jazzyvee

Thinking about it i'm sure I recall on fb that Marcus is now working for Simms in marketing so maybe it was his bass and interesting for Bass direct when he was working for them but less so now. https://www.facebook.com/SimsGuitars/

Has this arrived yet?, I haven't seen anything on the site.

Cancelled, no idea why.

I'm doing a gig with Musical Youth in at the Kings Hall Herne Bay. There are two bands on the night, us and a Bob Marley & The Wailers Tribute band. https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/herne-bay/the-kings-hall/reggae-night-musical-youth/e-javbva

Better be careful post brexit then. :-)

From a safety point of view i have never understood why an airline is allowed to sell you a seat to put your instrument on. The seats are not designed to hold securely them nor the seatbelt and in the event of severe turbulance on a plane you have potentially a heavy object bouncing round the inside the passenger compartment that could cause injury to a passenger or damage parts of the cabin. I have once been in a plane with really scary air turbulence where loads of stuff was bouncing all over the place off the trays etc. Ironically it was the first time i’d been upgraded free to first class.

Ahaaa, nah im not a fan of that classic body style so my bank account is safe. Ive come to the end of my bass buying days anyway. I have all i want now.

Maybe for the the buyer it's a keeper and they are not concerned about selling it on in the future. 🧐

Surely, whether it is worth it or not depends on who is buying it. I'm confident BD have a buyer as can't imagine they would buy in a bass worth £22k bass in the hope of selling it.

Had a good gig with Musical Youth at Pizza Express live in Maidstone last night.

Well yesterdays experience was a good one. Whilst a few players came over and tried out two of my basses, the Classico and Stanley Clarke signature, I played only one which was one off the really short headless basses that sounded really good and the strings were not floppy like i expected. Its a bit of a long standing joke with my musician friends that I have never ever really been good at allowing others to play my instruments or playing instruments that are not my own, so i hope my reluctance to try more of your basses yesterday was not taken as a personal slight in any way. After yesterday experience i’m feeling a bit more comfortable in allowing others to play mine. Moving on, there were a lot of nice sounding basses i could hear during the day but I think the bass that stood out for me sound wise was the Enfield. No idea who was playing it or whose they were or what model. My thanks to the organisers for a well run event. Maybe you can branch out into putting gigs on there at some point too. ✔️👍🏿🎶🎵

My Saturday plans have changed so i will pop down and bring a 5 string and a couple of 4 stringers long and short scale. Alembics. Im still not used to others playing my basses so please understand if i look paranoid whilst handing it over. I like to keep all my instruments in pristine condition so No picks please and no clothing or jewellery lanyards etc that may damage the finish.

The only one I have recollection of playing is a vintage medium scale bass in the Stanley Clarke body style. I tried a lot of alembics when I went to their USA alembic gathering in 2012 but no idea what the rest were. Sorry I can't help more.

Anyone got any experience with 5 string using nylon flats? I've never used flats on any of my basses but I want to see what flats do for my reggae sound. I want to try some Labella Deep Talking nylon bass strings https://www.thomann.de/gb/la_bella_black_nylon_760nb.htm However as I'm only trying them out I don't want to mess with cutting a deeper slot in the nut since it is brass. My usual gauge are roundwound 45/65/80/100/130 and they fit great. These labella I'm looking at run from 060 - 070 - 094 - 115 - 135 or .050, .065, .085, .105, .135 so I wonder if they will still fit the nut current slots or will this difference in gauge cause them not to sit comfortably in the nut and maybe the saddle and give me problems. I won't be using them as a general string, only for the bass I use primarily for reggae so it's a bit of experimentation. https://www.thomann.de/gb/la_bella_750n_b_black_nylon_l.htm https://www.thomann.de/gb/la_bella_black_nylon_760nb.htm Any advice gratefully recieved.

Aston and Carlton Barrett Sly & Robbie Stanley Clarke & Lenny White Victor Bailey & Omar Hakim John Pattitucci & Dave Weckl Tony williams & Ron Carter Poogie Bell & Marcus Miller. Phil Lynott & Brian Downey

Me too I love that short scale one. The reason for the pointy tail was because before Alembic made basses themselves they were a repair/modification shop and a lot of their work was repairing broken headstocks on basses because people didn't use stands so the point was to make it difficult to not use a stand. Further reading on the development of the body shapes. http://www.alembic.com/family/history_bodyshapes.html

Yeah that sounds about right.

Really?? when and where was that?

Oops how rude of me. Here is my alembic weapon of choice, that i picked up directly from Mica Wickersham at the alembic factory in California in 2012. Series II Europa.

I would take a fair guess and say that most bass players have never owned or played an alembic bass. Probably most have never seen or heard one live on stage outside the big named pro users like like Stanley Clarke or Jimmy Johnson. A lot of the negative views I have come across regarding alembic be that on line or in person conversations with other bass player are centred on cost and not the sound or playability. Although some find the ergonomics less than suitable like for instance the stanley clarke style basses are neck heavy but that can be compensated for with a good strap and time getting used to the instrument. Personally I don’t gig, rehearse or record with any other bass than an alembic. For me they give me the sounds and the playing experience I want. For some owners they find the sound is not for them and sell them on and that is fine we don’t all have the same tonal requirements. In the past I did swap the electronics in one of my alembics with some ACG filter based electronics but I found whilst they were extremely good I somehow lost the punchy power in the lower mids that the alembic gave and the upper frequencies I found a bit harsh so for the music I was playing it didn’t work out for me. I have since put the alembic guts back in that bass and it suits me better. Over the years I have since tried a number of other high end basses like Fodera, Ritter, Wal and some custom shop fenders which all sound great but I haven’t found anything in them that I feel would make me choose them over my alembic. Of course we know they are not cheap to buy new even the entry level basses but if that is an issue there are used bargains to be had on the usual internet sale sites. One crucial thing to do if buying used amongst other things is to get the serial number and check it out with Alembic, there are a few fakes/copies around especially the Epic basses and also ask for photos of the electronics cavity as some have non alembic innards that the owner may never realise and the cost of getting a new set from Alembic ain’t cheap. When you get them post them on the alembic site www.alembic.com and ask form verification, there are lots of members there who can save you hassle. Contrary to another poster on this thread, I have found them really easy to set up even though it has two truss rods, and have never taken mine to a tech to have a setup done for me. There is some good information on the Alembic website forum.

Chuck Rainey has it nailed. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7TAFWwqeHko