| Author | Message | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 83 Registered: 6-2002 |
Nearly 10 years after the first (http://alembic.com/club/messages/411/4519.html?1055019057) here comes the second in my collection of koa-topped Alembics! It's S/N 88S4828, 32", watermark koa top and (flame?) koa headstock veneers, oval inlays, Schaller tuners (chrome) With koa you get very different aspects of the same piece of wood, depending on the light and the viewing angle. By day it's kind of brown with black speckled all over it, maybe like a piece of clothing painted in clair-obscur by Rembrandt. And there's a pair of lion's eyes pinned to the top corners of the neck pickup.  Then at night, what can I say: it turns to gold.  | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 84 Registered: 6-2002 |
 Well you can only see his left hand - he looked kind of goofy when I took the picture - but my 3-year old son can sure get a headstart on me playing bass. He's leaning against the sofa, by the way. Here's he striking a pose -  (Message edited by adriaan on December 28, 2003) | ||
| palembic
Senior Member Username: palembic Post Number: 827 Registered: 9-2002 |
You-hou!!!!! I'm Baaaa-ack! Echt een geweldig exemplaar! Daar ga je nog heel wat plezier aan beleven! That's a great one! It will bring you a lot of pleasure! Paul the bad one oh huh .... and the guitar too of course | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 85 Registered: 6-2002 |
Yeah, he's already quite a handful. Oh uh ... and the boy too of course (ROFL). | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 86 Registered: 6-2002 |
... wrong photo ... (Message edited by adriaan on December 29, 2003) | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 87 Registered: 6-2002 |
Ah, what the heck - here's a nice set of koa tops together.  The necks looked crooked on the photo, so I cut them out. | ||
| mattheus
Member Username: mattheus Post Number: 83 Registered: 5-2003 |
Ha die Adriaan, welcome to the world of the Spoilers. Let's spoil the rest of the world. Any progress with your ideas of changing the electronics of the Spoiler? I'm having similar thoughts.... Mattheus | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 88 Registered: 6-2002 |
Beste Mattheus, Are you thinking about changing the Q switch level, adding a panpot, ... ? My brother knows electronics, and he could understand that it's not a simple operation to change for instance the level of the Q switch, because when you change one thing in the filter you often have to compensate something else. It's probably not very easy to replace the pickup selector with a panpot, simply because the circuit board is very crowded and it is constructed around the pickup selector so there isn't much space to play with. I don't think it's a big problem electronically, but I'm waiting for the details. Adriaan | ||
| bracheen
Member Username: bracheen Post Number: 74 Registered: 11-2003 |
Congratulations on the growing collection. That koa is really nice and looks so much different than the koa on the Epic which has great angles to the grain by the way. Sam | ||
| adriaan
Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 89 Registered: 6-2002 |
I really love that grain on the Epic as well. This picture is a bit dark, but it shows more of the grain, which gets lost when there's too much light.  We visited a botanic garden in November, and they had this specimen of a koa tree - actually just the first shoot with a few twigs. Apparently the tree starts life with very small round-shaped leaves, then when puberty strikes it changes to slightly bigger and elongated leaves. But when the tree gets stressed, it starts to grow those smaller leaves again. FYI, the specimen had both types, so it must have been stressed even in the botanic garden ... There is a good story about koa, and its role in Hawaiian culture, buried somewhere on TalkBass. | ||
| godoze
Member Username: godoze Post Number: 69 Registered: 10-2004 |
what are the "stock" electronic features of the Spoiler basses ? One of my favorites. | ||
| bsee
Senior Member Username: bsee Post Number: 491 Registered: 3-2004 |
Stock Spoiler electronics are a 4-position pickup selector (neck/both/bridge/standby), a volume, a filter, and a Q switch. | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 405 Registered: 6-2002 |
This bass is actually a bit dysfunctional right now, as the electronics are back at the mothership. They'll replace the p/u selector with a pan pot. For the Q switch I was thinking about a 0/3/6 dB 3-way, whereas the standard 3-way is 0/6/9 dB. The 8 dB boost is much too rich for my taste. The good people at Alembic are looking at another idea I had for the Q switch, but no news on that yet. Will keep you posted. | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 702 Registered: 6-2002 |
Well, it's been more than a year since my last post here. The electronics have been reunited with the bass months ago, like this -  - but that doesn't really tell you what has changed, does it? (Besides a better camera.) The 4-way pickup selector was replaced with a balance pot, and the 0/8 dB Q switch was replaced with a 0/3/6 dB switch. The crazy idea I had was to have a 0/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8 dB rotary switch - a "poor man's CVQ", or Discreetly Variable Q (DVQ). Apparently something like that would be doable, unlike a true CVQ which they won't do on anything other than Series electronics. Just that it would take a couple of months before Mr Wickersham would have time to make it happen, and I was getting impatient ... Anyway, the 3 and 6 dB positions for the Q switch are much more usable to my ears than the standard 8 dB position, and the balance pot makes for such a wide palette of sounds ... | ||
| bob
Senior Member Username: bob Post Number: 563 Registered: 11-2002 |
Nice camera! Or, wait, no, I meant the bass... Very pretty figuring in that Koa, and this is such a classic shape. And for my tastes, I agree that the 0/3/6 option is much more useful than a standard 0/8, and would go for a balance pot any day. Nice to hear that it's all back together again, with you. Enjoy. -Bob | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 703 Registered: 6-2002 |
Bob, thanks for the kind comments! | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 2978 Registered: 5-2002 |
That's a nice upgrade! | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 705 Registered: 6-2002 |
I notice I didn't mention another special feature of this bass - the cone headstock is a bit unusual. You can see it in the 3rd picture from the top. It's not the current cone shape, which is wide at the bottom and also fairly wide at the top. It's not the shape found on early Spoilers either, which was narrower at the bottom. And it's definitely not the oversized pointy cone used on John Entwhistle's Exploiters. - It's pretty much the current shape, but with about 1/8" shaved off on either sides. This means that the point of the cone is not wide enough for the logo, so they've put that immediately above the nut. Not sure if this was just a happy accident - it looks real nice - but it wasn't recorded on the buildsheet. I have a 1988 inspection slip signed by EVH (not Edward van Halen) in his capacity as Wils employee - no mention of the custom shape there either. I'll try to post a picture later (like in two years time LOL). | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 707 Registered: 6-2002 |
Here we go ...  | ||
| lesley_hammond
New Username: lesley_hammond Post Number: 2 Registered: 2-2006 |
Hallo Adriaan, Misschien kun je mij een keer mailen m.b.t. de veranderde elektronika die je hebt aangebracht in jouw Spoiler. Mijn e-mailadres is gjmvdbeek@hetnet.nl Met vriendelijke groet Ger | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 781 Registered: 6-2002 |
Mail sent ... | ||
| funkyjazzjunky
Junior Username: funkyjazzjunky Post Number: 29 Registered: 5-2007 |
Wow I love both basses. That Spoiler is exeptional. | ||
| white_cloud
Intermediate Member Username: white_cloud Post Number: 183 Registered: 11-2007 |
I agree....WOW! Lucky man, enjoy! | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 1748 Registered: 6-2002 |
Thoroughly enjoying their company every day, even when not playing them! The Spoiler will be getting a new set of DR LoRiders this week. The Epic has had the bad fortune of getting Rotosound flats installed a months or so ago, and they really don't agree with her. Thinking of ordering some TI Jazz Flats online. | ||
| funkyjazzjunky
Member Username: funkyjazzjunky Post Number: 87 Registered: 5-2007 |
I come back to this link to view that wonderful Koa | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 1873 Registered: 6-2002 |
For your viewing pleasure, near the end of this thread there's an even nicer picture of that Epic. Enjoy! (Message edited by adriaan on May 09, 2008) | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 2196 Registered: 6-2002 |
[double post] (Message edited by adriaan on May 11, 2009) | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 2197 Registered: 6-2002 |
Some nice shots from another thread - lots of sunshine early in May ...    | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 8043 Registered: 5-2002 |
That last shot is very nice!! | ||
| dadabass2001
Senior Member Username: dadabass2001 Post Number: 1105 Registered: 6-2002 |
Beautiful, Adriaan, Just truly beautiful! Mike | ||
| funkyjazzjunky
Senior Member Username: funkyjazzjunky Post Number: 421 Registered: 5-2007 |
I love that Koa |
