This Alembic Series II SSB Bass was in my personal collection for over a decade. I sold it locally & now she’s back in the collection but can be purchased today. It’s a stunning all original example of their Short Scale Bass w/its smaller body design made most famous by my mentor, Stanley Clarke. Its gorgeous Zebrawood front & back body laminations are striking & give this particular bass an outstanding huge tone that rattles & rings every guitar in the shop. Its 7-piece maple & walnut neck-thru body has fabulous sustain. Its Series II electronics are super expensive & worth every dime. The story goes that Alembic has been making Series II basses since 1972, and we are continually improving what we believe is the finest solid body electric bass on earth. With Alembic, there is every reason to have clean, clear, and complete tone. Why would you compromise? Series II basses are the top of the line Alembic bass. When you order a Series II, you don’t have to add anything to it, as it’s already appointed with all the cool features: side LED position markers, continuous wood backplates and truss rod cover & 24K gold plated hardware. What they all have in common is the Series II pickups and electronics system designed by Alembic founder and Chief Engineer Ron Wickersham, who pioneered the use of active electronics in guitars in 1969. Starting with single coil pickups, the most complete and pure picture of the string movement is passed to the electronics. Between the two pickups is an external “dummy” humcanceller pickup. Our low-pass filter is the tone control, and it’s what sets us apart from other producers of active electronics. The low-pass filter is the electronic equivalent of a naturally vibrating soundboard, and hence our electronics have a natural tone with none of the harshness or sterile sound sometimes associated with active electronics. Then there is the CVQ, the continuously variable Q control. The Q is an attribute of the low-pass filter, affecting the frequency you have the low-pass filter tuned to. You can dampen the Q to near zero by turning the control all the way down, or get extreme with a 15dB boost at the maximum, plus all the subtlety in between. The CVQ control is only available on the Series II. This cool original 42 year old “Stanley” Short Scale Series II Bass has a current $39,200. List Price. Its excellent overall & comes w/its original power supply & long cable all in its original Blue Tolex hard case.
