Alembic Inc. is an American manufacturer of high-end electric basses, guitars and preamps. Founded in 1969, the company began manufacturing pre-amps before building complete instruments.
History
The company was founded by Owsley Stanley as a workshop in Grateful Dead's rehearsal room in Novato, California, near San Francisco, to help improve the band's entire sound chain, from its instruments to its sound reinforcement system. Eventually Alembic was actively modifying and repairing guitars and basses, recording sound, and designing and building PA systems. Artist Robert Thomas designed and painted the logo of the company in 1969, which included multiple elements that represented mankind and energy as values that Alembic aimed to show to public.
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. The company took over Pacific High Recording Studios in 1971, and the studio was renamed Alembic Studios.
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 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-house luthier Doug Irwin designed and built Eagle for Jerry Garcia. Irwin left to form his own company shortly thereafter, designing four more customs for Garcia, including
Wolf,
Tiger,
Wolf Jr. (headless) and
Rosebud.
In 1976, Alembic built what is believed to be the first modern five string bass (tuned BEADG) for bassist Jimmy Johnson.