Kiwi

I recently came into a job lot of Steinberger 4 and 5 string headless bass necks which I couldn't resist pulling the trigger on. So I've asked Jon to make me a workhorse bass that essentially sounds like a 5 string cutlass and a p-bass. Hopefully this means I will only need to take one bass to gigs at last! I'm designing the body based on the standard 6 string shuker body but CNC machined to have a carved top and to take a 5 string neck. If CNC carved tops are good enough for Martin Taylors jazz guitar luthier, Mike Vanden, its good enough for me . The top will be either my own flamed redwood facings or a flamed sycamore facing on an alder body core. The body will also be chambered so I get both excellent balance with the headless option and hopefully a light weight body. Because I'm using Jon's CNC machine it means most of the work for him will be finishing, (and perhaps cleaning up my mistakes ) The preamp will be a John East MM pre + mid-sweep c/- Old Horse and the pickups will probably be two Delano MM quad coils in $$ positions with coil taps. The advantage of using the East preamp is that the built in input buffers mean the output level will stay consistent even though the pickup impendance changes with different coil options. So I avoid all of that nonsense with output levels that plagues the MM SR5 HS basses. The quad coil Delano MM pickups mean that noise free output is possible even on single coil settings. Watch this space...

The gig in Sparsholt was fine although we had problems hearing ourselves. The room sucked all the midrange from the bass and vocals. For some reason my middle finger didn't work properly during Good Times meaning I couldn't do the last triplet in the riff. I tried it each time and the finger wasn't strong or quick like the others. It felt like I might have strained it or something during the load in. Plus our drummer was playing it too slow and I couldn't lock in with him. Anyway, we played "Shake Your Body Down To The Ground" and, because I'm basically playing lead bass through the whole song whenever I'm not playing the basic riff, I got another cheer from someone in the audience and some applause. Nice. I had a chat to the cheering couple afterwards too, really warm and in their late 40's by the appearance of it. Then I had some half drunk crazy Italian guy pulling me aside and telling me he's a bass player and a legend because he spent 11 years in New York hanging out with Ramones and Johnny Thunder back in the late 70's. This guy had on a pink satin cravat and a bad hair dye job too. *brrrr* Smile and nod. Smile and nod. Smile and nod...

[quote name='LE_Gui' post='213810' date='Jun 6 2008, 12:51 PM']Hi, I'm a 28yo frog bassist (in Marseille, France), usually having french bass forums as pond (forum.onlybass.com is my main jumping area) I've been playing bass for about 13 years now, in cover bands and also in a metal band. I plan getting this metal band up again on of these days and I would also like to get a funk-rock band on my own since I got a lot of funky slapping parts that can't be used in a metal context Anyway, I'd be glad to discuss here and why not meet some english members if you come in France or if you use msn Thanks for your attention Guillaume[/quote] LOL, nice intro Welcome Guillaume (another one!)

Nice bass but what bits of it are actually from 1975?

[quote name='ped' post='213236' date='Jun 5 2008, 02:20 PM']Kiwi can you contact Alembic for a rough idea? Would be interesting to find out.[/quote] OK, I'll drop Mica an email and see if she's forgotten me yet.

[quote name='johnnylager' post='213035' date='Jun 5 2008, 10:46 AM']But the inlays , the correct bridge p/u positioning , they'll flog plenty. And plenty more if they put the S-1 in. Will it have a 3-bolt plate though? [/quote] I think the correct pickup positioning is enough excitement in itself.

[quote name='Nino Valenti' post='213171' date='Jun 5 2008, 01:10 PM']Taste_2000 told me about this place a while back and I looked around but never got a chance to sign up. Better late then never. [/quote] I know, that was the reason for my comment. As you say, better late than never.

[quote name='ped' post='213013' date='Jun 5 2008, 10:16 AM']Kiwi, surely the list price of your graphite Alembic must be astronomical?[/quote] I understand it was incredibly expensive when they were originally made - much more so than a normal Series 1 and those were expensive enough. The selling point was the use of space age materials. But what the list price was and how it translates into todays money I couldn't say. [quote name='birdy' post='213037' date='Jun 5 2008, 10:48 AM']Its up for £5.9k and wasn't ever £6.5k - unless Alex is making a few extra quid on the side :-)[/quote] Well someone I remember mentioned it was £6500, but I can't remember who. F**king gorgeous bass though, and I say that as not being a particularly enthusastic jazz bass player

Well I haven't a clue what some of my instruments are 'worth', however potentially some of them could sell for an awful lot more than I paid for them because they aren't made any more and very few were made anyway. The most I've ever paid for an instrument was my Ken Smith BSR6GN but my Alembic *might* be worth an awful lot more to a collector. Its a lot clearer with new basses like Foderas. Some of them retail for £6k easily. Birdy's '65 Jazz was up for sale at the Gallery for £6.5k.

Ah Nino, welcome. What took you so long?

In terms of what people paid for it, or likely market valuation?

When's Julian Crampton playing next?

lol

what key is that in?

[quote name='david_l_perry' post='211588' date='Jun 3 2008, 09:49 AM']ETS-MK III Headless, rounded, 5-string Bass bridge (15mm spacing as my status)[/quote] Are you sure about that spacing? Status basses usually have spacing around 18mm. Even my Alembic only has 16mm.

[quote name='Sugden' post='211010' date='Jun 2 2008, 11:20 AM']Alans seems pretty happy to tweek his designs according to customer prefrences.[/quote] I'll make a note of that for future reference.

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='210738' date='Jun 1 2008, 08:28 PM']I don't know what I was thinking when I sold my Deep Impact [/quote] Don't despair, the values of the Deep Impact pedals will crash as soon as someone comes up with something better.

I'll take the guitar off your hands I was just reading about this stuff the other day and this is an opportunity to whet my curiosity.

A custom body shape?!