Right. We will go with 22 frets, and to slighlty improve access to the upper frets we will move the neck out one fret beyond where it joins the original T-Bird's body.
One of the challenges of this project is that the original T-Bird, as cool as it is, has some serious ergononmic flaws. Because of the large headstock and reversed body design on the original, the T-Bird is notoriously neck-heavy. The body design also creates terrible access to the T-Bird's upper frets -- it's hard to play much past the 17th fret.
Alembic would never design a bass with these kinds of design problems. But, the whole idea behind this project was to build a bass that looked like the T-Bird, but with Alembic's build quality and electronics (not to mention 5 strings). With that concept, there's no way the thing won't be neck heavy and afford decent access to the upper frets. We can tweak it, though, by using a small headstock, Hipshot Ultralight tuners and tweaking the neck/body joint.
T-Birds are cool. Alembirds will be cooler - and they will sound amazing! Can you say growl?
