Alembics don't sell only if you don't know how to sell them...and you can't sell them the way you sell any other bass.
For me the electric solidbody bass world can be divided into 4 main sound categories: Fender basses, Bartolini basses, EMG basses and finally Alembic Basses...there are of course plenty other instruments ( Rickenbacker for one, my first favorite bass, before Alembics came around) who have their unique sound, that generally is nothing to write home about, but most instruments ( plenty of Fender copies) fall in one of those four categories. Of those 4 , the first three may easily give you a really good sound , but...they have nowhere near the versatility of sound you get from an Alembic. Add to that the fact that Alembics are unsurpassed in workmanship, playbility and sheer beauty & can be built totally to your specs down to choosing the woods for them, and you have an instrument which is as good as it gets AND is a stunning work of art. And that's what you gotta harp on if you want to sell an Alembic to someone who never heard of it. I was at Manny's back in the early nineties, and I remember I was pretty interested in MK signature they had there, but the salesperson who 'helped me really was not interested in talking about basses, he did not try to sell me on it at all, which kinda surprised me, Of course I did not buy, since he was also unwilling to come down on his price ( which wasn't all that great). So , if Manny's wasn't selling Alembics, I think it may have had to do more with their lack of effort than anything else. Unfortunately, that type of salesperson attitude well, it's just a bass, what is there to know about it? is all too common....
Valentino
