jazzyvee

Wow you don't see many Millennia TD-1's in someone's bass rig. When I was in the states a couple of years back I spoke to a pro bass player who spoke very highly of them. How do you feel about it? Jazzyvee

Hi Pete, great meeting you after the gig last night all of us really loved the band. I love Steely dan and know most of their music extremely well from a listening perspective and so I have to give you guys some respect for how much attention to detail you put in to authentically recreate the rich harmonic content and quirky rhythms that steely dan is is known for and still find the space to add your own personalisations to the mix. Superb. I was wondering what the bass was you were using and so now I know. I think this is gonna be a regular gig for us to be attending. Thanks again Jazzyvee

Yes I think these are pretty attractive.

[media]http://youtu.be/GkkEO7hzALY[/media]

[quote name='bassman344' timestamp='1397166819' post='2421514'] Probably, and why I'm having a bass built to my own spec. [/quote] I wish i knew enough about all things bass to specify a personal custom build and be confident that it's exactly what I want in a bass.

[quote name='3below' timestamp='1397076111' post='2420499'] Kit is such good value at the moment, money in the bank / building society is just losing value with low interest rates. May as well put in something tangible and have enjoyment from it. Is great fun having a new bass every so often as I cycle through them. [/quote] + 1 though I'm not selling.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1393761859' post='2384037'] Interested to see the Eggle posts - here's mine. Made April 1993 when the factory was still in Coventry. In those days you could still walk round the factory and choose your own bits of wood, as well as asking for specific little tweaks (the neck on mine was shaved a mm or so thinner than normal at my request). This is actually a Plus. Cost me £750 from what was then Musical Exchanges in Snow Hill. This was my main gigging guitar throughout the 90's (along with my trusty black Strat of course ). Always used to draw nice comments from fellow players who'd never seen one before. Anyway, here it is... [/quote] I got the parts to build an eggle berlin pro in the early 90's when the factory was closing down in Coventry and moving to Brum. I got John Diggins to fit the set neck to the body and locate the bridge & tailpiece and i wired it and put the hardware on. I've never gigged with it but used it quite a bit for rehearsals. The neck profile is a bit baseball bat like for my taste but still a great feel to it. Earlier this year I arranged for eggle who are now in Leicester somewhere to collect the guitar and install their new pickups and 9 way pickup selection system. All kinds of humbucker and single coil switching both in and out of phase. Sold the old Kent Armstrongs on ebay. Now the guitar sounds proper. I love the thick slab of ebony on the fretboard.

I had a P44 for about a 7 months I think I paid about £300 for it from PMT. I quite liked the guitar and used it instead of carrying an electric and acoustic when we had to travel light for overseas gigs. I sold it when we dropped the acoustic tracks from the set list. I'd probably buy one again if I was doing the same kind of gigs but go for a used one with single coil pickups. Jazzyvee

That happened once when I was coming back from a gig in the USA. We were allowed onto the plane with the guitar, bass & brass on the way to florida but on the way back to the UK the flight people were adamant we could not take the intruments on the plane for safety reasons unless we paid for a seat. I thought that was ludicrous since the seatbelts are not made to fit guitars and in the event of heavy turbulence the guitar would cause more damage from flyng around than in a lock up overhead llocker. Fortunately my case was in one of those shaped webbing type semi rigid cases with a polystyrene guitar shaped insert and no damage occured in the hold. But you are right a flight case is better and I've been abroad once with my alembic for a month long caribbean cruise and that was in a flight case I had made.

Looks like I'll be heading off there as I remember the last time you guys were there it was fantastic apart from some loud people in front of us who decided to argue for too long rather than watch, listen and enjoy the band. Jazzyvee

I played the WOMAD festival in Singapore in 2005, as a guitarist though. I arranged in advance with the manager and airline for me to be able to carry the guitar in the passenger compartment. Most of the bass and guitarists and brass players on the plane there and back from the UK did the same. If you get a yes from the airline, ask them to put it in the notes for the check in clerk that way it is in front of them with any dietary requirements when you check in. When I've been on other tours I've used a mixture of flightcases or a gig bag depending on if I got permission to carry the guitar on board in advance. The only place I had difficulties was flying out of the USA. We did two concerts and a workshop session at WOMAD and I had to change my strings for each session as the mixture of finger sweat and humidity took the coating off my D'addario guitar strings since then I've always used Elixir coated guitar strings when touring outside the UK. The only problem the bass player had was a dodgy lead. Jazzyvee

The other thing about alembic is that they look after their instruments and honour their warrantee. I bought a 9 yr old used series Ii bass in 2013 from a USA seller. I had them deliver it to the alembic factory so I could collect it and attend their annual meet as well as get a factory tour. Mica contacted me on receipt of the bass and said that they realised the bass was made at the time they had problems with the company who did the plating on the brass hardware. So she wanted to ask me if I minded if they made me a complete new set of hardware and have it plated by their current supplier. Of course not. So that was bridge, sustain block, tail-stop and adjustable nut. How many companies would honour that after 1 year never mind 9. The other point about alembic is they are a complete custom builder. Even though they have a model range these can be just a starting point and within practical limits you can get them to make whatever you want. That does come at a cost. You can pay serious money for aesthetics like intricate inlays and things that do not make the bass sound or play any better or specify unique body styling custom string spacing, neck profiling or custom electronics because it's all done in house and it's all craftsmen labour so you can make it as expensive as you want. If I knew enough about the finer points of basses and there were shortcomings I could find in my own alembics to the point that I could specify a bass that would sound and feel better to play I would consider a custom build. But as things stand I don't feel anything is lacking and I don't feel confident that I could specify anything that would be better than what I have. Jazzyvee

My ACS [b][font="Optima, Lucida, MgOpen Cosmetica, Lucida Sans Unicode, sans-serif"][size="2"][color="#555555"]PRO-17, arrived yesterday but I don't have a gig till the 12th so I will be able to check them out. From what I see on the web site the Pro-27 filters are not interchangeable so you won't be able to get lower rated filters if you find it too quiet. I'm planning to use mine also when I'm attending loud gigs so I may by another set of filters with more attenuation as gigs I attend seem to be louder than the ones I'm playing at.[/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font="Optima, Lucida, MgOpen Cosmetica, Lucida Sans Unicode, sans-serif"][size="2"][color="#555555"]Jazzyvee[/color][/size][/font][/b]

I remember seeing Stanley Clarke for the first time on the old grey whistle test when return to forever was playing. I recall going into the kitchen to make a coffee then hearing this absolutely astounding double bass playing and ran back and watched the whole thing. Later in the 70's I started to hear his name but still had no idea who he was until I heard the Romantic Warrior Album and was astounded by his dexterity and control of the electric and acoustic bass. I actually recorded the Clarke Duke Project on betamax and recently transferred to dvd. Even though i'm a massive Stanley Clarke fan i actively avoided most of his electric stuff between return to forever and the 1,2 to the bass album although I did get "Hideaway" and "If this bass could only talk" from that era. Although quite poppy I liked some of the Animal Logic stuff he did with Stuart Copeland and Deborah Holland. The Griffith Park Collection was another superb example of his double bass playing with Chick Corea, Lenny White, Freddy Hubbard, and Joe Henderson. Give or take a few tracks, I think his last three albums have been absolutely superb as was the 1999 album Vertu which I think up to that point has his most impressive electric bass playing on record since the RTF days. A few years back I did a full gig playing his stuff and it went down a storm. I'm trying to do it again but include some RTF stuff but finding musicians who like the stuff enough to play it live is a challenge. Jazzyvee

You can scare yourself with the quote generator on the alembic site. [url="http://www.alembic.com/cgi-bin/quote/quote"]http://www.alembic.c...bin/quote/quote[/url] Jazzyvee

[quote name='JazzBassfreak' timestamp='1396470292' post='2414141'] I'm dam jealous Jazzyvee mind if I asked how much it cost you? A limb? There were Persuaders and spoilers, I thought Alembic had a Crusader model? Maybe not and could of been the Persuader I meant, not sure myself! XD [/quote] I don't mind you asking as long as you don't mind me keeping the price I paid private. :-)

A black essence 5 just appeared for sale on the alembic forum. http://alembic.com/club/messages/395/189870.html?1396474608

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1396010494' post='2408968'] I've never seen an Alembic Crusader! Is it a bass? [/quote] There has been an Alembic Persuader maybe thats what was meant. Actually there are a few black alembics around. I have one made in 2009 i think and FC spoiler does also. Jazzyvee

Hi S1ngle, I toured in Slovenia in 2007 with Musical Youth and we had a great time there and loads of people at our gigs so there seems to be a love of Jamaican music there. I hope you manage to find a band to play the music you love or may be you could start one and get some adverts going to find like minded musicians. In fact the lead singer did a ska track track with the singer Andrej Sifrer so if you are able to contact Andrej he may know of musicians interested in Ska. [media]http://youtu.be/Mxy7IbIqpo0[/media] I'm trying to post some links in for you but for some reason they will not show. Jazzyvee

I love Gary Willis's playing since I got my first tribal tech album which was Illicit, and I think he has great sensitivity and sense of melody in his playing. I love the dark warm tone he gets and is one of the bass players who I feel uses effects and his technique in a very musical way rather than to show off. I saw him live with Tribal tech in Manchester and he was phenomenal. I even got a chat with him during the interval. I friend of mine went to Italy for a week for some one to one lessons with him and came back extremely happy and inspired. Jazzyvee

[quote name='cocco' timestamp='1396287759' post='2411882'] Are you the same jazzyvee off the alembic forum? If so your purple elan is gorgeous! I like the elan, Orion, and Europa shapes the most. I wouldn't have the patience to wait for a new one though. What do these generally sell for? I'm not after a museum piece, just a players bass, the more maple the better and the less coffee table looking the better, preferably a solid or trans black finish. [/quote] Yeah that is me. I prefer the coffee table looking ones best. I love natural wood. The purple one is mine and I also have a black one too. http://alembic.com/club/messages/411/83134.html?1334349244 here is the build record http://alembic.com/club/messages/631/57606.html?1314917105 This is probably the ultimate Elan bass. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjP-5sf0kAw Not mine though.