Alembic Guitars Club

Alembic products => Alembic Basses & Guitars => Topic started by: markman on October 04, 2017, 05:33:50 AM

Title: Filter Bypass
Post by: markman on October 04, 2017, 05:33:50 AM
Hello,
out of curiosity, I recently connected the pickups of my series 1 bass directly to an output jack and I have to admit, I really liked the sound. It was different from just having the filters fully open and the Q flat. Of course, the output was very low and there was no hum cancelling.
Will I get the same result, if I bypass the filters? How can this be done and can it be done with a switch? Soldering is no problem for me. The bass is from 1978, PF-6B board.
It would be a really great addition to the tonal range of the bass. I could directly change from a flat to a filtered sound, which is especially very useful, when playing live.
I hope, you can help me.
Regards,
Markus

Title: Re: Filter Bypass
Post by: jazzyvee on October 04, 2017, 06:18:23 AM
I remembered a thread on his subject so here is a link to it by a member who did this on his Excel bass which had a Fatboy pickup and since that is humcancelling I think it would be less hummy that a single coil. There is a link to a recording in the thread you will find if you work your way through.
Good read though.
http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=1248.0 (http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=1248.0)
Title: Re: Filter Bypass
Post by: markman on October 04, 2017, 06:47:56 AM
Thank you Jazzy!
Maybe my post was a bit misleading. I just want to bypass the filters, but keep the signal running through the preamp. This way the volume controls and the hum cancelling would still work. If I remember correctly, there was a post some years ago about the same topic, but Mica contacted the poster directly on how to do it. I couldn't find it though.
Title: Re: Filter Bypass
Post by: edwardofhuncote on October 04, 2017, 09:02:19 AM
I may be off on the technical details, or even pertinence to the subject, but I think Will Gunn's Series basses come without filters... he runs the output to an SF-2 rather than on-board filters.

Featured Custom, "Refinement" I & II-

http://www.alembic.com/info/fc_refinement.html
Title: Re: Filter Bypass
Post by: edwin on October 05, 2017, 10:04:01 AM
I did this when I got my Series II parts for my Starfire. I installed all three pickups with no filters just to hear how it sounded and the filter section at that point was an incomplete bag of parts. I was just impatient! Send me an email and I'll see if I can remember exactly how I had it wired up.
Title: Re: Filter Bypass
Post by: markman on October 06, 2017, 06:26:38 AM
Hi Edwin,
thank you for your offer to help me.
Meanwhile, I figured out myself, how to do it. I'm also very impatient.
The modification adds a little more high end treble compared to the filters set fully open and flat. Also I get a nice preset switch to quickly change between a linear and a filtered tone.