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Alembic Activator Pickups help

jumbodbassman

jumbodbassman

Dec 28, 2009
5,476
1,871
Stuck in traffic -NY & CT
Disclosures
Born Again Tubey
#1
I absolutely love these pickups and have them in a fair amount of basses. Bought my first pair for $180 from Manny's NYC when they first came out in early 80's. Through the years i have accumulated some more orphaned pups.

So here is my question. The filter and preamps are now insanely priced so can i use a full system such as a pbass set which has a volume and tone/filter and just add another j or p pup to it. toggle switch or if possible a blend switch of some kind. IIRC these are not like normal active pups so i don't believe i can just add a 25 ohm blend pot or a simple toggle. I have some in all shapes and sizes so i am thinking of making 2 j's into 3 and 1 into 2. A toggle or a blend will also certainly help out on the orphans that came without the plug and play end as i can use the exiting plug and splice the old and new pup into it.

some love shots
waralem1.jpg


eagle1.jpg


subway1.jpg


dpbuck2.jpg
 
#5
The pickups themselves are not active. They are passive low output pickups. The ones I have examined where about 8K, but because they are stacks they are low output.

So you need a preamp with some gain to boost them up. You want to use 250k or 500k controls if you are putting the controls before the preamp.

You can use a simple JFET booster to get the pickups up to normal level. The you can use any preamp you like. If the preamp has adjustable gain, than that's probably all you need.
 
#6
sprocket123 said:
Also ; their is some nice Filter Based Preamps , from ACG , here s the link , can be a good alternative to the pricy Alembic Filter-based Pre : AC Guitars shop
Click to expand...

I've seen some use ACG pre's with Alembic pickups and be happy with that setup.

There are quite a few people very familiar with the technical aspects of these pickups/pre's over at the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. I'd suggest you pop in there and ask a question or two. You're likely to get a few very knowledgeable people giving you just the info you need and more likely than not, Mica (from Alembic) will likely chime in as well.
 
#7
tbrannon said:
There are quite a few people very familiar with the technical aspects of these pickups/pre's over at the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].
Click to expand...

I just told the technical aspects of these pickups. I'm very familiar with their inner workings. They are stacked passive humbuckers with a ceramic magnet in the top coil. The bottom coil only contains a plastic spacer instead of the magnet.

I've made preamps for them too. By all means inquire over at the forum, but you only need an inexpensive JFET booster to use these and not an $800 Activator preamp (which has about $8 worth of parts in it).
 
#8
several good ideas. thanks all. I really can't see spending all that money on an alembic preamp but?? Here is the real question - what makes them sound so good?? is it the pickups or the preamp? or a combination most likely.

if that is the case then i will have to stretch out the preamps. I have about 3 more preamps and about 6or 7 (maybe more :-( ) sets of pups plus just bought the ivory set off TB .. back to toggle or blend pot to start... I always wanted a JPJ or 3J bass....or maybe 2 j's together like a rio grande.

Actually the yellow bass is from Subway guitars in SF and it is 2 alembic pups with an older bartolini preamp IIRC. I will have to figure out if they sound as good as the all alembic sets
 
#9
jumbodbassman said:
Here is the real question - what makes them sound so good?? is it the pickups or the preamp?
Click to expand...

The pickups are low impedance, so they are full range and nice and clean sounding. The Alembic Activator preamp has a low pass filter as a tone control. The newer Activators have bass/treble controls. I have made simple buffer preamps for these pickups and they sound great.

So I'd say it's mostly the pickups. There isn't much to the preamps.
 
#10
SGD Lutherie said:
I just told the technical aspects of these pickups. I'm very familiar with their inner workings. They are stacked passive humbuckers with a ceramic magnet in the top coil. The bottom coil only contains a plastic spacer instead of the magnet.

I've made preamps for them too. By all means inquire over at the forum, but you only need an inexpensive JFET booster to use these and not an $800 Activator preamp (which has about $8 worth of parts in it).
Click to expand...

Fair enough- I wasn't trying to imply your information was incorrect, so no need to feel insulted. Was just providing the OP with another avenue for getting advice.

If it was me, I'd feel most comfortable getting technical advice from the people who designed the pickups/pre's, etc. Again, not a slight to you, nor am I implying that you're wrong, but there is a fair amount of bad advice handed out on internet forums on a daily basis- mostly by people who swear they know what they're talking about. I dropped the link just in case the OP wasn't aware that there was a good avenue for technical advice from Alembic.
 
#11
tbrannon said:
Fair enough- I wasn't trying to imply your information was incorrect, so no need to feel insulted. Was just providing the OP with another avenue for getting advice.

If it was me, I'd feel most comfortable getting technical advice from the people who designed the pickups/pre's, etc. Again, not a slight to you, nor am I implying that you're wrong, but there is a fair amount of bad advice handed out on internet forums on a daily basis- mostly by people who swear they know what they're talking about. I dropped the link just in case the OP wasn't aware that there was a good avenue for technical advice from Alembic.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Alembic forum is a great place. But Mica would likely try and sell him a preamp. I'm a big Alembic fan, but honestly, their electronics are over priced for what they consist of. There's not a whole lot to the Activator preamp. I have one here. It's about the same quality as EMG preamps at 10 times the cost.
 
#12
I can concur with David at SGD, I have several axes with Alembic pickups of all sorts -AXYs, MXYs, Fatboys, Activator Ps & Js. I use Alembic Filters and I also use my own preamps, which are JFET preamps with about 20dB gain. I have built several versions, and spec'ed one to filter off the hi end at about 10K. Alembic filter preamps filter off around 6K IIRC. I love Alembic, but the hyped prices around several things like the preamps - no. The parts are not expensive and neither are they particularly exotic nor the circuit esoteric.
 
#14
SGD Lutherie said:
Yes, the Alembic forum is a great place. But Mica would likely try and sell him a preamp. I'm a big Alembic fan, but honestly, their electronics are over priced for what they consist of. There's not a whole lot to the Activator preamp. I have one here. It's about the same quality as EMG preamps at 10 times the cost.
Click to expand...

which i why i have avoided it. I tried to buy a blend pot and the price was obscene.
 
#17
jumbodbassman said:
what exactly is a JFET preamp???
Click to expand...

A JFET is a junction field effect transistor. Also known as a FET. FETs have high input impedances and make good buffers. Some of the bass preamps on the market labeled as "discreet" use JFETs. Discreet means they dotn't use op amps, which are a collections of circuits and transistors in one package.

A very simple and great sounding JFET booster is the original Alembic Stratobaster. It uses just a hand full of parts.

You can find the schematic on the internet, and also you can buy the circuit board here:

Invalid Link Removed

They have a whole kit, but it's for a floor stomp box. You can build it using the MPF102 FETs sold at RadioShack.

This thing can drive a power amp at full gain, and is very quiet and clean sounding. I used to use a similar circuit for my low impedance pickups, and have build them for people to use Alembic pickups. One change I would make is to change the output cap to 10µF for better low end response.
 
#18
synaesthesia said:
I can concur with David at SGD, I have several axes with Alembic pickups of all sorts -AXYs, MXYs, Fatboys, Activator Ps & Js. I use Alembic Filters and I also use my own preamps, which are JFET preamps with about 20dB gain. I have built several versions, and spec'ed one to filter off the hi end at about 10K. Alembic filter preamps filter off around 6K IIRC. I love Alembic, but the hyped prices around several things like the preamps - no. The parts are not expensive and neither are they particularly exotic nor the circuit esoteric.
Click to expand...

Are they Filter-Based too , (jfet) don t know about jfet or whatever , might seem as a rookkie question to some but if you don t ask , you don t know right ! lol . Thanx & have a nice one .
 
#20
sprocket123 said:
Are they Filter-Based too , (jfet) don t know about jfet or whatever , might seem as a rookkie question to some but if you don t ask , you don t know right ! lol . Thanx & have a nice one .
Click to expand...

No, they just take the sound and buffer it and makes it louder if you want. I used to put them in all my basses back in the 80s. It tightened up the tone and made them sound better.
 

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