Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Bob, imagine this one (31" scale on a standard LP guitar-sized body) but with double cutaways.

Wait, I can almost fully envision that...

"It's subjective, but nothing comes close for around $1500-2000."

True, but also consider. You buy a new Ric 4003 for $1200 or so. In five years, you can easily sell it for that, if not more.

Buy a new Alembic for $8000. In five years, you'd be hard-pressed to sell it for $1200. Great bass? Absolutely. But it sure doesn't hold value on the market. Not to say it's not worth buying one . . . on the contrary, if you buy basses to play them, it's probably *great* that they don't hold value.

That's why I said "used" Robert.

A $1.5K Alembic will probably depreciate no more. In 5 years time it will be worth at least the same.

I'd never buy a new one.

"Never played an Alembic though . . . I bet if I did, I'd want one too."

I've played a few. Very disappointing. Great woodwork but also very heavy and the tone just wasn't there. All those knobs and not one sound that I really liked. The bass just didn't "breathe".

Value and collectibility considerations aside, I wouldn't give $300 for the Alembics that I tried.

Just MHO... YMMV.

EDIT: Maybe I should add that the Alembics I tried weren't Series I or Series II.

Saint Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast.

Is that 325 bass what I think it is???

Where I stole the marjureen?

Wha? Oh, I get it...

Anywaze...'piccolo bass'...seems like kind of an oxymoron...

I mean after all, they don't make a 'bass piccolo'...

Jason, no that's not one of the Howie Epstein basses, just parallel thinking on Todd's part. I think he started with a 2030. Maybe he can direct us to links.

2030 minor mod....
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/guitar%20rebuilding/

Todd, it looks like you moved the bridge back so you could route the neck pocket further back and to make the cutaways deeper too. Is that the case?

I had piccolo strings on my 4001 about 10 years ago. It sounded really nice with a bit of chorus on it. Didn't find it useful enough to keep it like that though.

Dane, the original 2030 body has two separate curves for the cutaways (one creating the upper horn and one making the lower horn) which curve back up toward the head where they meet the neck. The lower cutaway is also deeper and farther back where it joins the neck than the upper one. The other Rickenbacker body shapes (on the classic models that we think of as typical Rickenbackers) almost all have one big, sweeping curve from the upper horn's tip, through the neck and down to the lower horn's tip. To a large part, it's what makes them look like Rickenbackers. In order to keep the same amount of wood in the neck pocket area of the body, I joined the upper horn to the neck at the original spot and I lost about one fret worth of cutaway on the lower horn to keep the curve continuous.

The width of the body was limited because I still wanted it to fit in the original case with just a bit of padding adjustment. Stretching the new body shape to a length similar to the 2030 body looked pretty funky so the length of the new body was kept pretty close proportionally (length vs. width) to a 325/350. This meant that it would be a shorter body that the original 2030 body, but have the right shape and still fit in the case. As a result, the bridge wound-up closer to the tail end of the body than it was on the original 2030. I also moved the bridge pickup back a bit to add a little more bite and had to adjust the position and angle of the control cavity and circuit board/output jack assembly on the back to fit the new shape and get the jack in the proper place. In the end, it worked out pretty well and the balance is good, but it took a fair amount of planning and drawing to get everything figured out.

I've got a similar project in the works involving a bunch of different parts and pieces I have laying around and some parts coming from Ebay. Rather than go into a bunch of detail right now, I'm just gonna call this "The 3005 Lightshow Project" for now.
Thanks for the Rowlux Paul. I told you it was dangerous when I get ideas.