Alembic Guitars Club
Alembic products => Dreaming... for now => Topic started by: son_of_magni on September 06, 2004, 08:03:16 AM
-
AXY vs MXY pickups, is the only difference the shape/size? The sound and output is the same?
-
Yes, the MXY is the same pickup. The housing of the AXY is larger than necessary, and IIRC they tried to make the housing look better on the newer body shapes (which in general are smaller than the older ones).
The FatBoys are the same size as AXYs, but they can't be made any smaller because they use the larger magnet also used in the Series pickups.
-
Depending on the model and electronics pkg.MightI suggest the axy over the mxy's so that later on you can upgrade with fat boys or mix and match.
-
I think AXY's look cooler!
Danno
-
All good points (though why were you asking in the first place, SoM?), so here's one more...
Since an AXY is just an MXY in a larger housing, roughly twice the necessary size, it is possible to place the coil in different positions.
I started out with two FatBoys, but wasn't entirely satisfied with the neck pickup, thinking I wanted it positioned closer to the bridge. So Mica suggested that (rather than gouging out big chunks of wood...) we could replace it with an AXY, in which the coil was offset as far as possible towards the bridge.
She walked back into the shop, and came out with one like that just a few minutes later (still warm from casting), and I love it. I don't know how much of it is due to the narrower aperture (vs. a FatBoy) and how much is due to moving the pickup a little closer to the bridge, but it works for me.
On the invoice, Mica billed it as the 'cast down south' pickup, because of the offset coil. Perhaps I'm out of line in mentioning this, as I have no idea whether this is something they would be happy to do often, nor whether they would charge extra.
And I should emphasize that the difference here was in going from a FatBoy to an offset coil in an AXY - shifting the coil within an AXY would probably not be nearly as noticeable.
But for me, it worked out great.
-Bob
-
I can't afford another Alembic, so I've decided to build a bass. I ran across some awesome wood and I have connections at a good wood shop. The body of this bass won't be as big as my Alembic so I figured I'd go with the smaller pickups as long is it didn't compromise the sound.
6-string fretless
Alembic hardware and electronics
bookmatched burl walnut front and back