AXY Activators In a SF1 anyone done this?

[Paul Reside]

Last month I posted on wanting a 2-pc Alembic "style " bridge thanks for all the help and I have that sorted. Now, on to the next item. I am "freshening up" an old Guild SF 1 with new bridge and tuners and new pickups. I was too afraid to post this on the Guild site as I got the impression removing an original Bisonic from a SFI was tantamount to heresy so I'll ask here. Has anyone used a set of the AXY activators with the Alembic filter pre? I know if one is going for the classic Phil Lesh Jack Cassady sound series electronics would be best but I think I'd rather use the SF-2 for the more advanced signal processing and keep what I put under the hood, so to speak, simpler, more for small tweaks than major changes in my tone. Once again I'm looking for experience in the AXY PUP's either in an Alembic bass or something you put them in after market. I also understand them to be a more wide aperture type of pickup for a broader tone is that correct? How quiet are they? Starfires would not be easy to shield.

[StephenR]

The AXY and MXY activator pickups can both be ordered with a filter with optional Q-switch, or bass, treble controls. They will make custom pickup shapes if needed. If you wanted Series electronics you would have to buy an Alembic bass or find an old set that someone is selling,
Alembic does not sell the electronics separately.

I have a Modulus Quantum five-string that I had custom activator pickups made for back when I bought the bass in 1988. I didn't care for the Bartolini pickups it came with. There is no reason you can't put activator pickups in any bass and my experience as well as other's here is that it is an excellent sonic upgrade. When I ordered the pickups and chassis for my Quantum I put in a simple circuit with only a volume and filter. Recently I had them put in a Q-switch and bass, treble controls all of which greatly increased the tonal palette of the bass.

Here is an old thread with lots of details about the pickups.

http://alembic.com/club/messages/393/49371.html?1205252227

And a recent thread where Harry talks about his Guild M-85 bass which he "Alembicized". There is a picture of the custom pickups they made for him that fit in the existing Guild pickup rings.

http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=6438.30

[edwin]

Well, I've had a bit of experience along these lines, having put activators in a Modulus 6, a custom 5 string, and also a Series setup in a Starfire.


For a Starfire, I say in for a penny, in for a pound. It's really worth opening the bass up and doing a proper shielding job from the get go. It's not as simple as most shielding jobs, but it's really worth it.


For the Alembic process, this thread has a lot of great photos and shows how they do the process at the mother ship. They use the silver shielding paint, which does a great job.


http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=7080.0


For my bass, I did it locally and went for a door on the backside. Initially, the luthier didn't really get what I was after and made the door too small, but I revisited it years later and we did it right. Serendipitously, the original door was just the right size to mount the Series circuit board. I used copper shielding tape, which is good, but the thickness of the tape causes some problems that are avoided by the use of the paint.


I wouldn't worry about getting too much grief over at the Guild site. They were very supportive of my bass's "evolution".


For the Casady tone, bear in mind that his first Starfire was not an active tone control system (if I recall correctly, the bass was completely passive), but was essentially based on a greatly expanded varitone kind of circuit.


I think the standard activators would sound great on a Starfire, especially with Anniversary electronics.

[edwin]

PS. This is my favorite bass to play. All my other basses just pretty much sit around at this point.