Author Topic: My new 1990 ?lan (Read 794 times)

toddharris · « **on:** March 30, 2014, 11:13:20 AM »

I am fallen in love. Thinnest body and neck, , lightest bass, lowest action, jazz and bass style pickups. Effortless to play. Double octave plays perfectly at highest frets. Who new!

toddharris · « **Reply #1 on:** March 30, 2014, 05:42:39 PM »

Here are some pix

toddharris · « **Reply #2 on:** March 30, 2014, 05:44:45 PM »

Enzo · « **Reply #3 on:** March 30, 2014, 07:49:45 PM »

Nice one Todd, congrats! How do you find the maple/maple combination? Is it bright or kind of balanced?

toddharris · « **Reply #4 on:** March 30, 2014, 08:15:21 PM »

Thanks. It can be either. I believe the ebony fretboard has a more significant impact, but that's just my belief. Amazing warm lows and nice edge on the highs depending on the proportion of bridge to neck pickup and tone control. Every sound I could want. In particular, it seems that the headstock end frets are very clost to my body, so it doesn't feel like I'm reaching. Wonderful!

terryc · « **Reply #5 on:** March 31, 2014, 06:05:01 AM »

todd..do you find that the P pick up is definitley more powerful..I read on here that the Alembic P pickup is the most powerful they make.
I have the same configuration on my old P bass but with separate vols, treble and bass(now discontinued I do believe)

toddharris · « **Reply #6 on:** March 31, 2014, 06:30:01 AM »

So interesting that you say that. I was getting ready to try and lower the P Bass Pickup as it is significantly louder than the Jazz.

bigredbass · « **Reply #7 on:** April 01, 2014, 12:04:28 AM »

Todd, you will want to look inside the electronics cavity: Look for either one or two blue boxes. They will have a white trim pot with a slot for a tiny screwdriver to turn.

IF you have two, one will be gain for the P, the other will be gain for the J pickup. Think of it like a two-channel mixer, in which case you can crank the bridge pickup and lower the neck pickup to sort the balance where you want it. Then you're free to adjust pickup height to the tone you prefer. As the Alembic Activators are low-impedance, you don't hear as big a increase/decrease in gain vis-a-vis pickup height as you would with conventional hi-Z pickups.

I typically run my P/J's with the J cranked: The P is louder, but it's also under that big sweet spot where the string is moving quite a bit. The J is closer to the bridge, where the string is just not moving in as big an arc.

Nice axe ! I always think for a bass where you're not using soapbars or MM-style pickups, the P/J combination is the best for Fender-shaped pickups.

I always wonder why people ask if an all 'white' wood bass is too bright. EVERY Fender is along some combination of maple, ash, alder, etc.

J o e y

Enzo · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2014, 06:50:00 PM »

Joey, usually if you put a maple top on a mahogany body, tends to make it a little brighter then say?cocobolo or rosewood, as far as I know (but what do I know? ) So I thought that a full maple body would increase that tendency.

jazzyvee · « **Reply #9 on:** April 14, 2014, 03:07:26 AM »

Hi Todd, great choice of bass, I just love Elan basses it would be good to hear how you get on with it on a gig. I used mine in a 1970's/1980's funk band a couple of years ago and a paul weller style rock band and it was perfect for that sound. I also used it on a couple of reggae gigs and it was masterfully competent.

Hi Terryc, I can believe that, I have an ?lan 4 with a double P set up and that is at least as powerful as my series basses and is incredibly punchy too.
In contrast I have an all maple bodied Europa 5 with sig electronics and purple heart neck lams which although more versatile is not as punchy as the ?lan. So it's probably a combination of the pickups and the all maple neck allowing it to punch above it's weight.

The one thing I haven't been able to do successfully on the Double P setup is balance the output between the two groups of strings (EA) and (DG) which seems to be affected by their positions more so when the LP filter is close to the more mellow end of its range.

The D & G Being further away from the neck in both positions gets less bass that the E & A strings so closing the filter really reduces the output from those two strings. I've tried lowering raising the height of these pickups and lowering the lower pickups but not found the right balance. I keep the trim pots inside the bass the same for neck and bridge pickups on all basses so they are kind of redundant. However what would work for me is to have one trim pot operating on both the neck and bridge coils separately and rather than working as they do now, split the coils so that one trim would operate on both pickups coils covering the E & A string and another working on the two pickup coils on the D & G strings. That way I can balance the output from the coils and control the neck to bridge balance using the regular pan pot.
I would imagine that is not an easy mod to do.

http://club.alembic.com/Images/411/35750.html?1326918247

Jazzyvee

(Message edited by Jazzyvee on April 14, 2014)

(Message edited by Jazzyvee on April 14, 2014)