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This is why Louis Johnson ended up with a Stingray!

#102
bovinehost said:
leo.jpg


From the History Files. Leo and that pocket protector!
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Wow.
 
#104
#112
superdick2112 said:
The Stingray has more bottom end, and the Alembic sounds crisper, but neither bass is as get-down funky as his bell bottoms are.

:bassist:
Click to expand...

That was the popular sound at the time... I was a real rocker back then, but I saw a thing on TV with him playing that Alembic and I felt deep, deep lust in my heart...

But yes, the MM does sound better. So it goes.
 
#114
When I first started playing bass around 1980 you would see guy's playing Ray's and Jazz bass's but the holy grail was getting a alembic which because of their high cost and lack of availability,had a air of mystery about them.But many times they would return to the Ray's and Jazz's and would complain that they couldn't get their Alembic to sound like what they had been using before.Now many Alembic owners have said "I can dial in any tone I want" but the term "dial in" is key,you can't just pick up a Alembic, plug it in and have it sound like a Ray but you can do that with a Ray because it has a signature sound,IMO Alembic's do too but it's nothing like a Ray. At time's I think we as bass player figure that you can buy your way into a sound which is not true IMO in fact with some of the more expensive bass's out there people suffer from option anxiety all the time
 
#115
Just to pipe in here a bit...

I can see where Dr Cheese is going with this.

Yep I agree that the Stingray in this case is the better tool for that job.

I look at the Alembic and Stingray as just 2 different tools for different jobs.

In general (very general that is) that very precise 'growly-ish" thonk of stingray works well for a lot of music that has big space (like funk we all know) that does not mean that anything would work though.

Nice vid Jauqo
PS. Bill Dickens scars the Sh1t out of me. That guy radiates serious bogart on stage (I mean that in a good way and know the fellow a bit).
 
#116
willgroove2 said:
When I first started playing bass around 1980 you would see guy's playing Ray's and Jazz bass's but the holy grail was getting a alembic which because of their high cost and lack of availability,had a air of mystery about them.But many times they would return to the Ray's and Jazz's and would complain that they couldn't get their Alembic to sound like what they had been using before.Now many Alembic owners have said "I can dial in any tone I want" but the term "dial in" is key,you can't just pick up a Alembic, plug it in and have it sound like a Ray but you can do that with a Ray because it has a signature sound,IMO Alembic's do too but it's nothing like a Ray. At time's I think we as bass player figure that you can buy your way into a sound which is not true IMO in fact with some of the more expensive bass's out there people suffer from option anxiety all the time
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Thread! Way too often bassists spend big bucks assuming they will just get a better version of what they have. THe truth is that a bass like an Alembic has dymanic (feel, playability, controls, etc.) of its own, that a player has to learn. Once that player learns the dymanic, there is no guarrantee that the new bass will satisfy you like the old one.
 
#117
willgroove2 said:
When I first started playing bass around 1980 you would see guy's playing Ray's and Jazz bass's but the holy grail was getting a alembic which because of their high cost and lack of availability,had a air of mystery about them.But many times they would return to the Ray's and Jazz's and would complain that they couldn't get their Alembic to sound like what they had been using before.Now many Alembic owners have said "I can dial in any tone I want" but the term "dial in" is key,you can't just pick up a Alembic, plug it in and have it sound like a Ray but you can do that with a Ray because it has a signature sound,IMO Alembic's do too but it's nothing like a Ray. At time's I think we as bass player figure that you can buy your way into a sound which is not true IMO in fact with some of the more expensive bass's out there people suffer from option anxiety all the time
Click to expand...

Thread!!! The newer, fancier bass has to be learned in order to get the best out of it, and once that bass is learned, the player often decides that what he or she had before simply worked better for what he or she wanted.
 
#118
Couple comments.

First, there were some serious ergonomic and tonal factor differences between the three Series models that Alembic initially offered. A lot of guys got turned off by the ergonomics alone and didn't have the resources to keep flipping the instruments to get what they wanted. There was no Internet and not a lot of information out there. I can recall trading info with another Detroit bassist, who finally figured out that the Medium scale was the way to go, but took him several basses to get there. Too expensive for me. But, my brother has one of those early medium scales, and that bass totally kills. Anyhow, a lot of cats just couldn't handle the Long scale at the gig due to ergonomics. The short scales were kind of Stanley copy cat territory and have a bit of a choked tone from the scale. All I'm saying is there were a bunch of complicating factors.

Also, Leo designed that Ray preamp after the Alembic was out there, and so, he had the benefit of learning from it. Would be interesting to find out how that went down, because it has always seemed to me that there was at least a little of the Alembic concept in Leo's preamp design. I know the SR5 to this day is the only other commercial circuit that uses a dummy hum cancelling coil for single coil settings.

Two classic basses that should be around for a long time.
 

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