I'm disappointed with my Alembic Spyder and I don't know why

[RBW]

OK, It's probably my own fault, but I can't seem to get some fantastic sound out of my new Alembic Spyder bass... I feel almost ashamed but I've tried it with my Ashdown, my Sunn Coliseum, my Galien Krueger 500 fusion amps and I'm not really getting some great sound.  I am in need of some instructions please.. I turn up the bridge volume probably a little over halfway, they the neck to about a little less than the bridge pick up first... Then I carefully use the Q's to my taste but theres no real Wow sound I get.  My cheap music man sounds better, as does my warwick buzzard too! 

What am I doing wrong?  I've been playing for awhile and it's not like I am not adjusting the amp correctly either...   Granted it probably would sound better with a tube amp, or a different amp since they all do... but I still think I must be missing something... if anyone can help I would appreciate it.  I'm trying to get the Entwistle with clean bass and a nice metallic twang on top.  I don't mean with bi amping, but I can get that with my other bass guitars so is there something I'm not doing or some adjustments I should be privy too.  Should I turn the Q's up more or use them less?  Any help would be appreciated since I still owe 8,000.00 on the bass and I'm feeing embarrassed to admit that I'm not really getting what I pretty much expected to get for such a beautiful bass!  I'm going to have the strings changed when I get a set of rotosounds so I"m hoping that will help... but anything else I'm open to...

Thanks for letting me be humble but it makes sense this should be fantastic if you know how to use it.... right?  Now I just got the Alembic FX 1 and I just ordered a more old school Orange OB1 300 head so I'm hoping to find a couple of nice heads that I can bi amp with the FX 1 into a some high/low cabinets but until then what can I do??/

Richard

[hieronymous]

I would think new strings would be a plus (not sure what condition the ones on it are). Have you put in a fresh battery? It almost sounds like there's something wrong. How does it sound with just the neck pickup? That's where I tend to start with my Stanley Clarke bass - I know it's a different style Alembic but then at least you can see if you can get the low end you want - then dial in some bridge pickup. I would think that even with just the neck pickup you should be able to get a thunderous sound.

[mica]

Strings will make a HUGE difference, and I think especially on an Alembic they are an extremely powerful tone control. When Phil Lesh came to pick up his first 6-string bass, we had GHS strings on it. I thought they sounded great with my playing, but he was really underwhelmed. I also had DR make some Sunbeams for him, and when we changed the strings, the smile was a mile wide! The DRs sounded TERRIBLE when I played it and I was worried we made the worst sounding bass we ever made for Phil so I asked James to change the strings the GHS ones before Phil showed up. It's highly personal, and you must "drive there" yourself. Certainly Rotosound is a great choice for emulating a JE tone.

The Q on your bass is the mini switch - make sure you have the Q switch in the down position with playing to get a more aggressive attack. For brighter sounds, favor the bridge pickup and turn the filter frequency control to a higher setting (the range is about 300Hz-6KHz).

Are you using the same amp settings for all your basses? Sometimes you need to work out a different approach, start with the flattest settings on the amp and then adjust from there. Not all preamps have flat at 5-5-5 on the bass-middle-treble, the F-1X for instance is flat at about 2-10-2.

It might be good to have a conversation on the phone next week.

[adriaan]

Richard, I notice you mention, "I turn up the bridge volume probably a little over halfway, they the neck to about a little less than the bridge pick up first."

With the 2 volumes setup, I'd start with both at full blast, then turn one of the volumes down until you hit the sweet spot, and repeat for the other volume. This should result in more gain hitting your amp, which may already add the edge you're missing.

Then there's the internal trimpots that adjust the output level per pickup: they're probably set at a level where you can turn them up considerably. And you can adjust so the sweet spot is closer to both volumes fully up.

Mind you, if you switch between instruments it's probably a good idea to match the output levels between them.

And have you tried adjusting pickup height? See Joey's Post On Setting Up Your Bass

Happy tone hunting!

[rv_bass]

See if you can contact Senmen, he could probably help you out with finding the Entwistle tone on your Spyder bass...

http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=4104.0

[keith_h]

In addition to Adriaan's suggestion I also like to start with the filters fully open and make adjustments on the preamp to get the sound I am looking for. I generally like a slightly scooped sound so when setting up my preamp, an Ednen Navigator, I start from flat. Next I do any midrange frequency setting and cuts needed for the room. Lastly I boost the lows and highs to round out the sound. I will then use the filters on the bass to fine tune the tone.

Another thing I do is leave the Q-switches off. I tend to use the two position Q-switch more as an effect than standard playing position these days. So it remains off unless I want to add some extra bite in a passage. This was not something I did early in my Alembic playing years but learned over the years. As my finger control improved I found I could get the bright tones I was using the full on Q-switch to compensate for. While your bass doesn't have them I do the same with the three position Q-switch on my Series bass. Full on is an effect however I use the middle position more like the filters as an adjustment to sit in the mix better.

I'm sure you'll get it. It took me a while to get use to the the filters and tonal range but after a while the adjustments become second nature.

[RBW]

Thanks for the suggestions!  OK, I'll start with a smile EQ with the middle down a little, I'll check the batteries, and I'll also try without the q sticks on ta boot!  I ordered some Rotosound so I'll have the strings lowered a little and put on the rotosounds when I get them... I had to be honest so I could get some help!  I can also start with everything up instead of bringing it up and see if I can find a sweet spot.  I'll let you all know!  It's sunday so I'm simply contemplating till this evening.  I will change the batteries though, it was probably sitting in a box for a years so we'll see....

Thanks very much!

[RBW]

New batteries made quite a difference, I should get the new strings on monday, so I'll go foreword with that and the advice.  I'll keep you posted, since this should be fantastic.  I've got a Sunn coliseum split between a Sunn 2x15 and a Traynor YB 18 which is a cerwin vegas 18" on the bottom and two 8" crossover speakers on top... a real leviathan, and those sound great so I should get the Alembic to go with those easily....  I'll start over and do the opposite of what I've been doing so things should get better.....   any prayers would help!

Thanks,
Richard

[pauldo]

Yes to everything suggested above.  Strong agreement with Keith and Mica.

Strings are huge,  I went through a period of years questing for the best string for my Distillate, found GHS Boomers to be the ticket.  Recently I boldly switched to Chromes and can’t be happier.

I also (after 30+ years ownership) discovered and embrace the Q switch thing that Keith mentioned.

Rob is correct, Senmen would be a great resource.  Part of the The Ox’s sound (as you probably know) is his typewriter right hand attack and in the later years he utilized sound effects to add to The Thunder.  I am not sure what type of signal processing he used but do know that the couple times I saw him solo in the later years my personal opinion was he used too much processing. But again it was a big part of his sound.

[bigredbass]

RBW, there is a 'learning curve' that we all went through when we got our first Alembics.  The pickups and electronics are extremely neutral and powerful.  I clearly remember at first thinking, 'is this all there is?'. 

They are incredibly clear:  Think of the difference in big-dollar recording studio monitors versus first-rate home stereo speakers.  The studio monitors are unforgiving in that every sound is reproduced so very accurately they lack what we perceive as warmth in home stereo speakers.  This is where you're at with Alembic pickups and their tone circuits. 

As Micah always reminds, your instrument is the bass + amp/speakers + any effects.  This signal chain is your instrument.  A bass in a case is silent, as is an amp with nothing plugged in.  And as with any bass, the amp it's plugged into makes all the difference, and your usual settings for your other basses may not be best for the Alembic.

When I got my first one, my amp settings went out the window.  The pickups were the first I owned where I could easily and clearly hear the difference in one brand of string to the next.  I'd owned lots of great axes, but I never heard the difference in strings until I got an Alembic.  Spooky. 

Settle on the strings (Rotos, it sounds like), work with Q controls, and find the amp settings to suit.  It takes a little while to wrap your head around all this, but there is nothing, and I mean nothing like an Alembic, nor the people that build and support them, the best people in the instrument business I ever dealt with by a mile.

PS  When I wanted that Squire / Entwistle 'clavinet on steroids' tone, I'd use the neck pickup with the Q almost wide open and use a pick back around the bridge pickup.  Sounded like ice picks . . . .  . .

[jazzyvee]

When I got my first alembic a Clarke signature deluxe. I was coming from the perspective of a long time guitar player with occasional bass playing. I knew nothing about active electronics and even less about any on of the classic tones associated with particular basses and/or players.
I knew about Stanley and his tone diversity which is what attracted me to the Alembic basses but not much else.


I can confidently say it took me well over a year to start to understand what I was doing with the controls and how to get some consistency in being able to pick the right sound for a track I was playing. When I was gigging, which wasn't that often in those early days, with it the tracks were covers that did not have alembic basses on the original recordings so I got frustrated in trying to get those bass tones to sound like the records, when the alembic always sounded so different. I think after a long time posting really basic questions here getting helpful responses and reading more and more of the threads I stopped trying to doing that and just started to find a bass tone that I felt fitted well to the track.

 Once I got into the hang of that I found that most of the tracks I was covering as a dep player could be done with the same basic tone, so learnt to get to that tone easily then as I got better at doing that and started covering tracks with radically different bass tones in  my own band I started moving away from that and really discovered how I can shape my tone with the filters.


 I also continue to use Stanley Clarke's records as tone references and learn to get close to the sounds he gets on record. Not because I want to sound like him but doing that helps me massively as he uses an incredible range of tones within one album and even one song. I would say that for someone new to a twin filter based alembic it takes a lot of time, willpower and patience to finally “get it” but when you do that’s it.

I have read far too many stories on line of people selling their alembics off far too quickly because they didn’t understand that these basses are not standard two or 3 band eq. I expect you have invested a lot of cash in the bass so because it is not a one trick pony, time is the next installment in that investment. :-).



Another thing I picked up from the years of reading this forum is that once you accept it is NOT going to sound like other basses things will start to pick up.


As for bass rigs, absolutely they makes a huge difference as do strings and their age. I moved on my Trace Elliot rig not long after getting my alembic as I felt the amp was too strongly voiced to allow the alembic sound to come out properly. I moved to a Mesa Boogie walkabout head which although voiced too was much less intrusive to what I wanted soundwise.


These days I tend to mainly use an F1-x and a lightweight class D power amp setup depending on the gig.

Happy experimenting. I hope  you find a happy place with it. I almost bought a Spyder recently but the seller stopped making contact after a few emails. :-(

[mica]

New batteries made quite a difference

Just a quick note that there is only one battery for the output of the bass. If you changed multiple batteries, you also changed changed the batteries for the LEDs. The battery that's all by itself is the one that matters.

[dlbydgtl]

Make all your changes (strings, batteries) then re-read what jazzyvee wrote (glad i didn't  make that selling off too quickly mistake). When i got my latest Alembic i couldn't believe what i was hearing.  I was in that angry stage of i spent this and this is the sound? But, i didn't give up. Sure i would spend time with the bass and then in frustration put it back in the closet and made up my mind that is where it will stay. But, then i would practice with it, tweek the controls, getting there. Took about a year and a half of adjusting controls and quite frankly finding the correct technique to play such a beast . Only then, was it on stage. Now, i couldn't imagine not having this bass. Travels with me to all the most important shows. Nothing but "wows" from people about the sound. My wife says she can feel it in her chest but, she is a breast cancer survivor, so?Anyway.. Keep working at it. Keep us posted on your progress.           

[jwright9]

My first Alembic was a Spoiler and I was able to get the tone I desired pretty quickly as the electronics on the Spoiler are a little more akin to other basses. Just one filter to deal with.

But then a few years later, I got a Series I and was totally baffled by it. After trying to fiddle with the filters unsuccessfully for a few weeks, I ended up just leaving them all the way open until I got a better handle on what they did.
I was perplexed by the Series I for about a year. Eventually I got the hang of it, similar to what others here are saying.


I also had a Spyder similar to you're a last year and absolutely loved the sound. It had incredible sustain and a warm rich delicious tone. I found that the mono/stereo switch made a huge difference for me going through my particular amp.

I play through an Ampeg V4B reissue head with e Heritage 410 cabinet. I love it!

Hope that helps a little. Hang in there and keep toying with the controls! You'll get it and end up falling in love soon enough.

[5a quilt top]

Maybe redundant, but have you explored the stereo function?


I owned a Spyder for a few years and the most effective amplification system I tried was stereo: Ampeg SVT for the bridge PU and SWR 750X for the neck PU. I used stock Alembic strings and made sure the preamp gain on each amp was set high enough to allow a full sound, just on the verge of overdrive.


I also used a couple of AER bass combos for lower volume situations.


Combine the stereo effect with the precision of the "typewriter" technique for your picking hand and you should be close.


IMO, that technique with low action is critical to obtaining a ringing (almost percussive) clear sound.