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Alembic Club » Alembic Basses & Guitars » Archive through September 10, 2014 » Question for Mica (or whoever!!!) re AXY/FatBoy PUPs « Previous Next »

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mike1762
Senior Member
Username: mike1762

Post Number: 1035
Registered: 1-2008
Posted on Sunday, June 15, 2014 - 4:18 am:   Edit Post

How do you tell whether you have an AXY or FatBoy PUP??? Is the magnet centered in the AXY housing or is it off-set??? I'm wondering if flipping the bridge PUP (assuming it's an AXY) would make any difference (I prefer the bridge PUP to be not so close to the bridge). How would I go about acquiring a FatBoy and how much do they cost???
mica
Moderator
Username: mica

Post Number: 8190
Registered: 6-2000
Posted on Monday, June 16, 2014 - 2:36 pm:   Edit Post

Sometimes we're nice and put a FatBoy sticker on the underside of the pickup, but it's not 100% of the time. The only way to tell for sure is to check how wide the magnet is inside with either the paper and iron filings trick (don't do this while it's mounted on the bass) or with the "magnetic paper" to peek inside. The FatBoy will reach almost to the top and bottom edge, the AXY will be in the center and half the width.

A FatBoy and a standard AXY should sound the same with the pickup mounted either direction. We could make an AXY pickup with the coil cast toward the top edge of the pickup making the actual pickup part about 1/4" farther away from the bridge without changing the routing. Anything more dramatic would need more dramatic modification.
jazzyvee
Senior Member
Username: jazzyvee

Post Number: 4152
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2014 - 4:31 am:   Edit Post

I've just taken delivery of a FatBoy and an AXY with the coil cast towards the top edge as mica describes above.



Hope to get these in after my busy weekend starting with fatboy in the bridge.
Jazzyvee
moongerm
Junior
Username: moongerm

Post Number: 24
Registered: 8-2013
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2014 - 8:16 am:   Edit Post

Nice JazzyVee! Heard nothing but great feedback on this setup.
moongerm
Junior
Username: moongerm

Post Number: 25
Registered: 8-2013
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2014 - 8:16 am:   Edit Post

Nice JazzyVee! Heard nothing but great feedback on this setup.
5a_quilt_top
Advanced Member
Username: 5a_quilt_top

Post Number: 328
Registered: 6-2012
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2014 - 9:44 am:   Edit Post

+1 on Fat Boy in treble (bridge) position.
jazzyvee
Senior Member
Username: jazzyvee

Post Number: 4159
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - 5:25 am:   Edit Post

Ok just completed the installation of the new pickups and had a blast for about 30 mins.
The AXY i have in the neck position has a much more emphasis on the bottom end and whilst I think the higher frequencies are still there it is not as sweet sounding as the standard AXY. i expect this is because of the position of the magnet and pickup coil in the case being offset closer to the end of the neck.

The Fat boy is certainly different, I now know what you mean by growl. If I dig in when playing it certainly sounds like it is giving me a raspy edge to the tone. As with the neck pickup it is not as clean sounding as the AXY but the fat boy does seem to make the filter more responsive when moving it, the harmonics are clearer and I can get more of that edgy nasally tone that Stanley Clarke uses for many of his solo's.
That's just a first impression and I will stick with them for a while before mix and matching them in other permutations.

I have a gig next week so will try it out there.
davehouck
Moderator
Username: davehouck

Post Number: 11440
Registered: 5-2002
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - 5:27 pm:   Edit Post

Thanks for the report!
jazzyvee
Senior Member
Username: jazzyvee

Post Number: 4160
Registered: 6-2002
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2014 - 1:21 am:   Edit Post

I had a confusing start with the transfer of pickups because the plug was too big to pull through the ferric bead but mica pointed me to less violent solution than my email to her suggested i was considering ... :-)

http://alembic.com/club/messages/16271/41300.html?1182378055

Anyway once fitted, I thought that it might be a good idea to put some flatter connectors inside the pickup cavity so that it would make swapping the pickups much quicker and practical for me to experiment with chopping and changing the pickups round in various permutations.
All I'd need to do would be detune, unscrew the pickup remove and plug in the new one retune and done. A five minute job.

I completely understand this would be unnecessary if you had just one set of pickups as you'd never need to remove them unless there was a problem. But for me now with two sets of pickups this would make it practical to change pickups for a particular gig.

Jazzyvee
flpete1uw
Advanced Member
Username: flpete1uw

Post Number: 335
Registered: 11-2011
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2014 - 12:51 pm:   Edit Post

Jazzy,
When I was toying around with changing the pickups in my 75 Series 1, the new pickups came with that kind of new connection. My old pickups were wired with an older style pushpin connection. The Mothership supplied short adaptor cables to retrofit in. So what you could do is have a small extender cable snaked through the hole which will give the fast access you described. Bare in mind each time you add a connection point you add another point of potential failures.

Pete
mica
Moderator
Username: mica

Post Number: 8213
Registered: 6-2000
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2014 - 2:55 pm:   Edit Post

Just don't use the ferrite bead when you are experimenting. You only need the ferrite bead if you need it (wireless, and some physical locations).

Later, you can always thread them through

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