Help Do You Know Anything About Greg Lakes Bass Guitar

Mudcrutch

Used on the new anthology cover ? 

PhilKing

It's an Alembic Scorpion 8-String.  Looks like the controls are pretty standard, as are the pickups.  I seem to remember that the middle one is a hum-cancelling coil, rather than a pickup.

Jalapeno

Looks like it only has 4 strings in that pic, IMHO etc

Mudcrutch

Looking at the neck width in the picture it doesn’t look wide enough for eight strings.
Has he had it shaved down or modified?

EricTheWeary

Mudcrutch said:

Looking at the neck width in the picture it doesn’t look wide enough for eight strings.
Has he had it shaved down or modified?

I think it’s octave pairs rather than like a modern 8 string. Looking at pictures online of that, or a similar one at least,  no it’s not been modified. 

Jalapeno

They're pretty narrow, and octave strings - not meant to be played as an 8 string.

fretmeister

Current price list for Alembic.
The 8 strings are a custom order but you get the idea...


http://www.alembic.com/prod/prices.html

ICBM

Jalapeno said:

Looks like it only has 4 strings in that pic, IMHO etc  

I can definitely see five - the low E is clearly doubled with a thin octave string, if you look over the pickups - and there appear to be red cotton windings on all the machineheads, so I'd say eight.

Mudcrutch

Thanks guys I’ve just had a look around at a few .
Quite interesting guitars .

EricTheWeary

There’s a Q and A on Greg’s website ( I found whilst googling) and he was asked about using it again. So, in 2000 he said no as it had been damaged. 

I remember seeing Nazareth live in, I think, 1979 and being as interested in Pete Agnew’s Alembic as the band. Quite a rarity. 

Jaydee basses obviously  borrowed a lot looks wise from Alembic and they’re perhaps a more common site in the U.K. And a fraction of the price from new ( I wonder what the waiting time is). 

Mudcrutch

I’m probably going to have to listen to all Greg’s recordings now listening out for this 8sting to see what it brings that I’ve never noticed before?
Something else to do during this lockdown and over Christmas.

prowla

I've played it, both when he came our Uni in the 80s and in a shop.

It was on their Fanfare For The Common Man video.

PhilKing

Scroll to 4:46 if you want to see him playing the 8 Sting

Bork

Mudcrutch said:

Looking at the neck width in the picture it doesn’t look wide enough for eight strings.
Has he had it shaved down or modified?

It's a custom moulded composite neck.  Alembic offered them as an option from 1976 to sometime in 1983. Geoff Gould made them under contract before setting up Modulus Graphite. John McVie,  Stanley Clarke,  John Entwhistle and Jimmy Johnson also owned examples. 

PhilKing said:

It's an Alembic Scorpion 8-String.  Looks like the controls are pretty standard, as are the pickups.  I seem to remember that the middle one is a hum-cancelling coil, rather than a pickup.

Correct, a series one 8 string. The serial number is 791300. The series one and two basses feature stereo onboard circuitry.  So if the bass has been recorded in stereo with both pickups active, you will get the bridge pickup through one side and the neck pickup through the other.