Two volumes on a standard Orion Bass

[jazzyvee]

As some may know I have recently acquired a 5 string Europa and selling a 5 string Europa.
In recent years I have converted my signature basses to have one volume per pickup. As I am more used to that setup I am wondering if would be possible to have two volumes instead of vol and pan on the Orion bass?

[edwardofhuncote]

You might consider taking it the next logical step too Jazzy... just upgrade the entire loom to Anniversary. Two Volumes, Filters and Q's. You could offset the cost with the sale of the currently installed parts. I take it this is going to be your 'touring' instrument... if I were coming to the U.K. and didn't necessarily want to risk my top-shelf Alembic, I might upgrade an Excel or Orion to my preferred electronics as well. Pretty smart. I don't know what's req'd to do what you've asked, but maybe Mica will check in and clarify/verify.

[jazzyvee]

Interesting thought Greg, and i appreciate the idea. Here is the thing.
With respect to the genre, reggae does not require a bass of the calibre of a filter based alembic to sound great. In fact other than myself, i don't know of anyone else using alembic basses exclusively in that genre. I would love to meet some though.  And the only reggae recording i have ever heard or know for certain where an alembic is definitely used is 'When Reggae was King' by Musical Youth where i'm playing bass on one of the tracks. Most of the classics were played on really basic instruments and sound great.
 I have had thoughts for a while of selling my standard europa 5 since using my signature europa 5 bass proved to be really special sounding. However since most of the time the filters are fully closed or marginally off closed my thoughts were that i could acheive the same results with a simpler electronics package of bass and treble with no loss of tone in the frequency range those gigs require. Secondary to that the lighter weight makes taking a backup bass to a gig a lot more convenient. So far it has been a worthwhile purchase. But i just wondered if having the two vols would give me something different.

[edwardofhuncote]

Ah yes, I remember your commentary on the subject from other threads now. I think the term I've heard used for preferred bass tone is "Dub". I can see where dual filters, even mostly closed would be a bit conspicuous, sonically.

It's interesting; the music genre' I played in, at least the traditionalist element of it, was completely intolerant of a bass guitar at all. I've been fortunate enough though, to play music with some people who just let me be me, trusted that I knew what and where to play.  What do you know - you can play string band music on an Alembic. Like you, I just had to find my place in it, using my preferred instrument.

Hopefully there's a simple workaround for you here. 

[jazzyvee]

When it comes to that dub reggae sound, the SF-2 would be the the best way to get heft in the bottom end whilst still keeping the clarity. It has been the secret ingredient in my bass rig. but using the orion i don't need to use it as much because it's bass control works around 100hz which is in the band i tend to use on Sf-2 depending on the room ir engineer.