Johnny's hilarious... a real character and a great player. I'd love to meet him in-person sometime.
Having had two Distillates both with their original electronics intact, I'm afraid he's not selling me on these, whatever they are. I'm of the opinion though, that it's hard to screw up a great bass, and this one sounds okay. It looks to still have its original AXY's, and I believe that's the main thing with these basses... that '81 I had was pure magic with everything set dead flat. A passive switch would be handy, especially on one of those early Distillates in place of the battery-draining LED. (which I even thought was pretty cool...) Personally I'd much rather it was an actual switch rather than a push-pull volume pot. The switch in his setup here (mounted in that now-vacant LED hole) is some kind of mid-contour control. That's probably the most useful thing I hear in Johnny's demo here. The bass and treble controls I thought just sounded generic knowing what I do about the boost/flat/cut option that came on these. Again, it sounds okay... Johnny Lee makes anything sound pretty good. I'd still sound like me.
I suppose this is one way to go, failing a complex DIY or having the Alembic shop repair the electronics. He is partly correct about that; there aren't easily sourced off-the-shelf parts in these. They can be fixed though, even upgraded. Probably not worth the cost or the time if you're in his biz.
