Kiwi

If you insist on using credibility around here, you'll spoil the fun for everyone.

It's not fair to blame the cab for problems with room acoustics though. EVery cab will have problems of one sort or another because there's no way to design for every venue. And even within a venue, moving the cab around the stage, away and closer to the back wall, lifting it off the ground, standing it on the end or long side, using a gramma pad, equalisation etc. lots of ways to deal with acoustic problems at venues.

8...dammit. Four in China, 2 in Derbyshire waiting for me to work on them and 2 in storage. But I have four guitars as well...does that count? Probably not.

Yeah it had super low action and it carried a nice snarl in the mids. I sold it on BW to a user called funkymunky and he had it for a long time. Sometimes I find myself searching for another on Reverb just to see what's out there.

You should become a primary/nursery school teacher. One of my teachers also trains dogs in her spare time and she's astonishingly effective in maintaining discipline in a class of 8 unruly preschoolers.

Talkbass - 2006, way before people knew how many of these were made. It was really as simple as that. I was in the market for an old Series bass because I like the body shape, and this one was a bit 'extra'. It's possible I might have played a part in attracting attention to them as a bunch of us on the Alembic club revealed ownership at the same time and eventually Mica filled dfung in on what was up with them.

Price below what I can afford is less relevant than feel and sound. My fave sounding bass is a basschat ho and cost 600 quid in 2009. But in my experience its the exception rather than the rule.

No you're not.

It was suggested about ten years ago on the Alembic forum and Mica explained they didn't want to risk subbing out any work because of the following story. Geoff had been supplying necks to Alembic since 1976 but by around 1982 or so (the last year of neck manufacture) he had been focusing on setting up Modulus and had stopped taking personal responsibility for QC. A number of graphite necked basses came back to Alembic for attention and at that point they pulled the plug and swore to only offer basses where everything was made in house. To be honest, there were issues after Modulus was established. I had a couple of early 90's Quantum 5 string basses that were lemons. One was too bright because the neck was too rigid. It's fretless sister sounded much better but the neck was like a banana (not rigid enough). The 96 Sonic Hammer I had was a peach though. Here is the Series 1 at the 2015 SE Bassbash. I'm not sure who is playing it but hopefully he'll say hello.

Any pictures? I'm always curious about serial numbers. Mine has to be the graphite necked sister of Greg Lakes 8 string monster used on Fanfare for the Common Man - only about 8 serials separating the two.

The poor resolution of the photos hide the road rash. She has had a busy life in and around Nova Scotia passing through the hands of at least three well known gigging bassists until it made it's way to Hugh McMillan who was in Spirit of the West. I bought it from Hugh many years ago. Hugh gave her a new set of pickups as well as the old ones literally fell apart. I could buy some period correct ones off Ebay but no real urgency right now. Hugh is using the bass in sub zero temperatures here:

1979 Alembic Series 1 graphite, one of maybe 50 in total, less in long scale. Each neck was custom made and it proved to be such a ball ache that Alembic stopped offering the option in the early 80's. The neck on this one is nothing short of magical - the action is a gnats wing above the frets and there's no buzz. Sounds just like an Alembic but maybe with a little more attack.

In the early part of my career I worked on some heritage projects for Scott Wilson.

Me too, although most of the meetings I went to were attended by a combination of harumphing ex army mustaches and hyper-neat, pinstriped civil servants. I remember once being invited into the Lord's tearoom and being taken aback firstly by the number of familiar faces and secondly by the realisation that there were no party lines being observed.

I bet you have some interesting stories too. I worked with a few advisors - mainly attended meetings to advise on the visual impact of anti terrorism measures in 2005.

New Scotland Yard was on Broadway before they moved to The Embankment. I remember a very popular fish and chip place there that insults it's customers if they don't pick up their takeaway orders promptly. Is that near/close to Horseferry?

Whoa, missed that one completely...

Yeah most of the commercial developers I worked with/opposed did the same. Old office buildings weren't worth the cost of refurbishment and were frequently outside building code anyway. In the City (who were one of my last clients) they treated buildings like they were disposable anyway (although curiously the City does not have any policies in place for how to demolish a 50 floor skyscraper safely). I was thinking residential rather than commercial anyway but if you were being opportunitistic then maybe there isn't as much in it as I thought. Most of the financially independent people I know got that way out of luck more than anything. And the ones who did it the hard way are borderline sociopaths because of the stress, obstacles and demands on their time.

You're not the only member on here with that highly specific background...who knows, you might even know of each other but unfortunately I can't say anything more than that. Would love to pick your brains offline one day. Specifically about calculating feasibility and returns.

Yes I'm familiar with that, was involved with similar scale of projects by the LDA while Ken was mayor. Did you develop for yourself? Or was it for other people?

Me too, went through the entrance exam, did a shift with my local station in Fareham (four hours gave me a weeks worth of interesting stories) and was offered a place at training college. But was offered one of 25 limited places on a uni course in NZ and decided I could come back to policing later if I wanted...which never happened of course.

I'm really curious, how much did the late nineties property boom contribute towards your success?

Asset management?