Hi Mica, thanks for chipping in. i had raised the D/G half of the pickups a while back but that was with the filters fully open and in that position and others where the filter gives a brighter sound the balance between the upper and lower halves of the pickup seems well balanced. It's just where the filter is closed or virtually closed the bottom end drops significantly when playing across the strings.
Hmm changing strings for heavier. I'm a bit reluctant to do that since the bass is not usually used for reggae and the guitarist in me does prefer some flexibility for string articulation. But I think I will try adjusting the pickup heights to see if I can find a happy medium which might mean lowering the E/A pickups. But at this point I don't think I will be using the Elan 4 bass on these forthcoming gigs as it's a dep gig and I don't need my concentration wandering.
In response to your comment on the brightness of maple, I used to have the same view. As you know I have a black Europa 5 which is virtually an élan build, all maple body, top and maple & purpleheart neck and yes just as you expect, the sound is really naturally bright.
However for reggae when I turn the pan mostly to the the neck pickup and have the filter closed or virtually closed the bottom end for reggae becomes magnificent, wonderfully powerful, rounded, punchy and warm. Even with the filter completely closed there are enough of the higher frequencies to give articulation and attack to keep the note definition clean without sounding treble-y. In contrast to what I'm hearing in the Elan, I don't lose the volume on the D/G upper strings so the bass response and output level has a normal expected balance across the strings.
So in my experience with Alembics certainly with the MXY pickups the all maple construction works surprisingly well which was not what I expected initially. All my alembics have a great bottom end for reggae bottom, it's just the solid maple body brings something else into the sound. Actually the maple Europa is the bass that I used on the bands "soon to be released" album for the cover of I shot the Sheriff which received favourable comments about the sound of the bass from the publishers of Marley's music. By coincidence more than design I have a lot of maple in the bodies of my alembics.
Have I hijacked my own thread?
