audiobriefs
Topic

Craft

Skill accumulated by hand, and the economics that keep removing it.

4
in audio
8:55
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36 min
in total
116
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9:08

Alembic Series I

Alembic

The Alembic Series I is a 1977 US-made 4-string bass with rabl neck and top, mahogany body, bne key, brass bridge and nut, and 24-fret pearl-inlaid neck. Its electronics include two single-coil pickups, a central dummy hum pickup, stereo 5-pin XLR output, external power supply, dual volume/tone controls, dual 3-position Q-switches, and a 3-position + Off selector. It delivers precise, clear, full-range sound suited to slap, fingerstyle, and pick playing—but is relatively heavy, fragile (headstock prone to breakage), and has non-independent string height adjustment at the bridge.

8:05

Roland PR-100

Roland

The Epiphone PR-100 is a Chinese-made, US-designed dreadnought acoustic guitar with 22 frets, a mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard, and plastic bridge. It has no electronics or controls. It is built for unamplified play only.

9:38

Epiphone Casino

Epiphone

A true hollow-body electric guitar built for resonance, not resistance. Lightweight. Loud unplugged. Feedback-prone. P-90-driven. 16th-fret neck joint. Used by The Beatles and generations of players who value immediacy over isolation.

8:48

Red Special

Brian May / John Birch

The Red Special is a functional anomaly: a self-contained solution to feedback and sustain, built before those problems had names. Its value lies in what it withheld — standardisation, mass production, modularity — not what it delivered.