Alembic Orion Guitar

The guitar has a mahogany body with an exotic figured maple top. Then there is a laminate in contrasting purpleheart veneer under the top. The neck 24 fret slim construction made from maple with a dual independent truss rod system.

The Orion features two HG series hum cancelling pickups with volume, bass and treble controls. A mini three way toggle switch selects the pickups.

I have only used this guitar live for playing reggae and a little rnb and for the crispness of the reggae chop the guitar is incredibly powerful, sharp without being harsh and clean.
It's great at the percussive chop as well.
The sound is extrememly quiet and no noise fizz at all. The bass and treble controls give you a boost and cut from a centre indent allowing you go from razor sharp James Brown funk like rhythm chops to the most mellow and dark Pat Martino jazz and every thing in between. For lead and rhythm the guitar is great.

The output is hot but without being distorted. The only dislike I have with it is that it is difficult to get a good overdrive sound from the guitar using a non valve overdrive.

From my fender twin I can get a good gritty sound, Scott Henderson tone through to a creamy santana type overdrive sound.

Boss pedals and Pro-com Rat have problems with the output signal from the guitar and it;s very difficult to get a good sound. Internally the guitar output can be adjusted but without the valve amp getting a good overdrive sound is difficult.

Most of the time I play clean so that isn't a major issue but it's just worth noting.

I got the guitar from a dealer in Germany and although the innards had shaken loose in the journey from Germany to UK, it was setup fantastic.
Lovely low action which I easily lowered even more.

The guitar can be adjusted in many ways with dual truss rods, solid brass bridge and adjustable nut.

Pickups are left as they arrived and I have not needed to adjust them at all.
Everything in the guitar is finished to an incredibly high standard, no flaws whatsoever.

Yes the guitar is excellent for live playing. I've used it as my main touring instrument for gigs during 2006. It's been all over europe and to Canada and only once did i need to lift the nut about a millimetre once.

The satin finish doesn't really stand up to the contact of my fingers and possibly plectrum from use and is now going shiny.

I'm pretty mobile on stage so I changed the strap buttons for schaller locking ones for more on-stage security.
I can depend on it 100% and its been the only guitar I have taken on gigs. Just make sure you have a spare battery as the guitar has no output if the battery goes.

No experience with customer support for this guitar.
All contact with the company (Alembic) at other times has been very helpful, informative and professional.

If it were stolen or lost, if I could afford to I'd get another one.
What I love about it is the neck is a dream, narrow, shallow and very comfortable for long playing sessions. The weight is very light so there is no shoulder ache after a 2 hour gig.

I didn't compare it to other guitars at the time of purchase as I had never heard an alembic guitar until I bought this one.

This is the cheapest of the Alembic guitar range but still not cheap, or cheaply made. Alembic don't do bolt on necks so this one is a set neck solid body electric guitr.

Finished with a quilted maple top with matt finish. Body is mahogany with a purpleheart accent between body and top. Contoured finish for comfort body shape is more like a fender Jazz bass than a strat.

Bridge style is Alembics meatier version of the tune-o-matic bridge made of very heavy solid brass.

Tuners are alembic, the neck is a three peice maple job with two thin walnut pinstripes. It has a thick slab of ebony for the fretboard, very slim and thin which makes it easy to play and very comfortable.

Pickups are alembics own in house designed hum cancellers which are extremely responsive and quiet.
The guitar has active low-impendance pickups at the bridge and neck powered by alembics own designed active electronics.

From the moment I plugged it in I have been amazed at the versatility of the sound from the crispest biting funk to the warmest Jazz sound, this guitar can do the lot. I use generally a fender twin or a Roland JC120 on the road and the guitar sounds much better in the valve amp than the 120. The output can be adjusted from a trim pot inside and I had to lower the output somewhat as it was overdriving my Rat-com pro pedal and making it sound nasty. Overdriving is much better done using a valve amp channel or a valve pedal. Even a Line 6 XTpro live it not able to reproduce the frequency range of this guitar and you do lose a lot.

The guitar sounds much better in a valve amp. However unlike most electric guitars, this one also sounds good when plugged directly into anything. I've used it in a bass amp, acoustic guitar amp and direct into a desk and it sounds good in all. It does have a kind of hybrid sound that is very much like a miked up acoustic guitar.

As for noise... what noise. The electronics and pickups are extremely quiet. Fortunately it doesn't sound like either a strat or a gibson, nor anything else for that matter. It has it's own voice.

The only dislike I have is that the matt finish is not hardwearing enough and is already going shiny both along the top half, and bottom half of the body where the pick and fingers touch the body.

The guitar was 10 years old when I bought it and played perfectly straight out of the case, even though it had never been used. Action was great, I lowered it a bit more after changing the strings and it's just right.Pickups I haven't needed to touch at all.

Bookmatched top is immaculate and typically with Alembic, the body work and workmanship is flawless.

I have used this guitar on the road professionally for the past 12 months and it has been perfect, no problems at all with the sound, durability nor reliability. I always carry spare batteries as its all active with no passive override. Alembic say the batteries should last a year with normal playing, however I change mine every 6 months or whenever I've been doing a long stretch of daily concerts. The guitar i feel is strong enough to last a long time on the road as it's very solidly built. I take this on the road without any backup and it's never let me down.

I did contact alembic about this guitar when I was having problems with the output being too hot for my overdrive pedal. They pointed me to the trim pot inside and once adjusted it was fine.

Their discussion forum is a minefield of information about their instruments from keen and loyal users. I guess you could also include that in their support.
Considering the guitar was 10 years old, they responded just like if I had bought it yesterday. Great people.

I've been playing a while and still in awe of the incredible sound this guitar makes. If I had bought it new, I would have asked for the low pass filters & Q-switch for both pickups rather than the bass and treble.

I don't like to think about things getting stolen.
Favourite things are the sound and playability of the neck.
There is nothing I don't like about it really.

Compared to any other guitar I have, this is the most complete in terms of its sound. I appreciate that an alembic sound is an acquired taste and many people would prefer the other manufacturers. Let me say though, if I was going to play rock I would choose another guitar as in my humble opinion, alembics sound best clean.

I've been using it almost exclusively for playing both Indian musica and Reggae this year and for chops, it's unbeatable and for the melodic indian melodies, it's got that twangy clarity and woody sound that stringed indian instruments have.