack, and five pin with power/stereo output.  Love the old logos too!  Incredible restoration work.  Very cool bass! 

[edwardofhuncote]

So... it was Alembicized twice? Once before, then partially destroyed, then restored? Or just had a logo? I didn't really get that part.

It sounds FANTASTIC. And serves as a reminder, I've GOT to get back to work on mine.

[rv_bass]

Looks like this might be its former existence.,,

[edwardofhuncote]

Woah - look at that!

Yes indeed... I bet that one has some stories to tell.   

[edwin]

Looks like this might be its former existence.,,

I knew it was familiar!

[jazzyvee]

Not trying to be contraversal here but if this bass is a Guild Starfire, how come there is an alembic logo on the neck? Was this by some agreement between Guild and Alembic?

[edwin]

Not trying to be contraversal here but if this bass is a Guild Starfire, how come there is an alembic logo on the neck? Was this by some agreement between Guild and Alembic?

If Alembic does a complete rebuild on a Starfire, it gets a logo, especially way back in the day.

[jazzyvee]

I get that but what did Guild have to say about that?

[edwardofhuncote]

Interesting question. I doubt if they care. Guild has changed hands (ownership) a couple times since this particular Starfire was made. Pretty sure it's from the Hoboken N.J. Shop like my '68, or Westerly maybe? Not sure when the production actually moved.

If I remember correctly, the current Guild folks slipped up and mistook Edwin and his Alembicized Starfire for Phil Lesh one time though. I reckon all bets are off at that point. 

*as an aside, these look like pretty early Alembic logos.

[mica]

We did put logos on extensively modified instruments in the earliest days, a practice that started *before* we made instruments ourselves. We did later change our policy and stopped putting our logo on other maker's instruments. I can't imagine Guild has a problem with the handful on instruments that are decorated like this. Greg is correct on his observation of the age of these logos. Dan's has TWO logos, which is even more rare.

And there's more than a few people here on the Alembic Club that I've had to respectfully decline adding a logo to a heavily modified Guild bass. We did it one other Guild maybe 5 or 6 years ago I'm reminded, but I really don't anticipate doing it again.

[jazzyvee]

Thanks for clearing that up Mica.

[edwardofhuncote]

Adding Thanks for clarification of policy.

So... given the guess-timated age of those logos being early-1970's, wouldn't that pre-date this incredible cluster of JZ and P-shaped pickups by quite a few years? One wonders if this Starfire didn't originally have something else more akin to Series pickups installed by Alembic first, then have these retro-fitted sometime later after a failure of some kind rendered the existing parts unusable. If only they could talk. (they do, but I wasn't there to 'hear' this one's tale)

I listened to it again last night with the cans on, and it just sounds amazing. There's nothing that sounds quite like that.

[jazzyvee]

The closest I will get to a starfire to mess with is a short scale semi-acoustic Antoria copy which belongs to my gf and a couple of AXY pickups and two vol and pan looms from signature basses. But would I really play it in preference to my alembic? Doubtful.