jazzyvee

I have a couple of options. My main one is a Rack with alembic preamps and a crown xls1502 or Synq 1K0 power amp that I use with the BTII or when using multiple cabs. I also have a Mesa boogie walkabout head that I tend to use with my BBII for a small rig.

Since you mention input sensitivity, it is something i would like to understand. I have a crown XLS 1502 which has .775v and 1.4v on the input sensitivity and a small rack with a Synq 1K0 1u power amp with input sensitivity of 26 dB / 32 dB / 1,4 V. i use alembic F-1X preamps but no idea how to determine what setting i should use for the power amps to get the best output and S/N ratio.. Any suggestions are welcome.

Looks great. I'm planning a small 5x4m practice room in my garden though after hearing of the sound spill from a friend's wooden build studio I have decided to go with a more solid construction. I'm going for Durisol bricks https://www.durisoluk.com/why-durisol/the-range/ which are woodcrete construction, insulated and you fill the cavity with concrete. Once the plans are drawn up I can see what the cost will be. If too expensive i will go with a traditional brick and block construction. My garden isn't as long as this one so I am more concerned with getting maximum sound attenuation at an affordable price.

I have couple of their guitar cases and one of their bass cases and though I have not weighed any of them they are pretty light.

I have been trying to sell my last PH cab, 1x15 on and off for about 4 years with little interest so it's still at home looking unloved. At the moment i plan to donate it to my local council's music service who give music lessons to youngsters, but they are moving location at the moment so will talk to them again soon. If it's not suitable i may try to part ex it at a local shop for some other gear.

Wow great project, i'll be watching for progress updates. Is it going to be made from bricks and block or wood?

Not cheap but Harvest make good quality bass bags.

I remember trying out a used one of those Genz Benz heads through a couple of 12" Aguillar cabs a few years ago when I was looking for a lightweight bass rig and loved the sound. 🙂

I've been to a couple of George's gigs and he is a superb bass player. Hope to get to a gig where he is playing his classico.

👍

A bit late posting but my Friday might gig went well. It was a fusion of jazz/funk/reggae. Went down really well. I hate untidy stages but we had PA issues which ate into our allocated time so we had to start on time without chance to move out bags and cases

Only if you want to.

They have a formula that works, and I suppose they only change things when there is an actual need to or if some of the "long in the tooth" parts are no longer available. 🙂🤣

I've been my SC Acoustic pre-amp using this at rehearsals with a couple of bands and feeding it into the return socket on the bass amps and it sounds superb. Nice clear and hi-fi sounding. I have a gig Friday where i'm playing both bass guitar and my EUB so I plan to use it for my EUB through to the PA.

I'm no expert on the electronics or magnets, coli etc, but my understanding from what i have read on the alembic site is that the resonant frequency of their pickups is outside the frequency range of the bass so no bass frequencies are enhanced or subdued. Most other pickups by other makers are wound to give some kind of baked in sound influence over certain frequencies. For example to make them more bassy, punchy, high output ir vintage sounding etc. etc. The low pass filters then allow you to attenuate frequencies above the filter setting and apply a lift to the cut off frequency. This affects mainly the attack of the note rather than the whole sustaining note.

Stanley Clarke does the same thing with a fender guitar amp fed from the high frequency crossover output on one of his preamps. i hope one day to get to do a suitable gig with bi-amp setup. Each pickup to a separate cab and my roland jc120 on the hf out from the bridge pickup.

What do you mean by ex alembic player, have you sold it or planning to sell yours? what model is it?

Interesting question, though one i can't answer from personal practical experience. From my understanding, one of the differences between alembic pickups and most other pickups is they are designed to only pick up what the strings are doing instead of being wound to emphasise or impart a particular tonal character. So since the SF-2 is more versatile in tone shaping than alembic basses generally have on board, my assumption would be that the rig would give you the same way of tone shaping but not the same tone.

Sort of but only for series basses, gives the choice of individual pickup out or single mono out.

Hahaha, well i am an alembic nerd so here goes. No, i don't need the SF-2 for most things, so generally it is in passthrough with the filter gain off. The alembic onboard low pass filters have an operating range of 350hz to 3khz. So once you set your frequency on either of the filters, everything above is filtered out at 12db/octave and below is untouched. So for reggae, even with the filter closed down, that bass is so bright the sound can be twangy a can't take control of the lower frequencies i want to emphasise. So that is where the SF-2 comes in, i can pick the punch frequency which for me is around 80 to 110hz depending on the room, then i can raise everything from that frequency and below with the filter gain and using the reciprocal damping knob i can emphasise the punch frequency. That gives me overall a clean articulate heavy and punchy bass sounds without the mud. For non reggae it's hardly used but sometimes i have used it in a low volume gig just to increase the low end density I suppose i could use a regular bass amp. 🤫😉 The top unit is the mains external power supply for my series bass. They connect via 5 pin neutrix connectors which send 36vdc to power the bass and returns individual pickup outs which go to your pre amp or the two rear out jacks can go to another stereo or mono bass rig. Btw, series basses also have 2x9v batteries inside for backup or if you prefer to use a standard jack lead.

Last night's gig rig. Alembic F1-X and SF-2 into a Synq 1K0 power amp and Barefaced Big Twin II

Had a good gig last night at a 70's/80's event last night in Brean. No photos of it yet but I did take a shot of my rig, which actually is better looking than me anyway. DI & mic'd cab meant some heavy reggae bass was felt last night.

Those cables are for use with passive instruments so no use on alembics which are all active unless modded post build. A link to alembic's info on it. https://alembic.stores.yahoo.net/activecable.html