Alembic Guitars Club
Alembic products => Alembic Basses & Guitars => Topic started by: mpisanek on January 09, 2005, 09:20:25 AM
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I have just purchased a previously owned F-1X preamp (serial number 218712). There was no owners manual with it. I have checked on the web site and it appears that there are jumpers inside the unit that can be set to change the voltage that the unit will run on. I checked inside the unit and yes there are indeed jumpers, but there are no indications as to how to set therm to run on either 220 or 240 volts. The unit is marked 117VAC 60 HZ. I need to set it to run on 230 VAC 50 HZ. Is this possible????
Can anyone help me with this??????
I would be most grateful to hear from you.
Regards,
MP
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Hi Michael!
Hail the scotts.
Glad yo have you here!
It CAN be done!
I can only say:
You got mail.
And NO I don't want to meet you in a parc full of flowers under the shunshine when ther is a dog hopping around us.
But THAT is ad DEEP joke!
Paul the bad one
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Paul:
Many thanks. I hope this unit will enhance the sound of my bass. 86S3908, a custom 6 string with a series 1 body and a long scale that I bought from a man in Germany. The sound is Awsome!!!
Preamp is now working great!! Will let you know what I think.
Thanks again.
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Hello Michael,
It's hard to believe that Brother Paul sent you a message and didn't mention pictures. Please feel free to post some of the bass and F1X.
I hope you've not been affected by the recent nasty weather.
Sam
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I've made a page (http://www.alembic.com/support/SVC_F1X_voltage.html) with pictures of the various voltage settings. The appearance will be changing over time - it's one of the places I'm learning CSS - but I'll always keep the information there.
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Thank you all for all of your help.
I know you like to see the basses so here it is!
The most noteable customization of this instrument is the narrow neck. I have left a plectrum in the strings to show the width of the neck at the nut. The scale is 35 inches. The electronics consist of a volume knob, a knob that mixes the neck and bridge pickup, and a mid sweep knob that acts like the mid range eq knobs on a mixing desk. The switch is like some sort of boost switch giving more emphasis on the low end.
The tone is amazing! The low end sounds crystal clear, almost like a grand piano. The high C string is pristine as well.
This is the first Alembic I have actually played and owned. I am an Alembic convert!
Thanks for the warm welcome to this site!! Hope to hear more from you.
May your kilts not rise when the cold wind blows!!!
Thanks again.
Michael.
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Hi Micheal and welcome to the club.
I also work in edinburgh although i live out in the wild west. I've had my epic 5 since 1997 and have a fretless rogue 5 on order. Maybe we'll bump into each other someday. (can't help with your original query though)
all the best
graeme
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Nice ax, Michael.
Mica, if your learning CSS..
I recommend getting a program like Topstyle.
Topstyle is free, and it makes editing
CSS much,much easier.
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CSS ...???????
Clarke Stanleys Shops?
Cesar Salad Sauce?
Cutting Sewing Sawing?
Club Salmon Sandwich???
Cut Saving Support?
Claw Sharpening Stone?
...
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hmmm very close, PTBO
Cascading Style Sheets
They are used by web authors to make their websites have the same look and feel thru out their site. Makes website maintenance easier.
yikes, this is begining to sound to muchh like work... okay, back to bass talk now.
So, what settings do peope like on the F-1X?
I've been setting bass-4 mid-4 treble-6.
and on my bass, dialing a little bit more for the pickup closer to the frets.
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Paul TBO, at last your poetic license finds its match! CSS is the mind-bending reality of the Cascading Style Sheet.
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Michael:
I can't really see the pick in the pic (heh heh, as Paul tbo would say), but it does look narrow for a 6 string bass. If I didn't know better, I would think it was a guitar with very heavy gauge strings!
By the way, the mid sweep knob that acts like the mid range eq knobs on a mixing desk is most likely a low pass filter, and the switch [that] is like some sort of boost switch giving more emphasis on the low end is a Q switch which gives a 9 db boost at the frequency at which the low pass filter is set. These are unique - designed and built by Alembic. They are a completely different animal from any other instrument's controls. They take a little bit of playing around to get the hang of, but once you do, you will find that the set up offers an amazing array of tone at your fingertips. Enjoy your new bass, but be warned: Alembics are highly addictive. Welcome to the club!
Bill, the guitar one
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Bill; that should be 8 db rather than 9 db for a standard two position switch.
Michael; Bill is right, your setup is apparently volume, pan, filter, Q switch. The following is cut from a previous post:
Basically, the filter control is a low pass filter; as you roll it back it lowers the point at which it passes low frequency signals and blocks high frequency signals. To quote Mica, the range is from 350Hz-6KHz. Wherever you set the filter, only frequencies below that cutoff point are passed. The Q switch works in concert with the filter and provides an 8db boost at the cut off frequency you've set with the filter. When the switch is off you get a flat response up to the filter setting. Again to quote Mica, the Q affects mainly the attack portion of the note.
Mica; nice pics!
Jeff; for my S1, my F-1X is set at 5, 5, 5 1/2. When I plug my six string Essence in, I drop the treble down to 5. It's amazing how much of a difference there is between 5 and 5 1/2.
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Dave:
Ooops! My mistake. But what difference is one db among friends, anyway?
Bill, tgo
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After playing with the F-1X for only one day I find that setting it around 5,5,5 seems to suit my six string best. Above 5 on the treble the instrument gets extremely bright.
Are the electronics on my bass considered standard factory equipment?
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Bill; I always thought sharing a db among friends was nice .
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Michael; the S in the serial number indicates a Spoiler model. Spoiler electronics are volume, pickup selector switch, filter, Q switch. So no, your electronics are not standard Spoiler electronics as your setup has the pan control instead of the pickup selector switch. Your bass may have been originally ordered with the pan control or the bass may have been sent back to Alembic for modification. Perhaps if one of the moderators notices this, they can look up your serial number and check the build sheet.
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Howdy Michael,
so kilts huh ...I think you've seen too much William Lawsons ads ...hehehehe!!!
Now Michael you must know that on an F1-X the bass and treble pots are ADDING between 0 and 10. The mid pot doesn't ad but it cuts less from zero.
In other words a flat signal would be: bass=0, mid = 10 and treble = 0.
That's what our al moder Mica taught us IFF I remember well.
Paul the bad one
(Message edited by palembic on January 10, 2005)
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I thought flat was stated to be about 2-10-2.
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2-10-2 is what I recall as well.
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Yo!
That's possible.
I remember that it was NOT 0-0-0.
So let's keep it 2-10-2 shall we???
PTBO
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Here's my interpretation...
albeit it may not be correct.
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/15759.jpg)
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That doesn't quite look right to me, but you don't specify what the scale means, so maybe I am misinterpreting it. If it's representing gain at the respective frequency, then I would think it would have to read as follows:
2-10-2 should be a flat line at 0. Mids can only go down from there, where bass/treble can go down a little and up a bunch. Since the mid control is cut-only, you can never have mids response above 0 gain.
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yeah, I don't know the starting pts...
3 super major assumptions on my part.
1. Bass is boost starts at 0 work up
2. Treble is boost starts at 0 work up
3. Mid is cut starts at 10 and works down.
The mid is going down as you increase
that's why charting it looks weird. notice the
0,0,0 is the big bell curve... most mid...
Hey, I'm not an electrician, I could be totally wrong,
but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night...
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Sorry, I should have just take away the scale on the left. It means nothing.(http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/15762.jpg)
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Jeff; the bass, mid, and treble controls are interactive; moving one control pretty much moves the entire curve.
Running the Tone Stack Generator, adjusted for the F-1X, I entered a few settings and got the following graph:
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/15766.jpg)
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So, if I have the settings correct for an F-1X, it would seem that Paul's 0-10-0 is closer to flat than 2-10-2. In fact, the flatest line I was able to get, besides 0-0-0, is 0.4-10.0-0.0
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Cool, thanks.
Should have known they were interactive.
Is this tone stack generator on their site somewhere?
So basically, the alembic elves are doing their best to give you that smile shape regardless of what setting you choose, huh?
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Go here to read about and download the Tone Stack Generator (TSC).
http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/ (http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/)
When you first run the TSC, click on the Fender tab. Next you need to make two changes:
Double click on C2 and change its value from 100 to 47.
Double click on C3 and change its value from 47 to 100.
I believe those are the correct values for the F-1X; I got them from a prior post here in the forum. Don't forget to save this setup once you've made the changes.
I have found this tool to be very helpful in understanding what the settings are doing and how they work interactively.
/Edit
Also; the next time you run the TSC, it will open with the default setup; so you will have to open your saved file to restore the F-1X settings.
(Message edited by davehouck on January 10, 2005)
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Thanks,
This tool clears up a bunch.
Glad I posted my bad rationale,
otherwise, I would have went on clueless.
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It's also fun to play with when you're sitting in front of the computer and you've had too much caffeine .
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I found this graph from an old F-2B data sheet:
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/15770.jpg)
Dad says it's the same for the F-1X.
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Mica-
While I would never doubt your father in the world of audio electronics, that just doesn't look right at all. It just doesn't make sense that the 10-10-10 curve would fall below the 3-10-3 curve all the way across. Or, is the graph only to represent the shape of the curves and not their positions relative to each other? If that's the case, then it makes perfect sense.
-Bob
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I plugged the same numbers into the program and came up with the following. I tried to scale my graph to match Mica's. The shapes of the curves are similar to those in Mica's graph. From top to bottom as they start on the left:
10-10-3
10-10-10
3-10-3
0-10-10
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/15773.jpg)
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Rats! The TSC doesn't have a download for MacIntosh. I'll just have to rely on the good graces of my Windows employing pals in the club. Thanks for the post, Dave, Mica and others.
Mike
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The graph I provided is on a relative scale. I'm afraid the 0-0-0 is so flat, that there is no signal. Try it on your own F-1X - there is no sound. It would also be interesting to see 0-0-0 from the TSC.
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Mica; 0-0-0 is in the first graph. You can't see it because, as you expected, it's a straight line across the very bottom of the graph.
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Here is:
0-0-10
0-0-5
0-0-3
0-0-1
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/15789.jpg)
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Okay, I have a semantic/stupid question...
Using the TSC set for Alembic.
Set Bass-5
Set Treble-5
Now, As you slide Mid from 0 towards 10 the Y value for the mid increases and that Mid dip becomes less of a dip.
So when someone says that increasing the setting on the mids is cutting the mids. What they mean is its reducing the sharpness/depth of this mid dip? Or am I still interpreting this wrong.
cuz, previously, I when I read cutting mids I though it meant lowering mids, but this doesn't look the case at all in the model, I'm playing with.
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Jeff; I've always associated cutting the mid with decreasing the setting of the mid control; i.e. reducing the mid from 5 to 0 would be a significant cut in the mid range.
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thanks Dave,
haha, I gotta stop staring at these slopes...
someone, above had the line.
The mid pot doesn't ad but it cuts less from zero. which although accurate, I have now misinterpreted twice, doh.
The mid pot does increase mids going 0-10...
Its just that you can't push the mid level above the bass or treble level. The most you can is push to flat.
okay, I'm changing my name to TSC_illiterate.
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My heads spinning! All's I know is: I like it!
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Jeff; I think you've got it!
Hollis; me too!
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Sorry Jeff,
as a technical moron I had no other way to say it: cuts less from zero. You can not add above zero I mean. Looking at the graphs forinstance I first interpret them as nice pieces of modern art and admire the fluent lines waving on the grid. Scientific interpretation comes in my mind about a week later.
Alembic HAS something with those mids. You will not see frequently electronics with a mid cut/boost. What I remember from previous threads is that it is far common to interpret the higher end and the lower end of the tonal scale. I shoudl say devide the spectrum in two halves and done. When adding a tweaking device for mids the discussion starts from WHAT frequency you want to start hte influence of the pot and where do you want it to stop.
I don't say it right I suppose but I do remember a thread where Mica explained something about that.
Paul the bad one
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No apologies, necessary, Paul.
Not your fault.
I just read it wrong. It makes sense to me now.
Looking back, I can't think of a simpler way to state it either. I just needed to stumble thru before I could walk.
Glad my ear, interprets sound better than my head!
This has been a great lesson for me.
For whatever reason, I just never caught on how changing one setting alters the other settings.