SC Deluxe electronics

[Jeph3Jones]

Hi folks,
New owner of my first Alembic, a used Stan. Playing with the knobs I get a lot of cool sounds and a massive variety. But I'm just playing. Is there a guide somewhere for what each knob and switch does? It's not as easy to figure out as a traditional config.
Many thanks for any guidance.
Jeff.

[jacko]

Welcome to the club Jeff. You're going to have a fantastic time playing your new bass.

There's a wealth of info in the FAQ and Must Read sections of the forum. 
The post you want is http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=276.0
Graeme

[jazzyvee]

 Welcome to you from anothr SC Deluxe owner. This could be an uphill battle or a walk in the park to be honest. It's well documented on the forum of my struggles to get my head round the knobs and switches but now I'm pretty confident in getting to and from the sounds I want. Here is a thread that you might find useful.  http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=4531.0
My advice would be to find a sound on the bass that fits with most of the stuff you play and learn how to get there quickly and make that your starting point whenever you pickup the bass. Then everything you do with the knobs becomes related to a sound you are familiar with and you can start to understand better what is happening when you change things.

I'm sure others have a different approach to me but my starting point was neck pickup filter closed ( fully ACW), Q switch off and bridge filter fully open (Fully CW), Q switch on and the blend/pan fully clockwise to have the neck pickup on and then backed of slightly to bring in the attack from the bridge pickup. I then make all my adjustments from there and if I screw up I know I can get back to a sound that is going to work. There are some wild sounds on that bass if you look for them or happen upon them and if you don't know where you are going with the knobs it can a problem finding something that fits with what you are playing.
I love Stanley Clarke so I used his albums as tone references not because I want his sound on my gigs but so I know how I need to move the filters and pickup balance to access different and useable sounds for what I do.

Have fun and remember, you hardly ever need to move the filters as much as you do at home to get the sound you want on  stage at a gig.

[lidon2001]

Briefly, the controls are Volume, Pan, Low Pass Filters for each pickup, and a "Q" switch for each filter.

As you turn the low pass filters clockwise, they allow more of the higher frequencies through the filter.  Think wah-wah pedal.

The "Q" switch adds a boost of about 8db or so to the cut off frequency you selected by the filter position. 

For example, pan full to the neck pickup, turn the filter fully counter clockwise and play a note.  Then hit the "Q" switch and play another note.  You should hear a boost in the bass frequencies.  Now fully open the filter and repeat.  You hear the boost in the higher frequencies the "Q" switch produces from the higher cutoff point.

One sound I like is a fully closed filter with "Q" switch on for the bass pickup, and bringing in the higher frequencies with just the treble pickup.  Lots of tones to find.

And if you find the standard 2 position "Q" switch boost too much, Alembic offers a 3 position "Q" switch with a nice medium boost in the middle. 

T

[lidon2001]

Like Jazzy says...   haha

[Jeph3Jones]

Crikey - I'm starting to love this place! Thanks a million folks, this is much more than I was expecting, and muc for me to be playing with Wonderful info, very much appreciated. This is my weekend all planned out for me then

[jazzyvee]

I have found this to be the most open minded bass/guitar forum on the net. I came here as a genuine novice bass player and have gained so much knowledge about alembics and the business of bass from these guys. Let us know how you get on after you have spent some time with the bass.

[serialnumber12]

an alembic bass is like a  woman  ,you must explore deeply

[Jeph3Jones]

And explore I have...!
It's one thing just fiddling with switches and knobs hearing different sounds coming through the speakers, but quite another when, thanks to the help here, I feel like I can control those sounds!
I'm amazed at the physical construction of the bass itself and the organic sound it makes, but maybe even moreso that the electronics seems to capture that sound so perfectly and isolate each individual characteristic making it a matter of choice how to balance the emphasis. Even more than that, I've found more meaningful difference in the sound from different playing styles.
And all this after only a couple of days.
So much exploration ahead

[rnolan]

Hey Jeff, like you I'm relatively new to this forum and (and for me, to playing bass (after 40+ years of guitar)).  It's a nice community (and awesome bass pawn, I really wanted to buy poor_nigels Macaser ebony bass).  I bought a gorgeous SC Brown earlier this year and am enjoying a similar journey (over a few months now) with the amazing array of tones and also the great support here from other members. I have individual PU vols and stereo out to play with (is it Anniversary electronics ?), my latest experiment was to send the neck PU to my bass preamp and the bridge PU to my guitar preamp, and wow, very interesting combination, particularly with my distorted triggered wah lead patch on the b PU, allegedly (according to my mate who listens to such bands) it sounded like the Metalica bass player...