Alembic Bass Pickups

[ido1957]

Eyeing a bass that has Alembic PJ bass pickups. I've never heard of them, but I have heard about their basses (never played one).
Has some sort of preamp/battery from googling. Any one familiar with these pickups? I'm not adverse to replacing them if I were to pick this up.

[WhiskeyJack]

Eyeing a bass that has Alembic PJ bass pickups. I've never heard of them, but I have heard about their basses (never played one).
Has some sort of preamp/battery from googling. Any one familiar with these pickups? I'm not adverse to replacing them if I were to pick this up.

DANG!!

Ido i had a bass like this once. I don't know they they were that brand name of pick ups but my bass did have active pickups very similar to what you describe. I know i found a link about it not long ago for someone else. I will dig it up for you too here when i have more time to data mine

It was a big old smooth sound when the battery was fresh (pretty long life span really as long as you didn't leave an calbe pluged into the output on the bass). my bass in particular had that nice P-Bass sound but it was just bigger fatter and rounder. Like a P-Bass on steroids. not in a bad way in a very good way. I really loved that bass to be honest. I didn't like that it took batterys but the benefits i got out o the battery being in there was pretty cool.

In my opinion an active bass pick up is going to give you more to work with tonally than a passive. you can do more with it. I wouldn't swap them out if i was in your shoes but that is just me.

[ido1957]

Thanks for the info, the bass is not Alembic, just the pickups in case anyone was wondering. I used to own the same type of bass 30 years ago. It's a lower end bass, pretty old, but looks in good shape. The price is cheap so if it sucks I should be able to get it back on Kijiji. I've been reading through a bunch of bass forums etc and apparently these pickups use some kind of wiring harness that has a HP tone control etc etc and a battery (as you mentioned) that boosts a somewhat low output. This may not have that wiring (haven't asked the seller) but I could use my LA610 as it has a DI - it might have enough boost. If worst comes to worst the original Dimarzio pickups come with it and I could just go back to passive (or buy some other PU's).

[muttley]

Alembic active system is regarded as pretty mid range. I have fitted a few and they are OK. I would be happy to use one in any bass I gigged. For recording or just a way better active system look out for the MEC stuff. I have that in my current bass and it's the best I have ever come across. Several of my bass playing customers also use MEC. Alembic are pretty cool though and it will give you a good range to mess around with, you can swap out the active circuit later if you want. They come up on ebay quite a bit.

Disclaimer : I am NOT a bass player.

[ido1957]

Well long story short it was an eBay auction which I lost. No regerts, it was a whim not a need, and I wasn't surprised I was outbid. I prefer "Buy It Now" anyway because the price is fixed and there's no BS auction. And these basses are like buses - another will come up in a few days.

[rayc]

Probably a good thing Gerry - how could you have explained it to Mike? Then again, he's moved into your territory a bit...