Phil Lesh's Big Brown Bass Breakdown!

[The Bass Nerd]

A couple weeks ago I posted about getting a chance to play Phil Lesh's Big Brown courtesy of his former bass tech, Brian Rashap. I mentioned in that post that I was working on a full youtube vid with Brian about his gear for the Grahame Lesh & Friends show. Here is a little breakdown of Big Brown as well as a more in depth video that includes amps and pedals.

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

FWIW, here is what Alembic says their controls do.

 

[Spectre Gunner]

What a beast! Can you imagine trying to set it up? Even more daunting would be troubleshooting an electrical glitch. Sounds great and very innovative for it's time.

 

[H K]

Oh man! I've been looking extra into this over the past few weeks. Odd that it now pops up again. Cant wait to watch the vid man, keep us posted!

 

[P Coburn]

CVQ? EQ shape?

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Prety much the poster child for silly-level knob-itis. The phrase "he only ever used the volume knob" kind of sums up the utility of those controls. I saw a YT video with Lesh where he couldn't remember what the knobs did, unsurprisingly. Cool experimental test bed I suppose but not a practical gigging instrument. The opposite end of the spectrum, like the "one knob" Joe dart bass doesn't make much sense to me either, once you get beyond Master Volume, Blend, and Tone, I get sceptical, but to each their own.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

Love me some Phil zone.
But that bass is what happens when tone chasing goes all the way down the rabbit hole.
With all that on-board variation, do you still need a pedal board??
Probably.

 

[D.A.R.K.]

We have nicer things because the Grateful Dead spent crazy amounts of money. The first custom instruments. Quad bass sound in 71? Crazy. Modern PA systems benefited from their work greatly, the wall of sound is basically a group of line arrays. Brilliant.

 

[hennessybass]

We have nicer things because the Grateful Dead spent crazy amounts of money. The first custom instruments. Quad bass sound in 71? Crazy. Modern PA systems benefited from their work greatly, the wall of sound is basically a group of line arrays. Brilliant.

I think they are kind of indirectly responsible for time delayed PA towers that are used at pretty much every big concert these days.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

The Dead's association with Alembic clearly put them on the radar of ultra-custom bespoke bass and guitar buyers. They are amazing basses, and works of art in their own right.

 

[hennessybass]

I met a player in TN, who had this bass made for him. My other buddy, who he was playing with thought he would bring it out the gig, but he ended up brings a MIM 5 string P - so I didn't get to see his Alembic.
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[Bob_Ross]

CVQ? EQ shape?

Continuously Variable Q. In contrast to the 3-position switches used to select Narrow, Medium, or Wide Q (aka, Steep, Less Steep, and Gentle slope) on Alembic's Series I basses, their Series II electronics give you a potentiometer to continuously adjust the slope of the filter.

 

[P Coburn]

Continuously Variable Q. In contrast to the 3-position switches used to select Narrow, Medium, or Wide Q (aka, Steep, Less Steep, and Gentle slope) on Alembic's Series I basses, their Series II electronics give you a potentiometer to continuously adjust the slope of the filter.

That sounds like what I thought. Thank you.

 

[J Wilson]

When this was your PA . . . .

. . . and you could run each string through a separate stack embedded in this, 'all those knobs' seemed to make sense !

 

[ex-tension]