Phil Lesh’s Alembic “Mission Control”

Wow. Whats the story on the refit and how you came to check it out?

 

MOAR pics and info, please.

...in relation to your handling & experience with it. I have always loved this bass and it's backstory.

 

Such a unique guitar.

 

A friend of mine played it at a Dead tribute show in California a few months before the Covid shut down. I don't know him very well; we are just Facebook friends, so I don't know how he got his hands on it.

 

The history of the bass after Phil stopped using it is just as fascinating as his time with it. There's plenty of pictures of the original electronics out there along with write ups of the Quad-pickup system it once had. I believe one of the reasons it fell into unuse and disrepair was that the osage orange in the bass was delaminating.

It's definitely out and about these days and I believe it's been played by a number of guys in some of the bigger touring tribute acts.

 

What an odd thing to do. I wonder why not just give it to Alembic if one can’t afford to have them restore it.

 

I believe this was the case too. Didn't Alembic also have some hand in the work on it?

 

I know it was stripped of it's quad functions and some of the more specific Wall of Sound features that were once part of all the push buttons in the top half of the body, but that stuff is pretty non-useable without the WoS which was parted out 45 years ago. The original pickups are around or were around, IIRC they were the first thing that was rediscovered.

 

That pieced in center section looks kind of sketchy. Hopefully it looked better when finished?

 

I think this is the completely refurbished bass:



Dark Star Orchestra Bassist to Perform with Phil Lesh’s Historic Bass ‘Mission Control’ in San Diego & Los Angeles

 

If that’s the same instrument as the one in the op, the insert used to fill/cover the old face routes was replaced with one that goes all of the way to the end.

 

It does not really look like it could be the same —

 

It would take some skill and no reward to re create that hole and its ~0.50x0.75” rectagonal spotface in the new insert. Not impossible, but also less likely than building a total counterfeit up from scratch.

 

coolest bass ever in my book.