Author Topic: John Mc Vie (Read 4823 times)

pauldo · « **Reply #15 on:** June 15, 2009, 03:40:31 PM »

Stainless steel fretless eh?
I would be interested in hearing an isolated bass track of that! Or any track - what albums did he use it on?

Was that an Alembic modification or did it happen 'after market'?

fretted4 · « **Reply #16 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:38:53 PM »

Here is john in action with the stainless steel fingerboard alembic, the bass track is not isolated, but in the middle of the song, he perfoms his famous chain bass solo, it shows some excellent close-ups and decent sound quality. enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T0Dq_SXaWc

serialnumber12 · « **Reply #17 on:** June 15, 2009, 08:06:53 PM »

Antique alembics...............Yessssss!!!!!!.....

peoplechipper · « **Reply #18 on:** June 15, 2009, 11:32:14 PM »

McVie with the infamous Acoustic 4x15 folded horn cab; blasting if you can get 30' away from it...and so darn big!
bass player in my old band had one; got rid of it when bandleader got a minivan as it was almost as big as the van...Tony

pauldo · « **Reply #19 on:** June 16, 2009, 06:12:02 PM »

Tracey - thanks for the video link, gotta love the Gypsy!!!
Wouldn't the stainless steel fretboard add a lot of weight? Any specs on the instrument? Fretboard thickness? It doesn't seem to have a real powerful mwahh factor to it...

I'm not trying to be difficult just VERY intrigued by the idea of a stainless steel fretboard.

fretted4 · « **Reply #20 on:** June 16, 2009, 10:40:54 PM »

Hey there, I believe he ordered this custom instrument around late 1977 according to the alembic history and probably didnt recieve it till 79, due to the fact that I cannot find any other videos before or after that year featuring this bass. I also believe it was used for the tusk album. What stumps me is that I cannot find out what happened to this and his original alembic-he switched to a red and black hamer cruise bass around 1980 and the alembics were never seen again....anybody have any clues?

dluxe · « **Reply #21 on:** March 15, 2010, 02:51:25 PM »

fretted4 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 19, 2010, 04:32:33 PM »

Well after some searching on youtube, it seems that around 1975 John had sent in his series 1 for some modifications. The changes being a master volume control, a change in the tailpiece, and at the time, updated the pickups from the black ones to the tan pickups. I wonder if Alembic has any info on these....

dluxe · « **Reply #23 on:** March 23, 2010, 12:04:58 PM »

Good eye there! I can see a difference between the tailpieces. I would have thought that the tan pickups predated the black ones though. Maybe Alembic had some old stock pickups left and fitted them in his bass. Very cool info.

jseitang · « **Reply #24 on:** August 22, 2010, 03:40:16 PM »

anyone know what the scale length of his bass are?

adriaan · « **Reply #25 on:** December 06, 2010, 11:51:56 PM »

Here's a pretty early clip of Over My Head with the early Series bass - nice quality audio and video. (Some comments suggest there are some overdubs.)

sonicus · « **Reply #26 on:** December 07, 2010, 12:17:45 AM »

The Bass cuts through the mix well just listening with my Sennheiser headphones at the moment. Nice EQ.
Good tune. Thanks for posting .

fretted4 · « **Reply #27 on:** July 20, 2011, 01:22:06 PM »

Just keepin this thread alive, anybody know how I could get more info on his alembic 73-27? thanks

jseitang · « **Reply #28 on:** August 08, 2011, 08:11:48 AM »

whats the gear john's using on the right?
it looks like two power supplies, and what looks like an alembic input module with a graphic eq enclosed in a head??

sonicus · « **Reply #29 on:** August 08, 2011, 10:35:25 AM »

A metal rack cabinet within are from top to bottom an Alembic IN-2 / A single rack space device unknown , (perhaps custom made) / a (looks like perhaps 2/3 octave) graphic EQ , perhaps UREI or maybe Klark-Teknik DN27A or

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