Rare 1981 Vintage Alembic Series 1 Bass - Bubinga 32"

[spade2you]

The bass is fine, I have a Warwick 5 String Fretless that is smaller bodied like this Alembic, no problem with reach though! Yeah he's a bit of a giant, unlike myself haha

I think I probably have a similar build as you, but 15 years on ya. A "few" years working in an IV room and desk duty have made my hands a lot more sensitive to something like this bass. I also started on basses with really long top horns.

 

[malthumb]

Really nice bass. So is your spalted maple Series I. If I were ordering another Alembic, it would be a Balance K, similar to your Series I, but with 5 strings and an Omega Heart cutout.

As far as traveling, I gather from your YouTube page (which I subscribed to) that you are located in Europe. I almost always take a bass when I travel in Europe. One time, at the Stuttgart airport, security asked me to bring my bass into an inspection room. I thought it was going to be a CITES issue and I was pretty confident, because the bass I had with me was a 1979 Music Man. No chance of the endangered woods. They swabbed several parts of the bass with a chemical wipe and ran the wipe through an analysis machine. Then it occurred to me, "they're swabbing for some sort of residue". Not really knowing the history of that bass I immediately got worried.

Since then, I only travel internationally with basses where I know the entire history.

Peace,

James

 

[jazzyvee]

Superb playing and a great sounding bass.

 

[Rib 13]

congrats...Im happy for you

Looks like my '81 I used to own many years ago....my old one has finger-tip gouges I was putting in the wood from playing slap bass (the pops - you can barely see the area in this pic as a bit of blotchiness), so I dont think thats her

 

[JackPlug]

Superb playing and a great sounding bass.

Thanks Jazzyvee!

 

[JackPlug]

congrats...Im happy for you

Looks like my '81 I used to own many years ago....my old one has finger-tip gouges I was putting in the wood from playing slap bass (the pops - you can barely see the area in this pic as a bit of blotchiness), so I dont think thats her

There aren't marks in the wood on mine, as far as i know, mine hasn't really been gigged that much, pretty much near mint, maybe a few marks here and there but nothing major at all!

Thanks for sharing though!

 

[bassman10096]

Nice. Very nice. If it's a 32" scale, that's pretty unusual. For quite a long time, Alembic stopped making the small standard body style with necks any longer than 30.75 because they worried about neck dive. Very cool bass. Congratulations.