Stereo/mono switch on anniversary electronics question.

[tsarter]

Hey I got a question for you all. [/color]My Stanley Clarke Brown Bass has anniversary electronics in it with the mono stereo switch. I have not run in stereo yet as I don’t have a stereo cable. For this reason I generally keep it in the mono position. When I switch it to the stereo setting only the front pick up is functional which makes sense. What I don’t understand is why the output of the front pick up is increased dramatically when I put it in stereo mode with a mono cable. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Songdog]

I don't have any knowledge of how the Alembic electronics are actually set up, but here's an idea that makes sense to me.

A simple way to blend the two signals into mono is with a couple resistors - this causes the single output to be the average (sum divided by 2) of the two signals. In stereo mode, the two outputs bypass the resistors (they aren't in the circuit anymore). This has the advantage that there isn't a huge jump in volume when both pickups are switched on in mono mode.

So it sounds like normal behavior to me.

As an aside - if you get a chance to record this bass, record in stereo and pan the two channels slightly apart, listen in headphones to what happens. The sound will become subtly "three-dimensional". I don't have a stereo Alembic (yet) but I've done this with my Rickenbacker, it's magic!

[tsarter]

Thanks for your reply.  That makes sense to me.  I'll have to get a stereo cable and play around with it sometime.