Eric's Custom Essence

[mica]

Here's the start of things to come!  Neck and fingerboard:

  Ash body:

  Side of body and wood reserved to Nearest Neighbor wood plates:

  Quilted Maple:

  Test body half for electronics fit:

  Top and accent lams getting glued for the bookmatch to center:

  Fingerboard on neck, body on neck, ready for bookmatch to center top:

[sonicus]

Very nice, An Essence with Anniversary electronics?
  A little point at the end might be sweet too !
 
     I like this idea , this will be a nice Bass.
 Will it have a sustain block ?

[nitro3]

I am not sure what a sustain block is, but playing in the big band and at church I am usually muting to take out sustain, so I probably won't need it.
 
The goal of the bass was extreme lightness - I loved the sound and playability of a Mark King Deluxe I had but it was too heavy for me to play hours on end standing up, so Alembic is
making me the lightest bass possible.
 
We need Mica to post the inlays that are going to be on this bass - it is awesome!  The sun with solar flares is on the top fret, and then the planets for each marker down the fretboard.  Against a black quilted maple.

[rjmsteel]

Wow.... Anniversary with what sounds like really cool inlays...Great idea for the inlays!

[nitro3]

The funny part is that I ordered the guitar from Tony at Planet Bass.  I have bought and sold basses through Tony a few times and I can't say enough good things about him - he is excellent.

[rjmsteel]

Are you planning on running the Anniversary electronics package in stereo to two amps, into a F-2B Preamp or SF-2 Superfilter and then summed, (mono output), to a mono bass head or other configuration?  
 
The sustain block is the brass block recessed into the body and under the bridge. Look at examples of plenty of other basses on the club - under their bridges. Needless to say it adds some weight but not a lot. I think Southpaw had a thread referencing the total and subdivided weight of all the brass parts on his bass. The thread is under Alembic Basses/Guitars... How much does the Alembic brass bits add... if your curious.

[mica]

Here's the mock up of the inlay design:

I don't have the details in the Earth as we were deciding which view to show when this was created.

[artswork99]

Nice!!!!

[gregduboc]

Really really cool...
Amazing how perfectly everything fits, putting the biggest planet (Jupiter) right on the bigger space of the twelfth fret.
I want to see this one soon!!!
 
Greg

[elwoodblue]

Super idea,
 Having Pluto offset a little is a nice touch too.

[bassjigga]

I think this is my favorite inlay design to date...

[keith_h]

I like that. Can't wait to see the finished neck.  
 
Keith

[jon_jackson]

Amazing idea!

[rjmsteel]

Also like the stars out past Pluto, 21st fret and beyond...

[grok]

I actually was talking to Mica about a solar system bass just the other day, and she told me there's already one in progress now, pointing me to this one.  She did mention that past Pluto is the Oort cloud, rather than stars.  Nice!  So now I've changed my dream bass idea to deep space objects -- galaxies, nebulae, etc.  Now if I can only come up with the astronomical amount of cash....