Keith, I sure did. The BadAss was the 'go to' hop-up bridge for a lot of guys, and was used as OEM in some cases as well.
This sort of thing (all the aftermarket parts for Fenders) sets an interesting observation:
Fender (and their landmark of building the first commercially successful electric bass) and Alembic (that same product refined thru the eyes and ears of an artist and engineer) had two fundamentally different approaches, both world-changing.
Fender saw a need (as did George Eastman, Hershey, King Gillette, and others) to take a radically different approach to constructing a low cost instrument. He skipped all the cabinet makers woodworking, screwed a neck to a plank with rudimentary pickups and hardware, and the world beat a path to his door. Fender saw it as a shop problem, not a deeply felt need for a different musical instrument. Hell, at first, they thought guys would unscrew the neck so it would travel more compactly. The amps were taken straight from the RCA tube manuals, as tube amps were the norm at the time. To predate Hartley Peavey (a huge fan of Leo Fender), they were working man's tools that could be had on a working man's wage, far less than an ES or LP or a Gretsch.
But as in many things, there is a great deal of elegance and useability in simplicity. And those basic planforms of Tele, Strat, and Precision were ripe for better bridges, keys, and electronics, and the market responded where players wanted these things.
Alembic's idea was driven by Ron's observation that the basic idea could be much better than what was current. The Alembic Series pickup system has never, nor will it ever be bettered. The idea of wide-r aperture single coil pickups that could be tuned to virtually eliminate any noise was groundbreaking, as was their frequency response. Making them low impedance helped this, as well as removing any worry of magnetics-induced drag. The filters removed any phase rotation from conventional pots, and allowed for any amount of thud or snarky highs you could stand. Phantom power guaranteed the headroom: You could add distortion inline, but you'd have a damn hard time making the bass do it on its own.
These things are why you suddenly think you're all thumbs for a while after your first Alembic comes home with you. It's that clean . . . . because it's that clean, and what else would you expect from a former Ampex engineer? It's classic high-end audio: Serious parts kept to a minimum in a simple design with as few gew-gaws between point A and point B to keep things clean and untouched as possible.
The tone was a revolution.
Taken to its' ultimate expression of a Series left and right into an F2B and then left and right to a stereo power amp and paired cabinets, alongside a P-Bass thru an Acoutic or Ampeg of the day, it was the first time bass players had a complete and proper system with no excuses or shortcuts, with elegantly simple high end controls. There is still nothing like it today, in a world full of basses with batteries and 3-band EQ and amps with graphics and/or parametrics, even octave boxes built in. For what? Is it so thin you just need all this to get there?
Then you suspend the strings over this system, with the thought being to isolate them from the body, seemingly contrary to what most think that the better string/body meld is where the sustain is. You may need a tight joint on a Fender neck pocket, but we're in another world here.
Now you build the body to have a continuous frame beneath the strings for durability, and to eliminate that neck joint. Use 1/4 ebony for durability and harder woods as well in the neckthru with the laminations' grain running in opposite directions. This adds mechanical strength, but the different properties of these hardwoods tend to raise the resonances, hopefully, out of hearing range. The other not talked about advantage of carbon-fibre necks. Add the body wings to make the desired shape and balance, and you're there. And yet the woods color the tone, so harder for more attack and fundamental (the mighty ebony lams) or some mix of the softer mahogany-ish woods to let a little air in and smooth it out. Much less the looks of the things !!
There's no aftermarket parts for Alembic. It was designed as a whole system, of re-imagined electronics and wood construction, in a way never seen before in one place on one instrument.
That's why to me, Ron and Susan, are easily on the short list with Mr. Fender, Les Paul, Rupert Neve, etc. They really came quite close to re-inventing the wheel.
These were from the start, artist grade instruments, which was unheard of in bass guitars, and bass as we now know it would be far different if The Bear hadn't stimulated that original Dead-based search for a better way to do things. A lot of this is lost on guitar players, who are still looking for a wiggle stick that will always stay in tune and the perfect tube amp, but there's always hope . . . .
Sorry for the long winded posts, I promise I'm not on new meds . . . . . .
Joey
