| Alleva-Coppolo ... Replacement jazz bass pickups
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Someone wrote in another thread asking about Alleva-Coppolo replacement pickups.. So I have had some limited experience with them and here is my brief evaluation.
I have a Franken Fender Jazz bass with a 72 Jazz body and a 71 “A” narrow precision maple neck.. the “A” necks are fairly rare as I have found out… I have recently replaced the Jazz neck with an Alleva Coppolo rosewood neck.. Another story.
Anyway I have been using my Franken Fender for about 20 years with a set of Seymour Duncan Classic single coil jazz bass pickups.. I always liked the way that the Duncan’s sounded.. I love single coils…
I recently got a set of Alleva Coppolo 4 string jazz bass pickups and installed them in my bass.
Before removing the old Duncan’s, I measured the height of the pickups with a dial caliper from the top surface of the body and the overall pickup height to be sure to setup the new pups in the same way as the old ones...That way I can have a better idea of what the difference is.
I briefly recorded a passage of ¼ notes across the open strings into my protools rig for a reference point..
I replaced the Duncans with the Alleva Coppolos and set them up to the exact height as the Duncan were, using my calipers for height check. Then soldered the two cloth covered leads.
I plugged into my protools rig and did the same pattern of simple notes..
When listening back I noticed immediately the tone change.. With no hype here.
The output of the Allevas were slightly hotter by only about 3-4 db..
The mids were about the same. But the Allevas highs were silkier than the Duncan’s. Not brighter, not glassy, just somewhat silkier somehow.. with a beautiful and complex harmonic content..
What I noticed were that the lows of the Allevas is where I really noticed the difference..
The Lows were very clear, and had what I call a Sub Bottom Bloom…where the duncans seemed to truncate the extreme lows… It was just a very large supportive bottom without any mud…. just clear and round…
I think the Alleva Coppolo pickups make my jazz bass sweeter sounding, and they remind me of my old 65 jazz bass that was stolen years ago,, that is why I put together my franken fender in the first place. To replace my 65 “L” series that was stolen … My Franken Fender is not an”L” series fender but it is closer now…
On a side note.. I bought my 65 Fender for $500 and I see them in guitar show going for about $15 -$17,000 now.. ouch… If anyone ever sees a Lake Placid Blue “L” series jazz bass serial number L97092 PM me… it has been 20 years since it was stolen and who knows what it would look like now…
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Alleva~Coppolo Club #1| Genz Benz Club #16 | Sadowsky | REDDI | Westone |
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