More questions on series pickup

[basser]

More questions on series pickups...


Does the series bass sound the same ( or have the equal sonic quality) under the below PU configurations/settings, if other conditions are kept the same?

1) switching the bass PU with treble PU (or "Is the bass PU different from the treble PU?")

2) normally positioned vs upside-down positioned

3) new PU vs old PU

Your insight would be much appreciated.


Cheers,

[JimmyJ]

Andrew,

The only one I can answer for sure is #1 - the bass and treble pickups are the same and interchangeable.

By upside-down you mean spun horizontally, right?  As in the Alembic name towards the fingerboard?  I've never tried that but I wouldn't think you'd be able to hear the difference because you'd only be a one half turn of wire off normal.  Interesting question though.  Of course if you flipped the pickup over so the bottom faced the strings it would be out of phase and things would get weird.

The new vs old pickups should also be very similar.  I believe the newer ones have a more accurate count of coils and so are more "matchable" than the older ones, but the sound should be the same.

Jimmy J

[goran]

Andrew, interesting questions. Thanks Jimmy for answers, waiting for more info, wish I can give some knowledge, but I can't

[edwardofhuncote]

There is a Series II bass on Reverb with the pickups reversed this way.


https://reverb.com/item/16030960-alembic-series-ll-6-string-bass-guitar-1997-saphire-blue-clear


A couple of us have wondered why someone would do that,  or what effect that would have, if any.

[edwin]

I was using some trapezoidal pickups in rectangular shells for a while. I tried flipping them over and the effect was much smaller than I would have thought. With regular, fully rectangular pickups, the difference is probably nonexistent.

[basser]

WOW...honored to have an in-depth feed-back from Jimmy and many thanks to edwin, edward and goran.


And yes, Jimmy. I meant "upside-down" as you've mentioned "the Alembic name towards the fingerboard".


Hope that this discussion could receive more feed-back and be of help to other alembicians as well.


There's so much to discover and enjoy with an Alembic!


Cheers,


Andrew

[srfogel]

Are we alembicians or are we alchemists.

Anyway thanks for you question because I found the answers useful