Michael's Custom Epic

[mica]

Here's the pictures from March 13:  

 

 

 

  The request for a quartersawn core (to get the edge rings) delayed to body assembly, but the neck assembly progressed in the meantime. The body is slated to be routed on Tuesday, so it's moving right along.

[Michael Ichiyama (ichinumba9)]

Wow, looking great so far!  It's crazy to see how much the coco bolo color changed since I visited and I'm glad you guys were able to get the quartersawn mahogany.  Thanks so much for the pics and anytime you wanna post more its fine by me. LOL.  Oh, one quick question, what frequencies do the Epic bass and treble controls boost and cut at?  Thanks again.  It's so nice to know that my very own rainbow of sound is forming at the Alembic House of Sound.

[Paul Lindemans (palembic)]

Nice ... see a project starting and giving birth assistance. Isn't this a nice thought: 550 midwifes assiting to this birth!
 
Mica: what do you mean by this quartersawn body. I guess it's a way how to sawn a piece of wood?
Does it gives a sound difference or is it merely a design concept?
 
CU
 
Paul - the bad one who is also butted

[Michael Ichiyama (ichinumba9)]

Hello again, another question.  Are the Epic pickups side-by-side coil humbuckers or stacked humbuckers.   Thanks again for all the help.

[mica]

Michael: All the non-Series Alembic pickups are stacked humcancelling pickups, we don't make any humbucking pickups. Even the ones that look like single-coil guitars pickups are stacked humcancelling pickups.  
 
Bob is ready to write the program to route your electronics, you mentioned you had some questions about conrol placement - let me know what you had in mind.  
 
Paul: It refers to how the log was sawn and the direction of the grain in the lumber as a result. If you imagine the cross-section of the tree with concenric rings, there are several ways to cut the log to find different patterns.  
 
In the case of the body wood, I'm not aware of a difference other than decorative on our basses.

[Michael Walker (rockandroller)]

Isn't hum-cancelling the same as hum-bucking? (semantics?)

[mica]

I associate humbucking pickups as designs with two magnetic core coils, and a flipping magnetic domain (the bucking part). Our design is much more simple with one magnetic core coil and one non-magentic core coil stacked and no bucking involved.  
 
I suppose in the world outside of Alembic the terms may be interchangable, though I feel the distinction is important because I don't believe the tone from our pickups is what most people would associate with humbucking pickups.

[Michael Ichiyama (ichinumba9)]

I was thinking for the electronics, maybe having the Q switch somewhere easily accessable so that I could set the tone of the filter and Q to a setting I like before hand and being able to use it as a quick tone change option during performance.  Not to sure how the filter and Q will interact with the bass and treble controls  but that was my idea.  So maybe you can suggest some layouts. Also, I was wondering about the freq's. of the bass and treble controls? Thanks for the info on the pickups.

[mica]

The Q switch will just control if the resonant peak is present or not, but the filtering would always be on. Or  are you actually looking for an on/off switch for the filter instead of (or in addition to) a Q switch?  
 
Here's a quick idea for the control layout (viewed as if in a stand):
 
Volume
                  Bass
Filter  
                  Q Switch
Pan
                  Treble
Output
 
 
Or this arrangement may make more sense to you:
 
Volume
                   Pan
Bass
                   Filter
Treble      
                   Q switch
Output
 
 
Let me know if either of these looks good to you or if you have any other ideas (including the functions). Your bass is ready to route, so we're on hold until these decisions are made.

[mica]

Well that didn't work very well, did it?  
 
Volume
.             Bass
Filter
.             Q switch
Pan
.             Treble
Output
 
------------
 
Volume
.               Pan
Bass
.               Filter
Treble
.               Q switch
Output
 
If that didn't look like anything, I'll do  a mock up later today for you. I'll also have those freqs available later too (gotta check with dad on that one).

[Michael Ichiyama (ichinumba9)]

From what I got from the quote sheet that we worked on when I visited, is that the 3 pos. Q is OFF-ON-Q.  So I thought the filter would be out of the loop in the off position, then I could turn it on as a change in tone.  I'm not sure if that is possible but I think that would be pretty cool to be able to do that.  I'm not too sure on the layouts that you posted, can't really get a good picture of it.

[mica]

I should have just done it this way in the first place:  

 

  Let me know if either of these arrangements is interesting to you or if you have some other ideas.

[mica]

Here's a graph of the Epic bass and treble module:
 

 
I was just thinking about a standard Q switch, sorry, Michael! Your Q switch has the added function of excluding the filter from the circuit.

[Michael Ichiyama (ichinumba9)]

Thanks for the pics, it's a lot easier to picture it now.  So what I was thinking was:
 
-Q switch
------Filter
-Pan
------Bass
-Volume
------Treble
-Output jack
 
I rarely ever touch volume in mid-song.  I use the Pan a lot to alter my tone.  And I was thinking the Q switch would be closest to be able to alter tone mid-song like for a bridge or chorus etc.    
 
The freq. graph for the treble and bass was a little hard to read.   Not quite sure where the centers are?

[Michael Ichiyama (ichinumba9)]

Ok, I've been sitting at work staring at what I believe is your 2000 catalog and I like the way the layout of the purpleheart Series II bass on the first page looks.  It looks like the same layout as the 25th anniversary electronics, but for my bass minus the bridge CVQ, the PU selector, and the stereo jack.  Then have the Q switch where the master volume is, the pan where the neck PU Vol. is, the Vol. where the bridge Vol. is, the filter where the neck CVQ is, the Bass and Treble where the neck and bridge filters are respectively.  Whew! That was tough.  But anyways I'm not sure if it possible to make it that way but I like the layout, how it is not totally symetrical.
Talk to you soon.