Alembic Spoiler 5-String

If basses were compared to cars, a Fender is like a Ford. An Alembic is like a Rolls Royce. This is not a hot rod bass. It's made for a refined player. (yeah right!!!) Well, I'm a refined shaved ape! I play progressive rock, and occasionally some pretty nasty hard rock. I love the bass for the way it feels in my hands. It's like a precision German made rifle. Warm, smooth, and will knock the target on his/her ass!
Headstock:
The classic alembic V shape. Angled sort of like a gibson bass. Be careful as this is the weak point on many instruments, and if you drop the instrument tha wrong way, it can crack the neck. I've never had it happen.
Tuners:
Nice grovers. Very smooth action.
Nut:
Especially nice is the brass nut, which is completely adjustable via its 3 embedded allen screws. I think all Alembics have that feature, but I've never seen it on another brand.
Neck:
Not exceptionally wide like some five strings. For me it's a plus as I don't have big hands. the back of the neck has five way laminates of Bubinga, a dark wood that improves the sustain and tone. The Truss rod adjusts from the bottom instaed of the top like most basses. Very easy to access.
Body:
This is a neck through with beautiful figured woods.
Bridge:
Sort of like a gibson tune-a-matic, but solid brass and of Alembic's design. It doesn't appear to be high tech, but the design probably is. Very solid and stable.

Complaints:
Not a biggee, but I replaced the strap buttons with straplocks when I bought it. The lower strap button on the body was a little cheesy.

This is a big, long and heavy bass. It's a little bit neck heavy too.
I've had it so long, it's second nature to me.

Are you kidding!!! The alembic pickup system cannot be beat. The spoiler is a two humbucker active setup with a Q filter, and a 3 way pickup selector. With the bridge pickup only it's full of that mid range jazz bass growl, almost like a fretted Pedulla bass. With both pickups on it's warm & full, with a detailed presence in the upper mid's and high's. (Think John Entwhistle.) The neck pickup only is deep and throaty, like a P-bass on steriods. The electronics in combination with the woods and brass hardware create a finely detailed, full tone. Great recording bass. Let's jsut say you've heard this bass if you listened to hard rock coming out of L.A. in the 80's. (I ghosted a lot of sessions with it.)

It needed a little tweaking on the setup to get it where I liked it, but everything was easy to do. I check my intonation on a strobe tuner every 4 months or so. I have adjusted the braidge and action only two or three times since I've owned it. The brass tailpiece and bridge need care or they will start looking ugly. I use a product called "never dull" which cleans them right up.

After almost 16 years, I have replaced only the pick up selector switch, and the plastic volume & tone knobs. They weren't broken, just very dirty and the white reflective paint had worn off. I changed them out mostly for aesthetic reasons. Other than that everything's still beautiful, and in perfect working order. This is after the bass has been on tours all over the place.

Alembic is a very cool company. They're a family business, rather than an unfeeling corporation. The whole shop is a labor of love. They are very, very serious about what they do, but not at all pretentious. I had to replace the 3 way selector switch about 5 years ago. (I simply wore it out after 9 years of heavy use.) I also replaced the volume and tone knobs. Called them up and spoke to Mica Wickersham directly. The replacement parts were in my hands 36 hours later.

Purchased new in 1987 at Nadine's (R.I.P.) It was my first five string. For me, this was the ultimate Jimmy Johnson model. It was my holy grail, and still is. The hard part for me is that I'm now searching for another live bass, as this instrument is too valuable to me to risk taking out on the road. Problem is what do you replace perfection with? I'm having a luthier in Orange County build me a custom instrument from my own specs. If it were stolen, I'd probably slit my wrists! Tone, playability, feel, it's got it all.

I bought my Alembic in 1991. Made in Santa Rosa, it was happily shipped to me in Holland, Europe. It is a 24 fret bass with Ebony fingerboard,(I think Ebony is the one and only true fingerboard, and for this I have to apologize to all the marvellous trees we kill....), a nice flat in some sort of 4 and a half string measure, (that's cool, my hands aren't that big.....) maple neck (double rod), divided by three pieces of purpleheart, (all one piece from head to tail) and chestnut laminates in the head. The body is completed by two pieces of mahogany and a marvellous Flame Maple top.
Electronics are a passive AND active set of two oversised Alembic pick-ups, volume and tone control as well as a passive/active switch. The tone control is that good, that you can even use it as a wha wha effect, provided you learn to do your thing singlehandedly.
All hardware (exept for the tuners)is Brass, perfect adjustable bridge and nut(!), and frets that are still in perfect shape after a 8 year period of being on the road, being fingered and slapped night after night. The tuner are Alembic's, and have the very nice quality of NEVER de-tuning out of themselves.

The nicest of this instrument is that you can do with it whatever you want (I even let her smack on the podium by accident more than one time and guess what...? NO Damage.....) AND play whatever style you want. I did Jazz, JazzRock, Heavy rock, Steaming Funk and Dance and the most unbelievable stupid songs with her. The variety of sound is endless, althoug there are only two pots and one switch available. This guitar has the broadest deepest bass I have ever encountered, and specially on an SWR pre amp, a crown, carver or QSC power amp and some Glockenklang cabinets it is like no other Bass. It sounds so open , bright and deep at the same time, and is virtually matchless. But if you want you can make it everything between the ultimate bass and a transistor radio.
It's even good for use on stage or in the studio, because its low output (also when operating active)and absolutely NO noises, humming or whatever, and I have had many, many compliments from the engineers I worked with on stage and in the studio, because there is no adjusting needed whatsoever, exept for the volume.

The bass was set up in the best way possible by the Alembic people, I virtually havend done anything to readjust it in ten years.
There are two things that have been bothering me. The tonepot broke down some 5 years ago, and I had it replaced then, (but that can happen), But one thing is a real bummer: When I use a wireless system, strange things happen. It can make a terrible noise all of a sudden ( and then I really mean TERRIBLE, like some 80 db`s!). I have had it researched by builders her, but nobody could ever give me the solution to that problem...So I simply stuck to cables....
The rest of her is made of purely the BEST and finest materials.

As I already said, I have had many violent gigs with her, and she only has a few small scratches. All the finish is still as beautiful as 10 years ago, and I virtually never adjustd anything.

I have used her on the road WITHOUT any backup bass (This one was so expensive I only could have one...), And I never had to use another bass.

I have no idea about the warranty (have look in her papers, but where the hell are they...?), and I never contacted Alembic, simply because Santa Rosa is some 4500 miles from where I live.
I would like to visit Alembic some time, and take her with me to get her a full check up by the people that made her be born.

This is the best Bass ever born, and I wouldn't trade her for the world. If she ever was stolen or whatever, I will mourne forever !

I recently purchased a barely used ALEMBIC Spoiler 5-string. It's a '92 with the Series shape and the Omega cut-out, the Crown peghead, the 4+3 Rock Maple / PurpleHeart neck, Quilt maple top over a mahogany body. It's typical Spoiler electronics: 2 AXY56 pickups with one volume, one tone, one Q-switch, and a pickup selector. It's transparent red with gold and brass parts, and it came in its' original case.

The ALEMBIC electronics are wonderfully different. One volume,pickup selector with an OFF position (why doesn't everyone have this?) and the tone does double duty: With the switch OFF, it's a conventional, passive tone control. Turn the Q-switch ON and two things happen: First, there's a volume boost and Second, the tone control is now a LowPass Filter: All the way OFF and it's very muffled, like organ pedals. As you turn the tone UP, more and more highs come in until at wide open, it's just IMPOSSIBLY bright. As ALEMBIC's pickups let you adjust the heights by tone, you then open up the back panel to find a pair of volume pots to control the blend in the COMBINED position on the selector, as this sets the relative volume of each pickup. No more being hung to the right tone by height alone. Very clever feature. The pickups sound great, and while you may think you have very little to work with control-wise, the available sounds are so right to begin with, they need very little tweaking.

I've never owned a bass built to these standards. It is a truly marvelous INSTRUMENT, like a Steinway, a Selmer-Paris horn, a D'Angelico guitar. It's a lifetime instrument, period. The quality of materials and construction is in a class all alone. SetUp was fine, even used. SetUp is easy: An adjustable nut(!), twin truss rods, the bridge is already cast at the fingerboard radius(!) and the adjustments are incrementally smooth and precise. For anyone that knows how to do a SetUp, this bass is Heaven.

If I had to have only one bass for the rest of my life, this would be it. Saying it's mechanically and electronically reliable doesn't approach the care ALEMBIC built into this guitar. Remember, they've been doing this since the early 70's: They got it right a LONG time ago, and have methodically refined it for over 30 years now.

ALEMBIC has been extremely open and helpful to me even as the new owner of an already sold instrument. It's a small family business that treats you like the newest member. Try calling FENDER and talking to the fellow that built YOUR bass!

I've played for over 20 years. This bass looks like nothing else, sounds like nothing else. Most current basses all use the same pickups and hardware, and they all sound mostly alike to me, and they all look alike to me: A FENDER copy, or an ALEMBIC copy. Aside from Peavey, all the majors have AWFUL service. These are NOT for everyone, but if you can appreciate the artistry and technology, there's nothing else like it. I shall NEVER be without this bass, and the only thing I wish it had? A four-string little brother and a six-string big brother !