Alembic PJ pickups

[Mgauction1]

I have the opportunity to buy an Alembic bass with both precision & jazz style pickups. What is your opinion on that setup? I have always stuck to one style but not with both installed. Thank you!

[lbpesq]

If it has Alembic pickups and electronics of any kind it is bound to sound outstanding.

Bill, tgo

[bigredbass]

My favorite combination of trad Fender-style pickups, especially with a volume and balancer instead of the more usual two volume (useless!) setup.  You get the solid punch of a Precision pickup then you get to blend in as much or little of the Jazz pickup to add mids and edge.  Fade it back to mostly Jazz pickup for that burpy sort of Jazz tone.

DOES is have the Alembic wiring harness with it?  Not 100% necessary, but adds a lot.

[hieronymous]

I have a Fender P-Bass with Alembic PJ Activators. I really love the pickups/electronics - I feel like I can get the traditional tones that one would expect from a PJ setup, but with a much broader range of tonal options with the frequency knob - from dark and thump to bright to anywhere in-between, multiplied by the different blends of the two pickups.

Mine is volume-volume-frequency - I personally can't stand blend knobs!

Have you ever played any Alembic-electronic-equipped instruments before? The frequency setup is different than traditional bass-treble eq setups. Also, I am much happier with the Q-switch mod - without it, there's a baked-in +8 bump which is kind of extreme in my opinion - I like being able to have +0 so it just drops at that point rather than emphasize.

And agree with Bill, tgo & bigredbass - it HAS to have the electronics - not just the pickups!

[adriaan]

There can be an issue that the J near the bridge is relatively quiet and the P is relatively loud, which combined with the single preamp that most PJ equipped basses came with (just one blue trimpot in the electronics cavity, instead of two) means you need to lower the P pickup in order to get the balance right, whereas you might prefer the P closer to the strings. There is an upgrade available called the Pan Preamp that adds a separate preamp per pickup that gives you more flexibility in that regard.

[Mgauction1]

Thank you all very much for the assistance! I bought the bass. Very excited. I would post an image here but don't know how.

[adriaan]

Thank you all very much for the assistance! I bought the bass. Very excited. I would post an image here but don't know how.

Click the Reply button to get the full "Post reply" page, and click the "Attachments and other options" to add pictures (just make sure theyre under 1,000 kB). Looking forward to them!

[Mgauction1]

On it's way!

[gearhed289]

Beautiful bass. Enjoy!

[David Houck]

Congrats!

[hieronymous]

I can only see the first pic, but it looks great! I guess I didn't read carefully enough, I thought it was a bass with Alembic PJ pickups, but it's an ALEMBIC with PJ pickups - even better!

[Mgauction1]

I can only see the first pic, but it looks great! I guess I didn't read carefully enough, I thought it was a bass with Alembic PJ pickups, but it's an ALEMBIC with PJ pickups - even better!

Thank you!

[pauldo]

Congratulations.  Have fun, explore, reinvent!

[Mgauction1]

Congratulations.  Have fun, explore, reinvent!

 

[jazzyvee]

Lovely bass, i hope you have a great time with it. Filters & Q-switches can take time to get used to but once you do, the real tonal flexibility of that bass will become more apparent.