| Author | Message | ||
| ursusaltered
Junior Username: ursusaltered Post Number: 33 Registered: 5-2010 |
Over the course of the past couple of years, I have been on a quest. I had been searching and trading and buying basses,looking for the perfect all around bass. It all started with a 2000 dollar investment! I found a 79 carl thompson bass. So I bought it, it needed some work, so I got it all fixed up. Amazing basses by the way, but I was looking for that perfect bass. So I started by selling the ct for 5000. A nice payoff from a great investment. I decided I was gonna take a journey to find the best bass for how I play. Well I went through several basses in that two year period. I started with the ct, then I got a hilton custom. Swapped it for a fodera. Traded the fodera for a 5 string hilton, which in return I picked a ken smith, swapped the ken smith for a 5 string ritter. Then I traded the ritter for a 4 string ritter. Traded that ritter for a benavente 6 string, and I put that bass on talkbass. All of a sudden an amazing day came. Someone offered me a beautiful Alembic mk heart omega balance k. I receive the bass a couple days ago. I adjusted the truss and set it up, then plug it in! Holy cow was I blown away! The most incredible playing a sounding bass I have ever touched! ALEMBIC is the best! After a crazy amazing and inspiring journey alembic found me, and have a customer for life! | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 1584 Registered: 11-2004 |
Welcome ursualtered..SO you bass journey looks very interesting but tell us why the sound of an Alembic is so different to the other very high end price basses you have purchased? It may be worth placing this thread in the general 'Alembic Basses & guitars' as most of us veer there first. | ||
| ursusaltered
Junior Username: ursusaltered Post Number: 35 Registered: 5-2010 |
To me it isn't just the sound. It is the shear craftmanship, playability, action, let alone all around of the alembic mark king balance k. I have played a lot of different high end basses, but when I played the alembic, I was blown away. I find that the tone is so crisp and clean. Wonderful instruments. String spacing is perfect! What isn't there to say about these basses. AWESOME! I am saving up to get a custom short scale balance k as we speak. | ||
| bigredbass
Senior Member Username: bigredbass Post Number: 1700 Registered: 9-2002 |
I think that while there are a lot of exceptional handbuilt basses out there (and my goodness, your path certainly took you through a good number of interesting axes !), the unique blend of Ron's electronics driven by Susan's design and Mica's sure hand results in something that just can't be had anywhere else. I firmly agree with Mica that while there are other fine basses out there, they often sound alike as they all generally buy pickups/electronics from the same list of usual suspects. Very few craft their electronics and most hardware in-house, and the few that do don't have a resident genius in a lab. I've read where Ron said the idea was for as little to get in the way of the vibrating string as possible, and maybe that's the key: The whole idea is to be neutral as to be invisible, to where, like he said, 'there's nothing to get between the mind and the fingers expressing those ideas'. That's a lot to wrap your head around, yes? I always say that they are just not for everybody, but IF you, like us, 'get it', there simply isn't anything else. I always think of these as one of the classic, short list of masterpiece instruments, like a Selmer Paris horn or a Bosendorfer nine-footer or a D'Angelico archtop. The truly scary thing? They'll build you another one JUST like you want. BTW, when you get to talking in earnest with them on a new build, LISTEN to what Susan or Mica suggest: They have an uncanny knack of translating your babble into a solid instrument. When I had my Elan built, I spoke with Susan once, maybe twice, and we never talked about it again. Bear in mind, I'd never seen an Elan in person. So, 10 months later, it gets here, I open it, and it's EXACTLY what I had in mind. Stupefying . . . . sometimes I think, hell, it really IS magic, the things they do. J o e y |
