| Author | Message | ||
| jedisan
Member Username: jedisan Post Number: 72 Registered: 3-2008 |
Hi and Hello, Is it possible to buy electronics without pups? I would really like to get a set of Europa/Rouge electronics for a Warmoth/T-Bird project I've got going. I want to do active electronics and maintain a three knob config, and this would work great. Yea, yea, I know I could call Headquarters, but they are plenty busy building basses for others. Can anyone weigh in here? Thanks! | ||
| keurosix
Senior Member Username: keurosix Post Number: 404 Registered: 10-2005 |
Try this one out: This works with any pick up, has an adjustable gain trim pot, and also has a high pass filter. I got one for my Dean Edge 6 string fretless bass, and it sounds pretty good. Dead quiet - no humm or hiss, and lots of output. Almost as good as Alembic, and a lot less $$ too. http://www.acguitars.co.uk/index.php    Kris | ||
| dnburgess
Senior Member Username: dnburgess Post Number: 612 Registered: 1-2003 |
ACG preamps are great. Definitely recommended if you like filter based tone control. BTW they are the preamps on Spellbinder basses. | ||
| jedisan
Member Username: jedisan Post Number: 74 Registered: 3-2008 |
Thanks guys... I should have been more specific. I already have the ACG setup on a Jazz style that I put together, and am most happy with. Same setup you have Kris. Only caveat here is, I would prefer not having stacked knobs. I want to use a standard type of Gibson style speed knob. It's just a looks type of thing. So that being said, the Europa/Rogue ste up would work nicely. I really like the eg boost and cut switches too. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 790 Registered: 11-2004 |
A friend of mine converted a reasonable price bass to fretless(Yamaha passive I recall), he installed two Kent Armstrong Pu's and and ACG pre amp. The sound was amazing,very hifi like Alembic and well worth the money. Easy to install as it is almost clip connectors apart from the pu connection. | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 1450 Registered: 6-2002 |
A little diversion if I may. When the Q-switch is turned on and you turn the filter knob back and forth on the alembic controls you can get a wah wah type effect. I wonder how effective it would be to get the innards out of a standard wah pedal and somehow.... fit them into a guitar body and control the sweep with a pot so you can stop at a specific tonal point. Other than the fact that all the wahs' I've used are noisy it should be usable. Obviously not the best solution I know but it's something that caught my curiousity and decided to air it. I have a guitar body somewhere that has been victim to my past whimsical trials so I may try it one day. Jazzyvee | ||
| altgrendel
Member Username: altgrendel Post Number: 76 Registered: 5-2008 |
I would email Mica and ask but I suspect that she'd point you to the Activator page. But if you don't ask, you'll never know. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 815 Registered: 11-2004 |
jazzyvee...if you ae confident with a soldering iron there are loads of circuits and kits out on the market, the wah circuit is a very simple resonant filter that is dependant on the coil value..measured in Henri's. I bet Dave Fung could put us all right on this if he reads this. | ||
| dfung60
Advanced Member Username: dfung60 Post Number: 382 Registered: 5-2002 |
The Alembic Q filters and a wah are related but different. The wah circuit is a tunable bandpass filter. It cuts everything above and below a particular frequency. When you rock the wah, it shifts the center frequency. When you shift the center freq it sounds like a vocal sound because changing your mouth shape changes the volume of your mouth cavity, which similarly shifts the resonant frequency of your mouth. The problem with a wah filter on your bass is that this kind of bandpass filter gives the best "wah" effect but it has the effect of wiping out the bass end of the sound spectrum (this is obvious if you run your bass through a Cry Baby). The Alembic Q doesn't have this issue. The wah pedal makes it's center frequency by getting rid of everything above and below. The Q filter is a active semi-parametric filter. Part of it acts like a regular low-pass filter - it cuts frequencies past a certain frequency which is set by the value of the filter knob. When the knob is turned "up" the cutoff frequency is high; as you turn it down, the cutoff frequency shifts downward. When the Q switch is in the "low" position (I'm talking about a 3 way Series circuit here, I'm not to sure on the other models), the filter has a shape like a regular passive tone control. When you put the Q switch in the middle or high position, the circuit creates a medium or large resonant peak at the corner frequeny. So, the low end is still passed through normally and the high end is still cut off, but there's a big increase in the output level right around the center frequency. This gives that shifting frequency boost like a wah pedal that moves around as you turn the filter knob. In a parametric eq circuit, there are many features of the filter design that you can adjust - center frequency, the width of the eq zone, the sharpness of the effect on the eq zone (this is the "Q-factor") . There are even more factors like the symmetry of the filter slopes. So, the Q-filter is picking a musically useful set of characteristics to get a circuit that has a lot of effect without millions of knobs. Incidentally, these characteristics are what all the trimpots on the BagEnd ELF Integrator (also designed by Ron Wickersham) are controlling. The Integrator can create the assymetrical sort of response that the Q-filter creates, with the intent of allowing the ELF system to be tweaked to optimize the characteristics of multiple speaker bass systems. David Fung | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 1451 Registered: 6-2002 |
Thanks Dave, after reading that I don't think I will bother messing with an on-guitar Frankenstein wah tone control. Jazzyvee |
