Alden Clarks bass

There is very details of these basses on the internet and details are sketchy but this is what I've managed to get so far.
Made in Korea around 2007 - 2008 by a large guitar manufacture name is never mentioned and designed by Englishman and pickup specialist
Alan Lester Dennis Entwistle (ALDEN)Brought mine secondhand. The bass is a large bodied semi acoustic (think 335) with 2 f holes two passive pickups, neck and middle with 2 volume and tone knobs. Floating rosewood bridge and large chrome string holder, I like that part. Beautiful arched birdseye maple top, plain brown maple sides and arched back. Rosewood fretboard and mirror scratchplate, not my cup of tea but looks right in context with all the other chrome. Top hat knobs, plastic nut and Alden tuners, nothing special just the same as all far eastern basses these days. 30.5 inch scale

I play in a sixties band, our own material but definately sixties think The Sonics and your on the right track. After some playing with the pickup height and the pole piece hight I found a very nice sound. I'm using Ernie Ball flatwounds and have the neck pickup on 8 with the tone on 4 the middle pickup on 10 and the tone on 10 this gives warmth and bite. I've read that these pickups are low output that might be true but I'm using either a 100 watt Trace Elliot for practice or a 400 watt Peavey Stack so volume is not a problem what I needed was an original sixties sound and I get that. Again I can adjust any little peaks and troughs with my Tech 21 VT bass pedal or my Seymour Duncan pickup booster. Hollow body basses just THAT sound and this bass does the job.

Ah......Again I read Aldens guitars were all fibreboard and crappy quality, that might be true for the solid body guitars and basses but this definately is Maple and beautiful maple it is too.Binding is all good, tightened all the fixings, presto. Another artical on a bass web site said the necks can be dodgy even warped from the factory....again it might be true but that report was from 2006 and I think they have sorted these issues out now as mines spot on.
I got it secondhand and it had already had a professional set up, but I had already decided to junk the floating rosewood bridge. I intend to use this live and I didn't want the intonation drifting out so I fitted a Schaller saddle piece with roller saddles. There was just enough wood under the old bridge piece area to sink the holding posts. I retuned the bass set the height and saddle spacing and bingo perfect intonation all over the neck. I then fitted Wilkinson light weight open geared tuners. This bass is a dream to play now. I understand why Alden use these floating bridges but they are a pain.

As I said I intend to use this bass live, I do have a Fender USA Standard Precision as a back up, but it's image and I hope this now with the upgrades serves me well. I put straplock buttons on as I do with all my basses but the originals looked fine and hadn't come loose.
Time will tell how it stands up.

Brought this second hand and struggled to find out any details of these basses on the net, hence my whitterings here.
Cranes music in Cardiff Wales is the UK distributer and I have just e-mailed them today to find out if spares are availble should I need them.

Market retail for this bass was about ??375 when new and I'd struggle to justify the price when a good secondhand Epiphone Rivoli was not a lot more expensive and had the kudos of a well known brand name.
That said I brought my Alden secondhand and am happy with the look and sound even though I have had to do some upgrades to make it robust enough to use live. This type of bass suits a specific kind of music but without it that sound is very difficult to imitate.
I might buy another if this was stolen as there are not many semi's on the market, Jay Turser basses use some of the Alden parts as I believe they are made in the same factory.
So Mr Entwistle, keep on making beautiful basses but try to use some modern conviences for us gigging musicians and try to give your customers some exposure of your company so we can stop the poor quality rumours and get on with enjoying these products.