Hello there, and thanks to everyone on the earlier post of the sounds of series 1 and 2. Anyways, as a huge fan of fleetwood mac and alembic, I have been planning to order the dream of my life, alembic, and ive noticed that during the 70's , john mcvie of fleetwood mac had used series 1 and 2's. Can anybody send me some information on the basses that he had ordered? type of wood, control configuration, things like that, this is probably a question for mica, im hoping to use this information to forward my planning of a custom bass order, maybe future john mcvie signature bass for me???? time will tell. thanks
An article in Bass Player magazine featuring Modulus Graphite's founder Geoff Gould, Rick Turner, and Alembic stated that John's first Alembic had a graphite neck. Apparently the bass was the first graphite- neck bass and was featured at a NAMM show by Alembic. I also recall seeing an old Fleetwood Mac video where John was playing a beautiful fretless Series bass.
There's a very nice Fleetwood Mac box set that came out a couple of years ago. It includes a small booklet with many pictures, including many of John with various Alembics which were his main basses during the height of their success. The one most commonly pictured is a very early model that predates the design of the body and bridge settling down and looks to have the brown pickups.
I have an old FM video documentary from the 70's as well, and there are pictures of him playing with a more regular looking Series I that has a zebrawood top.
I've never seen a picture of it, but I believe he also has the fretless with a stainless steel fingerboard.
Could that tone on the bass break in The Chain be anything other than an Alembic? :-)
David Fung
A fretless bass with a stainless steel fingerboard? I'd like to hear that in person! I wonder how well his strings held up? (Usually fretless player's are concerned about fingerboard wear-not so in this case!!)
D.M.
ah yes, the chain, that riff was the very first thing i learned to play on my first bass, a 70 dollar mako bass i bought at a pawn shop, thanks!
I've got a gig with a Fleetwood Mac tribute band called Rumours at the Carson Valley Inn, Nevada from Feb 11-16. I'll be using my Alembic on this gig, however it is a six-string.
Wally
I'd like to see a picture of that stainless steel fingerboard!!! Like Derwin mentioned, I guess when playing that, he didn't have to worry about fingerboard wear. Probably wore out his strings!
Susan Wickersham makes mention of the stainless fretless in the History article back on the ALEMBIC website; she wondered if it should have been termed a fretless or continually-fretted fingerboard !
Here's a picture of a stainless steel fretless.
It's not an Alembic though.
http://kevincorren.com/gittler_bass.html (http://kevincorren.com/gittler_bass.html)
(Message edited by metalbasscom on January 21, 2006)