Hi Mark. Welcome to the club. At this point, I have 1 Alembic, a custom 8-String Europa -COTM (custom of the month) June 1999. But I'm planning on ordering my second soon, which will be a replacement for my stolen 6-string Elan Plus, which was an awesome bass.
The Elan is a great bass -as are all Alembic neck-thrus. First of all, the High Priestess of Bass, Mica, has told me that neck-thrus tend to naturally have the smile (eq) curve... that is, the highs and lows are pronounced, while the mid-range is less emphasized. Ricks are famous for this sound... and it is largely a function of having neck-thru construction. I believe that Ricks also have maple necks. The Elan was built standard with maple for the body material, and I think a 3 piece rock maple neck was standard for the Elan -although I think I've seen a few that have 5-piece necks with 2 purpleheart laminates. (Most Alembics have mahogany bodies).
Maple is known for being consistently bright; so Elans should tend to have a smile curve type of sound with lots of brightness; this was certainly the case with mine -but that also had a (quilted) maple top.
Keep in mind, that on Alembic basses, the electronics and the neck materials are the two biggest components of the sound... and then the body material, and then the top wood.
Unless you've happened upon some sort of custom variant, it's virtually certain this Elan would have an all-maple neck and a maple body, so it would be adept at having a Rick-type sound.
It would probably tend to sound a bit brighter with the Q on and the filter in the extreme treble position, but if you were to roll the filter a little, it would likely sound close to a Rick.
Alembics are EXTREMELY flexible tonally; the low-pass filter and Q switch they use as their main tone control setup allow them to capture the sound(s) of many different basses.
If you roll the filter a little farther down, with the Q on in the mid-range, it can pull out a pretty Fender-esque sound.
By the way, you referred to a selector switch. This is probably the Q switch. While some of the older Elans had ONLY 3 tone control knobs (I think they were volume/volume/filter), most Elans have 3 knobs (master volume, balance, filter) and a 2-position toggle switch, which is the Q switch. The Q is not a selector switch. If you don't know what it is, ask around, 'cause it's an essential part of the Alembic sound.
Elans are great basses; but if you're considering one, you might want to educate yourself about the differences between the Elan, and the Europa -which is generally considered superior, and more versatile- just to make sure you get what you want.
The main differences between the 2 (other than the Europa being more in-demand, and having a higher price tag, in general) are: (1) the Europa has a mahogany body, which is considered warmer/rounder but less bright; (2) Europas have 2 extra quick change/boost/cut switches (which can boost/cut the bass and treble frequencies +/- 6 db; and (3) most Elans do NOT have the brass sustain block that is standard on Europas and most other Alembic neck-thrus -and so the sustain, while probably better than most other non-Alembics, would not be as good as Alembic models that DO have the sustain block.
The Elan is a great bass, far superior to 99.9 % of the other basses floating around out there.
And I can tell you from experience that it should be reasonably capable of coming close to the sounds of the Fender and Rick basses.
It would be a big step up.
P.S. one other thing I didn't tell you much about is the effect of the top wood on the bass. While considered one of the least significant factors, it does influence the sound. If you tell us the topwood, we might be able to give you a little more information...
Take care, good luck, best wishes, keep us informed!
Mark
(Message edited by the 8 string king on November 18, 2006)
