Sorry about the total failure of the pictures above. A permission problem disallowed sharing them from Gdrive after a few hours.
Attempt 2 at posting the pictures.
The upper phantom power/preamp/transformer board that was hanging by the wires.
Close up of upper phantom/preamp/transformer board.
Upper cavity. Usual beautiful Alembic electronics and less good aftermarket add on sharing the same space.
Lower cavity. Second phantom/transformer board visible.
It is a similar arrangement to the EMG setup on George's NS omnibass and the sound is similar to the top of the range NS Design CR series.I think this Classico predates the NS Designs EUB by a good few years.After a couple of days playing with it I've decided to keep the circuitry original as the effect the bridge piezo adds is successful and I feel the bass has too much historical value to change the electronic design.
High quality pots will be substituted at some stage and I might try adding a humbucker as used on the series basses - but beyond that the design will stay as it is.
For live work George will use the original flawless Alembic circuitry in mono.
The piezo bridge pickup is too sensitive to GPRS phone signals and mains hum to use in a live setting.
When it's recorded it will be used with the bridge pickup in stereo to add its subtle effect where the RF noise environment can be controlled.
That's the plan anyway.
It is an amazing bass.
