Author Topic: Question for Mica (or whoever!!!) re AXY/FatBoy PUPs (Read 363 times)

mike1762 · « **on:** June 15, 2014, 04:18:56 AM »

How do you tell whether you have an AXY or FatBoy PUP??? Is the magnet centered in the AXY housing or is it off-set??? I'm wondering if flipping the bridge PUP (assuming it's an AXY) would make any difference (I prefer the bridge PUP to be not so close to the bridge). How would I go about acquiring a FatBoy and how much do they cost???

mica · « **Reply #1 on:** June 16, 2014, 02:36:36 PM »

Sometimes we're nice and put a FatBoy sticker on the underside of the pickup, but it's not 100% of the time. The only way to tell for sure is to check how wide the magnet is inside with either the paper and iron filings trick (don't do this while it's mounted on the bass) or with the magnetic paper to peek inside. The FatBoy will reach almost to the top and bottom edge, the AXY will be in the center and half the width.

A FatBoy and a standard AXY should sound the same with the pickup mounted either direction. We could make an AXY pickup with the coil cast toward the top edge of the pickup making the actual pickup part about 1/4 farther away from the bridge without changing the routing. Anything more dramatic would need more dramatic modification.

jazzyvee · « **Reply #2 on:** July 18, 2014, 04:31:47 AM »

I've just taken delivery of a FatBoy and an AXY with the coil cast towards the top edge as mica describes above.

Hope to get these in after my busy weekend starting with fatboy in the bridge. Jazzyvee

moongerm · « **Reply #3 on:** July 18, 2014, 08:16:24 AM »

Nice JazzyVee! Heard nothing but great feedback on this setup.

moongerm · « **Reply #4 on:** July 18, 2014, 08:16:31 AM »

Nice JazzyVee! Heard nothing but great feedback on this setup.

5a_quilt_top · « **Reply #5 on:** July 18, 2014, 09:44:05 AM »

+1 on Fat Boy in treble (bridge) position.

jazzyvee · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2014, 05:25:31 AM »

Ok just completed the installation of the new pickups and had a blast for about 30 mins.
The AXY i have in the neck position has a much more emphasis on the bottom end and whilst I think the higher frequencies are still there it is not as sweet sounding as the standard AXY. i expect this is because of the position of the magnet and pickup coil in the case being offset closer to the end of the neck.

The Fat boy is certainly different, I now know what you mean by growl. If I dig in when playing it certainly sounds like it is giving me a raspy edge to the tone. As with the neck pickup it is not as clean sounding as the AXY but the fat boy does seem to make the filter more responsive when moving it, the harmonics are clearer and I can get more of that edgy nasally tone that Stanley Clarke uses for many of his solo's.
That's just a first impression and I will stick with them for a while before mix and matching them in other permutations.

I have a gig next week so will try it out there.

David Houck · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2014, 05:27:01 PM »

Thanks for the report!

jazzyvee · « **Reply #8 on:** July 24, 2014, 01:21:42 AM »

I had a confusing start with the transfer of pickups because the plug was too big to pull through the ferric bead but mica pointed me to less violent solution than my email to her suggested i was considering ... :-)

http://club.alembic.com/Images/16271/41300.html?1182378055

Anyway once fitted, I thought that it might be a good idea to put some flatter connectors inside the pickup cavity so that it would make swapping the pickups much quicker and practical for me to experiment with chopping and changing the pickups round in various permutations.
All I'd need to do would be detune, unscrew the pickup remove and plug in the new one retune and done. A five minute job.

I completely understand this would be unnecessary if you had just one set of pickups as you'd never need to remove them unless there was a problem. But for me now with two sets of pickups this would make it practical to change pickups for a particular gig.

Jazzyvee

flpete1uw · « **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2014, 12:51:45 PM »

Jazzy,
When I was toying around with changing the pickups in my 75 Series 1, the new pickups came with that kind of new connection. My old pickups were wired with an older style pushpin connection. The Mothership supplied short adaptor cables to retrofit in. So what you could do is have a small extender cable snaked through the hole which will give the fast access you described. Bare in mind each time you add a connection point you add another point of potential failures.

Pete

mica · « **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2014, 02:55:14 PM »

Just don't use the ferrite bead when you are experimenting. You only need the ferrite bead if you need it (wireless, and some physical locations).

Later, you can always thread them through