Alembic Guitars Club

Alembic products => Alembic Basses & Guitars => Topic started by: stoney on May 13, 2003, 06:01:22 AM

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: stoney on May 13, 2003, 06:01:22 AM

Hi Mica,
After going through much R&D with my new amplification system, I've noticed that the output on my BB is much much lower than that of my Essence.  The Essence has signature electronics, sort of the same as my BB.  When plugged into my iAmp 800 my Essence, when turned all the way up, peaks on the LED at an input volume of 3 or 4 on the iAmp.  I have to crank the input volume on the iAmp up to about 7 or 8 to get the same LED reading from my brown bass.  Recently, I've taken to pre-amping when using the Brown Bass.  (The pots are all the way up in my Brown Bass).  I've also noticed that the output from my bridge pickup is very very low by comparison to the neck pickup.  I suppose it will be lower because there's less string vibration there, the the difference is somewhat staggering.  Any ideas?
 
Stoney

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: mica on May 13, 2003, 06:43:12 AM

The bridge pickup has the same output as the neck pickup as they are identical. The bridge pickup is down where the string doesn't vibrate much, so it's usually set up closer tot he strigs than the neck pickup.  
 
Since both the Brown Bass and the Signature electronics have a separate preamp for each pickup internally, you can easily adjust the output of either pickup to suit your needs. You can set the height of the pickup to where you prefer teh soudn without regard to the affect on the output level, then correct it with the trimpots.  
 
Have you tried adjusting the internal preamps in the Brown Bass?

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: stoney on May 14, 2003, 05:17:32 AM

I have raised the bridge pickup and turned both of the trimpots up to the max. Actually, my the trimpots on my Essence are only set at about 75% and it still has more output. Having done that, at the same input volume of my iAmp, the BB barely makes a Blip on the LED readout while the Essence pegs them. I'm a little lost here and feel I may have a problem. Do you think this has anything to do with the master volume control I had installed?

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: palembic on May 14, 2003, 06:40:42 AM

I'm not as technical guy AT ALL but can it be a battery problem? Or is that too simple?

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: jfoster on May 14, 2003, 11:54:44 AM

I'm not much of a techno wizard either but it has been my experience that a battery problem would result in distortion as opposed to volume loss.

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: stoney on May 15, 2003, 04:20:15 AM

Yea, John, you're right. When the battery goes, it sounds like you're playing through a ripped speaker. But just for grins, the first thing I did was replace the battery.  I know the BB will give a deeper, somewhat more subtle tone than my Essence because of the woods used, but I didn't expect the output would be sooooo low.

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: palembic on May 15, 2003, 04:34:38 AM

Well ...I was trying!
This situation sounds so WEIRD!?

Title: Brown Bass Question for Mica
Post by: mica on May 15, 2003, 04:14:58 PM

According to my dad, you should notice the BB to have  6dB less output than the Essence. If it's more than that, you want to send the electronics in sometime for testing.  
 
In the meantime, to match the outputs you may want to turn down the output of the Essence.