A brief history of Alembic
Alembic was started in the late 1960s by Ron and Susan Wickersham. Originally it was a consulting firm that worked closely with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the like to help improve the quality of live sound and recordings of live concerts.
In the late 60s Ron Wickersham designed new pickups to be low impedance to increase the bandwidth. This also made the pickups low output and so he had to design an active onboard preamp to boost the signal. They were, in fact, the first low impedance pickups and preamps ever seen on an instrument.
Alembic became quite busy installing these new active electronics in player's guitars and basses. This eventually led to manufacturing their own line of guitars and basses from start to finish.
The instruments
In 1971 the very first Alembic bass, number 001, was made for Jack Casady, then of the Jefferson Airplane. The bass cost more than four thousand dollars - an unheard of amount at the time. It resembled nothing that came before it and has had a profound impact on bass design ever since.
Years of experience modifying and repairing other instruments were distilled into that first instrument. (An "alembic", by the way, is a type of still.) Although considered radical at the time, history proved Alembic to be right on the money. Key design elements from #001 are still present in Alembic's instruments today - as well as those built by many high end bass makers that have since sprung up.
In 1976 Alembic made the world's first graphite neck bass - for John McVie (Fleetwood Mac) - with a neck supplied by Geoff Gould, who subsequently founded Modulus Graphite. Alembic continued to build graphite neck instruments until 1985.
Another more far-reaching development in 1976 was the delivery of the first ever 5 string bass with low B string to Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy's relationship with Alembic continues to the present and he can be heard with a wide range of artists, including Allan Holdsworth and James Taylor.
The players
By 1973 Alembic was established as the instrument maker of choice amongst all the influential US west coast bands, including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, New Riders of the Purple Sage and others.
In 1973 Stanley Clarke (pictured) acquired his first Alembic. Stanley released his first solo album in 1974 and started getting really famous. Alembic's fame had well and truly spread beyond its West Coast roots.
At this time no one else concentrated on making finely crafted basses and Alembic became the "must have" instrument for many of the leading bassists of the era.
Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) played a number of Alembics, including an eight string bass (four pairs of strings) ordered in 1976.
This instrument was subsequently sold to John Entwistle (pictured) who worked with Alembic to develop the Exploiter body shape - a cheekily named derivative of Gibson's Explorer. John ordered 15 Series II Exploiter body basses over the years in a variety of woods. Most had note names inlaid as position markers on the fingerboards and sterling silver spider web inlays on the body.
John Paul Jones (pictured) drove the development of the Triple Omega body shape. JPJ can be seen using both 4 and 8 string Alembics in the Knebworth concert on the Led Zep DVD.
Funk players were quick to pick up on Stanley's percussive playing style, to which the clear, extended high end response was well suited. Legendary funk bassist Louis Johnson can be heard playing an Alembic Series 1 on classic tracks by the Brothers Johnson and Rose Royce. Jermaine Jackson (The Jacksons), "Skeet" Curtis (Parliament / Funkadelic) and Wyzard (Mother's Finest) also played Series 1s.
Into the 80s Mark King continued the Alembic slap fusion tradition, while the heavy rock connection was ably continued through to the 90s by Metallica - with both Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted (pictured) playing Alembics. Alembic made a dozen instruments for Jason - typically stained darkly so that, from a distance they look black while up close the wood grain can still be seen clearly.
In the 90s Flea fused the slap and rock traditions - recording most of One Hot Minute with an Alembic Epic.
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