This bass has an unusual history. It was born unofficially at Alembic, meaning that a former Alembic employee built it for himself from different parts laying around. What he built was a fretted Mark King signature deluxe bass with a satin finish complete with logo, but with a few unusual features. He took the upper body wing of a standard and mated it to the lower body wing of a small standard and had the traditional alembic point at the end. Then he moved the upper body wing a bit further up than usual to give it a better balance. He also routed for and installed a dummy hum canceler simply because he liked the look of it; I don't think that poor pickup is gonna get any dumber than this. Also, for some reason, the headstock was not in cocobolo like the top and back of the bass, but in Koa.
At some point in the midnineties the former employee sold it to me and it lived happily with me for the next 3-4 years.
Then one day while at an Airport the strap of the gig bag I had it in snapped from its ring because it was a cheap plastic hook, and the bass, which was on my shoulder a moment before, went down smack on its head. I won't tell you what it feels like when your baby is going down and you know it..and you can do nothing about it but be horrified & pray...well, at first glance it looked like I had been lucky and that nothing had happened, but once back home, while playing the bass a couple of weeks later I noticed a scratch along the neck right by the fretboard at the first fret..then I realized it was not a scratch but a crack that went for about 1 1/2 inch into the neck.
Obviously I was not a happy camper, although at least I had my Distillate which kept me from being totally miserable.
A little later, once I had the money I called Mica to see if Alembic would help me get it fixed even though it wasn't 'really' one of theirs.
Mica was as usual helpful, so I told her I'd like a new neck, since I could not bear the thought of any of my Alembics to be less than perfect. So the old one was cut off, and a new one made; since I was at it I decided make a couple of other changes as well. I decided to get rid of the point for weight reasons and because I kept hitting everyone with it. Mica figured out the best way to cut it and still make the bass look right, so it ended with a slanted bottom instead of the even one sported by standard/smalls standard type bodies.
Then, since I already had a fretted Alembic Distillate, I figured why not make this one fretless and further, since my hands are fairly small, I thought, why not fender Jazz neck dimensions. which makes it even lighter & less neck-heavy. And last, the headstock finally got the cocobolo to go with the body. Mica told me afterwards that I could consider it a true alembic, though it has no serial #. Not that it really matters, since I'll never sell it.
