The company was founded by Owsley Stanley as a workshop in the rehearsal room of the Grateful Dead in Novato, California, near San Francisco, to help improve the entire sound chain for the band’s live recordings, from instruments to PA. Soon the group was active in sound recording, modifying and repairing guitars and basses, and PA systems. By 1970, Alembic was incorporated with three equal shareholders: Ron Wickersham, an electronics expert who came in from Ampex; Rick Turner, a guitarist turned luthier; and Bob Matthews, a recording engineer.
Inspired by the wide frequency response of the Hagstrom Bi-sonic pickups installed in Phil Lesh and Jack Casady’s Guild Starfire basses, Ron Wickersham and Rick Turner designed low-impedance pickups and electronics with greater bandwidth than the high-impedance pickups typical in electric guitars and basses of the time. To boost the low output of these pickups, Wickersham designed an active onboard preamp. Turner referred to this process as “Alembicizing”.
The company’s first instrument was a bass guitar, made in 1972 for Jack Casady. This bass incorporated a massive electronics suite, with state variable filtering capability, and had pickups mounted on brass tubing so that their position could be adjusted. Financial problems (in the recording studio section) were alleviated after a 1973 story on the company in Rolling Stone, which generated enough cashflow for a standardized bass guitar line based on the Guild Starfire. At that time, the company had two locations—guitars and electronics were built in Cotati, and the main office was in Sebastopol. 1973 was also the year that Stanley Clarke, then with Return to Forever, replaced his Gibson EB-2 with an Alembic, increasing Alembic’s profile. Their bass guitars were expensive, costing up to three times as much as a new Fender bass. According to Tony Bacon and Barry Moorhouse, it was Alembic that started the trend of high-quality, high-price bass guitars. In 1974, Matthews left the company. The recording studio had been sold, as was a retail store in San Francisco where they had sold high-end audio equipment besides their own electronics and instruments.
The first production Alembic instruments were less ornate, and incorporated the PF-5 electronics circuit, later replaced by the PF-6. The pickups were single-coil, with an active hum-cancelling coil mounted between the pickups. This configuration gave the player the fidelity of single-coil pickups without their inherent noise, and is used to this day. The basses and guitars built using this configuration would later become known as the Series I and II, and were available in a variety of scale lengths and body shapes.
In 1976, Alembic built what is believed to be the first modern five string bass (tuned BEADG) for bassist Jimmy Johnson. Alembic’s January 21, 1977 price list described the five string bass as a “standard” model, available for $50 more than its four string bass.
In 1977, Alembic presented the world’s first graphite neck basses with necks supplied by Geoff Gould (later founder of Modulus Guitars) at a trade show; it was bought by John McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Production of graphite-necked instruments ceased in 1985.
In 1978, Rick Turner left the company to found Turner Guitars.
In 1979, the Distillate, a more affordable model, was introduced in bass and guitar versions.
For the complete Alembic Bass index click below
MARK KING SIGNATURE BASS
SIGNATURE DELUXE
SIGNATURE STANDARD
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ESSENCE
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just...BASS! 