Welcome and congratulations to you in The Netherlands.
ALEMBIC will get to your serial number request during the upcoming business week, I'm sure.
As I own a 92 Custom Spoiler very similar to yours, I can give you the 'guided tour' of your new instrument.
ALEMBIC refers to this shape as the Standard Point body, with a Crown 4 (-string) headstock. This is the original, classic ALEMBIC shape, and fairly rare in a Spoiler. Check the 'Showcase' section in the ALEMBIC CLUB to see the traditional Spoiler shape.
In the posted photo, I don't see any of the thick purpleheart laminations in the neck, so I'm guessing that you have the all maple laminations usually seen on a Spoiler. Nor can I see the back of the instrument to see what the back sides of the body wings are made of. I'm guessing the top to be possibly zebrawood, with the matching laminations on the front and back of the headstock (any better ID on this top wood, Dave?). If you look closely at the laminations on the headstock faces, you'll see the layers they add in to strengthen this traditional fragile spot on a guitar or bass.
Right below this you'll see the adjustable brass nut. These last virtually forever, and the adjustability REALLY speeds up your set-ups. This is a feature found on VERY few instruments.
Your fingerboard is slab ebony with mother of pearl oval inlays. You'll notice the ebony is thicker than most other instruments you'll see.
ALEMBIC traditionally does not finish the ebony fingerboard, so you will need to apply a high grade lemon oil to it every six months or so.
Like Dave, I'd be VERY surprised if this axe only has one truss rod. With two truss rods you can control your action very closely, much better control than a single.
The truss rods are beneath the little brass plate of course. When you pull this, you'll notice that they are NOT secured with wood screws. ALEMBIC uses machine screws into threaded inserts in the body, so you will never worm out a screw hole no matter how many times you use it. If memory serves, the only wood screws on ALEMBICs secure the tailpiece, the locating holes in the tuning keys, and the strap buttons.
Your bass uses ALEMBIC AXY4 pickups. These are stacked humbucking pickups. The control circuit is volume/tone/pickup switch/Q-switch. The pickup switch proceeds thru four spots: Off(mutes the bass)/bridge pickup/bothpickups/neck pickup, unless the previous owner reversed the pickup switch order as I did; then it would be off/neck/both/bridge, the order I prefer. The 2-way switch is a normal tone control in the up position, makes the circuit work just like the tone knob on any PBass you ever tried.
When you throw the switch down, now it becomes a high pass filter plus 'Q'. Turn it all the way down, there's virtually NO highs, you sound like organ pedals. As you turn the control up, you get more and more highs to a point where's it's just unbelievably trebly, like a huge clavinet. The 'Q' refers to a hump/boost at the particular point in the frequency range anywhere the control is turned to. In other words, this hump travels up and down as you turn the control up and down. This one switch gives LOTS of different tones. My favorite is front pickup only, control about half open, play with a pick and you get that Chris Squire tone in spades. You've got a lot of experimenting ahead!
The bridge is cast to match the curve of the fingerboard (like a TuneOMatic), and the tailpiece is fixed. The down angle at the head, the down angle over the bridge to the tailpiece, the thick ebony and the neck thru all combine to give you LOTS of sustain, regardless of amp gain.
Your battery (one 9v) is beneath the back plate. You'll notice two little blue blocks with white screw adjustments in the bottom right corner of the cavity. These adjust the gain of the pickups relative to each other. So now you can adjust the pickup heights and angles to what sounds just right to you, THEN set your relative gains without having to use the heights alone to set your blend. Again, a feature found on damn few instruments outside of ALEMBICs.
And the pickup adjustments: There is NO foam or springs between these pickups. It's confusing at first as you think 'Where are the other two pickup screws?). They're beneath the 'empty' holes! To adjust ALEMBIC pickups:
LOOSEN the two screws you CAN see FIRST.
Then reach through the empty holes and use THESE two to set your height/angle.
THEN snug them in place with the two screws you CAN see. You DON'T tighten them super-tight, just snug enough to stay in place. You can BREAK the housings if you get crazy tightening them up way to tight. Raise them right up to the strings, sink them deep in the body, whatever sounds good TO YOU is what we're after here. There is no 'correct' height. Then set your outputs thru the blue boxes and you're done. Again, this is something found NOWHERE else.
Hope this helps you out, and ENJOY your new bass!
J o e y
