With P/J Activators, you will have no problem with this axe being bassy: Alembic's exact pickup placement varies from axe to axe, and on this particular one, the P relatively forward (closer to the end on the fingerboard, a fuller sounding spot) and the J is spaced away from the bridge, which will tend to take it away from being quite so twangy and a little deeper voiced.
For me, the bass+treble boost/cut choice would be faster to get you where you want to go. Some guys prefer to do this rather than a lot of amp tweaking, and if that's you, that's fine.
If you are interested enough to hunt for a while, the filters are hard to beat. With the filters, you will need to be sure if your amp will add enough to get your sound without onboard boost and cut, most will. But it's a cleaner signal going to the amp for me (without those big peaks that onboard EQ can induce, sometimes pushing amps into distortion). Don't get me wrong, either setup is very clean sounding, but I prefer dealing with a less lumpy input at the amp.
I run these same pickups with the 'Signature' electronics: Volume, balance, separate tone/filter for each pickup. This way you can have straight tone on both, filter on either, or filter on both, which is a lot of possibilities.
I typically seem to gravitate to both filters on and cracked about halfway open, and vary the tone with my hand position along with the balance control.
Whatever you decide, be sure and have your wiring harness built with a preamp for each pickup: This gives you a trim pot for each to set the blend of the two pickups: The P is way louder than the J and balancing is usually necessary to find that right mix for you.
J o e y
