88 koa Spoiler Log Out | Topics | Search
Moderators | Register | Edit Profile

Alembic Club » Showcase » Spoiler basses » 88 koa Spoiler « Previous Next »

Author Message
adriaan
Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 83
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Sunday, December 28, 2003 - 3:32 pm:   Edit Post

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.

88S4828-front

Then at night, what can I say: it turns to gold.

88S4828-nightfront
adriaan
Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 84
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Sunday, December 28, 2003 - 3:45 pm:   Edit Post

88S4828-walter

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 -

Walter-pose

(Message edited by adriaan on December 28, 2003)
palembic
Senior Member
Username: palembic

Post Number: 827
Registered: 9-2002
Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 2:49 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 6:23 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 3:43 pm:   Edit Post

... wrong photo ...

(Message edited by adriaan on December 29, 2003)
adriaan
Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 87
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 3:47 pm:   Edit Post

Ah, what the heck - here's a nice set of koa tops together.

88S4828-94W8256

The necks looked crooked on the photo, so I cut them out.
mattheus
Member
Username: mattheus

Post Number: 83
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 11:37 pm:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 2:38 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 10:04 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2003 - 2:43 am:   Edit Post

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.

94W8256-sideways

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
Posted on Thursday, November 18, 2004 - 6:02 pm:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Thursday, November 18, 2004 - 8:41 pm:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 4:31 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Sunday, January 08, 2006 - 3:37 pm:   Edit Post

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 -

Spoiler new

- 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
Posted on Sunday, January 08, 2006 - 9:37 pm:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Monday, January 09, 2006 - 1:12 am:   Edit Post

Bob, thanks for the kind comments!
davehouck
Moderator
Username: davehouck

Post Number: 2978
Registered: 5-2002
Posted on Monday, January 09, 2006 - 7:16 am:   Edit Post

That's a nice upgrade!
adriaan
Senior Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 705
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Monday, January 09, 2006 - 8:01 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 3:06 am:   Edit Post

Here we go ...
Cone pegheads
lesley_hammond
New
Username: lesley_hammond

Post Number: 2
Registered: 2-2006
Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 7:53 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 8:50 am:   Edit Post

Mail sent ...
funkyjazzjunky
Junior
Username: funkyjazzjunky

Post Number: 29
Registered: 5-2007
Posted on Monday, January 07, 2008 - 9:37 am:   Edit Post

Wow

I love both basses. That Spoiler is exeptional.
white_cloud
Intermediate Member
Username: white_cloud

Post Number: 183
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Monday, January 07, 2008 - 10:45 am:   Edit Post

I agree....WOW! Lucky man, enjoy!
adriaan
Senior Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 1748
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 - 12:24 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 10:23 am:   Edit Post

I come back to this link to view that wonderful Koa
adriaan
Senior Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 1873
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 1:21 am:   Edit Post

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
Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 1:08 pm:   Edit Post

[double post]

(Message edited by adriaan on May 11, 2009)
adriaan
Senior Member
Username: adriaan

Post Number: 2197
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 1:18 pm:   Edit Post

Some nice shots from another thread - lots of sunshine early in May ...
Side view
Top view
Body shot
davehouck
Moderator
Username: davehouck

Post Number: 8043
Registered: 5-2002
Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 4:51 pm:   Edit Post

That last shot is very nice!!
dadabass2001
Senior Member
Username: dadabass2001

Post Number: 1105
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 5:08 pm:   Edit Post

Beautiful, Adriaan,
Just truly beautiful!

Mike
funkyjazzjunky
Senior Member
Username: funkyjazzjunky

Post Number: 421
Registered: 5-2007
Posted on Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 9:42 am:   Edit Post

I love that Koa

Add Your Message Here
Post:
Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action:

Topics | Last Day | Last Week | Tree View | Search | Help/Instructions | Program Credits Administration