Just let me introduce my newest family member, a 89er Elan 4 String, purple coloured with chrome hardware.

 

Nice... very nice! Congrats!

A lovely bass, I was so tempted to bid on that, even though it's purple.
I hope you enjoy it.  
 
Jazzyvee

Thanks Jazzy Vee for not bidding. It has lead to a good deal for me :-)
 
BTW: This Elan has an incredible sustain and is by far the lightest Alembic I was ever playing. I haven't weighted it yet but it's definetly lighter than my MM sterling (3,8kg).

hmmm, well next time I may not be so generous :->
Jazzyvee
 
(Message edited by jazzyvee on January 28, 2007)

so it didnt sell then? you still own it?  good for you,i was checking it out also.a 5 string quilted maple just went but i got outbid while outta town.  my dream elan would have a tobbaco honeyburst.

The auction ended with no bids. I contacted the seller and bought it afterwards off ebay.

Cool bass!! Congrats!

Well the bass is in transit and should be here by the end of the week.
A question if I may?
All my instruments have the rectangular pickups, what are the pro's cons of having the staggered pickup arrangement as seen on this Elan against just the rectangular style of pickups?
 
What does it do for the instrument tonally?
 
Jazzyvee

Jazzy, as far as I know there is no difference in sound, it's just a different shape.

Hmm, well my line of thinking is that the part of the string the pickup sees influences what we hear. Therefore since the E & A string pickups are nearer to the neck, when either the neck or bridge pickup setting was chosen, they would add a slightly more bassy component to the sound of the bass relative to straight bar pickups.
Am i barking up the wrong tree here?
Jazzyvee

Hi Vince,
 
because there are a lot of other factors influencing the sound, it's hard to answer your question without checking with other PUs on the same Bass. To me this Elan has a cleaner, more hifi like Sound than my MK for instance. My MK has two AXY soapbars and has got a bassier, dirtier sound than the Elan. But the wood is different, the neck has another shape, the headstock and body shape is different, etc. It's difficult to distiguish how much sound difference just results from the PUs by itself. All I can tell is that the Alembic P-Bass PU is totally different to a Fender P-Bass PU.

Jazzy; good point.  If a pickup is moved forward or back it will sound different.  And moving the position of the pickup doesn't just make the sound more or less bassy.  The overall shape of the frequency curve changes.  Go here to see a demonstration of this effect.

Hi Guys, the Elan arrived on Friday afternoon thanks for the fast postage Wernet.
The action is a bit high for me and also i think the strings a little light so I may change them soon. but I'm going to make some changes to the neck and bridge to get the setup that suits my style of playing. Also I'm going to change the position of the filter and pickup selector pots as they are not in the same place as my Europa and the pickup selector switch seems back to front. Another member has advised me on how to change the pots round and pickup outputs to do this so I'm gonna do that in a bit.
 Once' I've done that I'll have a good blast on it and see how I feel about the sound. Through my P{JB briefcase it sounds fine. Seems a much hotter signal than my Eurropa at the moment.
 
Jazzyvee

The PU selector has worked the wrong way for me too. But since I haven't played it for at least a month I left it unchanged. If you like to change the output of the electronics you could tune it with the little pots inside. You can also adjust the volume balance of both PUs with them.