Thanks, Dave and Mike. Hey Mike, always glad to meet another lefty- we're going to rule the world some day!
As far as the woods on my bass, I mostly will repeat to you what the folks at Alembic have told me. When I told Valentino during our first conversation that I wanted a short-scale bass with a long-scale sound, he told me that the biggest contibuting factor to the sound of a thru-body-neck bass is the neck woods, and that ebony- by virtue of being the stiffest of the woods- increases the sustain of low fundamental frequencies. Now that I have this instrument, I'm impressed at just how big it sounds for a 30.75 scale axe, and I'm assuming that the ebony is the main contributor to this.
As far as the coco bolo, truth be told, I picked it because it looks cool and is so Alembic, more than because of a specific tonal quality that I knew about and chose it for. In fact, I'd love to hear Dave or any other knowledgeable folks chime in to describe the contribution of a coco bolo top to the tone of a thru-body-neck bass.
Happy holidays to all youze guyz.
