jazzyvee

Thanks for your offer, though i am not sure that I want to keep the logo's at all since the neck ones are virtually worn off and also gold which doesn't seem to fit the aesthetic of maple and chrome. But I will have a think about it. I posted this on the alembic site and mica indicated she might have some old vintage look cream pickups that may go with this bass so i just need to get an email fired off to find out what may be available and at what price. No idea if they have the alembic name moulded, transfers or plain. I do recall they had some cream pickups with splashed paint on called "Clown's Vomit' which might be a nice contrast. :-)

If i am looking for a bass, the tone wood claims or counter claims would not influence my choice. if i liked the sound and it felt good to play and i liked the look of it. that's it. The reality for me is that i only have two basses that i tried before purchase and the others i bought on line and they sound great. The reasons they sound different is a combination of far too many things for me to be able to isolate and properties of the construction woods. YMMV

I have wanted to give my alembic a facelift for ages and when i saw Cosmo Valdemar's bass at Jaydee being prepped for respray, it gave me the confidence to get mine refinished from see through purple to clear finish, had a refret and new knobs. And it now looks brand new except the pickups. I will be looking for some way to make them look new.

i seem to have problems with all the headphone practice amps over the years. I have the Big Head but firstly the battery stopped holding it's charge so then i used the usb socket to play direct from a usb power pack and now the micro usb connector socket has come loose inside so that only works intermittently but the quality of the sound is impressive. So recently I have started using my Stanley Clarke Acoustic preamp as headphone amp and again the sound quality is superb.

I have a couple of options. My main one is a Rack with alembic preamps and a crown xls1502 or Synq 1K0 power amp that I use with the BTII or when using multiple cabs. I also have a Mesa boogie walkabout head that I tend to use with my BBII for a small rig.

Since you mention input sensitivity, it is something i would like to understand. I have a crown XLS 1502 which has .775v and 1.4v on the input sensitivity and a small rack with a Synq 1K0 1u power amp with input sensitivity of 26 dB / 32 dB / 1,4 V. i use alembic F-1X preamps but no idea how to determine what setting i should use for the power amps to get the best output and S/N ratio.. Any suggestions are welcome.

Looks great. I'm planning a small 5x4m practice room in my garden though after hearing of the sound spill from a friend's wooden build studio I have decided to go with a more solid construction. I'm going for Durisol bricks https://www.durisoluk.com/why-durisol/the-range/ which are woodcrete construction, insulated and you fill the cavity with concrete. Once the plans are drawn up I can see what the cost will be. If too expensive i will go with a traditional brick and block construction. My garden isn't as long as this one so I am more concerned with getting maximum sound attenuation at an affordable price.

I have couple of their guitar cases and one of their bass cases and though I have not weighed any of them they are pretty light.

I have been trying to sell my last PH cab, 1x15 on and off for about 4 years with little interest so it's still at home looking unloved. At the moment i plan to donate it to my local council's music service who give music lessons to youngsters, but they are moving location at the moment so will talk to them again soon. If it's not suitable i may try to part ex it at a local shop for some other gear.

Wow great project, i'll be watching for progress updates. Is it going to be made from bricks and block or wood?

Not cheap but Harvest make good quality bass bags.

I remember trying out a used one of those Genz Benz heads through a couple of 12" Aguillar cabs a few years ago when I was looking for a lightweight bass rig and loved the sound. 🙂

I've been to a couple of George's gigs and he is a superb bass player. Hope to get to a gig where he is playing his classico.

👍

A bit late posting but my Friday might gig went well. It was a fusion of jazz/funk/reggae. Went down really well. I hate untidy stages but we had PA issues which ate into our allocated time so we had to start on time without chance to move out bags and cases

Only if you want to.

They have a formula that works, and I suppose they only change things when there is an actual need to or if some of the "long in the tooth" parts are no longer available. 🙂🤣

I've been my SC Acoustic pre-amp using this at rehearsals with a couple of bands and feeding it into the return socket on the bass amps and it sounds superb. Nice clear and hi-fi sounding. I have a gig Friday where i'm playing both bass guitar and my EUB so I plan to use it for my EUB through to the PA.

I'm no expert on the electronics or magnets, coli etc, but my understanding from what i have read on the alembic site is that the resonant frequency of their pickups is outside the frequency range of the bass so no bass frequencies are enhanced or subdued. Most other pickups by other makers are wound to give some kind of baked in sound influence over certain frequencies. For example to make them more bassy, punchy, high output ir vintage sounding etc. etc. The low pass filters then allow you to attenuate frequencies above the filter setting and apply a lift to the cut off frequency. This affects mainly the attack of the note rather than the whole sustaining note.

Stanley Clarke does the same thing with a fender guitar amp fed from the high frequency crossover output on one of his preamps. i hope one day to get to do a suitable gig with bi-amp setup. Each pickup to a separate cab and my roland jc120 on the hf out from the bridge pickup.

What do you mean by ex alembic player, have you sold it or planning to sell yours? what model is it?

Interesting question, though one i can't answer from personal practical experience. From my understanding, one of the differences between alembic pickups and most other pickups is they are designed to only pick up what the strings are doing instead of being wound to emphasise or impart a particular tonal character. So since the SF-2 is more versatile in tone shaping than alembic basses generally have on board, my assumption would be that the rig would give you the same way of tone shaping but not the same tone.