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Acoustic Black Widow Pickup Dilemma

#21
Beautiful basses and ultra rare congrats and I loved this part "He said his guitar player talked him into it years ago and he threw the original one out " some of the most rare and beautiful gear gets in the hands of some really strange ducks it's a wonder any vintage gear has survived at all?
 
#23
Well...I was going to try the Alnico ChiSonics, but they only come in the larger size that would not have fit the route (barely). So...I decided to give the Lace Alumitone Bass Bar a shot. After re-aquainting myself with my Dremel and soldering iron yesterday she now looks like this:
IMAG0786_zpsbfaf5a56.jpg

Sorry about the blurry cell phone pic.
Replaced the brdige with a Babicz FCH too.
Got some serious set up tweaking to do tonight, but initially I'm pretty happy with how she sounds (and amazed at the interaction between this pup and the tone knob!), I dig the looks and she is a heckuva lot more solid than she was a couple of weeks ago...
 
#27
Thanks for the compliments! Here's another pic:

abw1_zps69a68462.jpg


Hard to show in a pic just how slick the chrome and black actually looks. The pets seem to like it...

Been tweaking the setup for the past week (and replacing the output jack) and finally have her dialed in. The neck tilt screw below the pickup is actually pretty cool. The previous owner didn't know what it was and the angle was way too extreme. Once I got that, truss rod, pickup height, string height and intonation set she plays wonderfully.

The Lace pickup actually does pretty much exactly what I'd hoped. The location is similar to a P so you can get very P-like tone, but as I mentioned above the tone knob really interacts with the pup. Huge range from boomy to bright. Sounds great clean and really sings with gain / overdrive.

All in all I am a happy camper!
 
#28
FourNotFive said:
And the Lace Alumitone Bar:
http://www.lacemusic.com/Bassbar.php
Sort of out of left field, but I think I might really enjoy these.
Click to expand...

I put those in my fretless Thunderbird. They sound very scooped in the 'Bird. I'm not sure if that's because of location or if it is an inherent quality of those pickups. The best way I can describe their sound is very modern. I like them. I'm happy to see they work well in your Black Widow. From your description, the sound I get is probably a function of the pickup locations and construction of the bass. I found Alumitone pickups to be very sensitive to height as well as tone roll-off. The pickup sure looks good in your Black Widow. Nicely done.
 
#30
Thanks Mark...and thanks again for the info when I was looking into this bass!

Gaolee-
Agreed that they do lean toward modern and I suspect that location has a lot to do with how they sound. I also found them VERY sensitive to height. They seemed to scoop more the closer they are to the strings. I had to tweak the height a number of times before I was happy with it. I wouldn't say these are perfect for all applications - just that they gave me what I was looking for. Something a little different.
 
#36
FourNotFive said:
Gaolee-
Agreed that they do lean toward modern and I suspect that location has a lot to do with how they sound. I also found them VERY sensitive to height. They seemed to scoop more the closer they are to the strings. I had to tweak the height a number of times before I was happy with it. I wouldn't say these are perfect for all applications - just that they gave me what I was looking for. Something a little different.
Click to expand...

They are different. I like them enough that I put them in a guitar as well. In the guitar, they sound somewhere between a P-90 and a Fender single coil. I can't really describe the sound, but if you can imagine a Strat quacking through a P-90, then you might get somewhere close. They are a whole lot of fun to mess with, since every adjustment does something. I haven't found an adjustment that makes them sound bad yet, either. Just different. If you are looking for a specific sound, they can probably do it if you adjust things long enough.
 
#37
The pickup looks great with the Babicz bridge. Back and chrome is a wonderful look. I still think some kind of chrome pickup surround would look good too, something along the lines of the rings on Gibson low impedance pickups.

Don't get any Husky wee-wee on it!
 

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