Stanley Clarke now playing 5-string Alembic

[hieronymous]

At the Alembic Club, someone posted a video of Stanley Clarke playing with Stewart Copeland a day or two ago in Paris:



They are playing a classic instrumental from one of Stanley's early solo albums. But the main thing for a Stanley Clarke/Alembic geek such as myself is that he is playing a 5-string! He often switches between a regularly tuned 4-string and a "tenor" tuned ADGC. Now he's got the best of both worlds! Mica Wickersham just posted the new instrument today. I guess part of my excitement is connected to the fact that my Stanley Clarke Signature started as a regular BEADG 5-string but I had it converted to EADGC - maybe they'll come out with an official Stanley Clarke Signature 5-string?

For contrast, here's one of my favs - pre-Alembic, in this case, a Rickenbacker 4000!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFP-alYNq5I&feature=related

[gearHed289]

Very cool! I tuned my 5er with a high C for a while like 20 years ago. There's some really cool chordal stuff you can do like that.

[uwe]

Nice, I always like his melodic playing. The thing with a high C is that no matter what you do it starts to sound like a guitar string in comparison to the other strings if you have a "regular" bass sound. Now if you have a sound like Stanley with lots of treble and high mids to be heard and comparatively little warm fuzzy bass, that drawback doesn't really show. I guess you could probably correct it if the C string was eq'ed separately and beefed up with a lot of active bass frequencies.

But then I am of the opinion that a low B string always sticks out in sound compared to the other strings as well.

[Barklessdog]

Stanley is in a league of his own, there will never be another. A true Icon.

[uwe]

I still like Copeland's drumming, it's a lively conversation with the music, just like a modern Ginger Baker. He was what I liked best about The Police.

[patman]

I always liked the snap of his drums...the tone really cuts through.

[uwe]

And the way he tends to be slightly ahead or slightly behind but hardly ever right in the middle of the beat. I like that as long as you keep a pulse going.