It is currently Tue Mar 17, 2020 3:39 am

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 11 posts ] 
Author Message
Post subject: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 11:25 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:40 am
Posts: 987
Howdy all...

So, I've been thinking of adding an Alembic Blaster (formerly known at the Strat-o-blaster) on the following strat to beef up the neck and middle pickups (Fender Tex-Mex). Where I don't use the trem and it's already set up with the trem resting flat on the guitar, I was thinking of mounting the battery in the back of the body (and just blocking the trem) for ease of battery changes.

Anyone have any experience with using one?

http://alembic.stores.yahoo.net/blaster.html

Image


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:42 am
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:34 pm
Posts: 10760
Location: Athens, Greece
The mid boost control will affect all the pickups, not only the singles. That means the humbucker would also be affected.

A dummy coil is required to eliminate the hum from the Tex Mex singles.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:10 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:40 am
Posts: 987
Well, the humbucker has a coil tap toggle already and as far as the single coils go, they're very quiet so I don't understand why I'd need a dummy coil... I'm not sure what that even is. :?:


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:03 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician

Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:50 pm
Posts: 1339
Location: Denver, CO, USA
The Alembic Blaster is not a midrange boost. It's a full range clean boost (well, mostly clean -- if you turn the internal trimpot all the way up it may add a little distortion, depending on how high output the pickups are).

It won't really "fatten" the tone, unless by "fatten" you mean drive the input of your amp harder. By eliminating cable loss and the effects of amp/pedal input impedances, it might actually make the tone brighter and appear to be thinner.

Internal preamps don't increase single coil noise any more than pedal preamps do. I never understand why people go on and on about single coil noise with internal preamps -- if you can tolerate the noise with a stompbox like a TS-9, LPB-1, MXR MicroAmp, Klon, or other boost pedals, you'll be fine with an internal preamp.

Alembic claims that the Blaster will let you turn down your guitar volume without having the tone change. I'm not sure that's entirely true -- the guitar's volume and tone circuits are intact and before the preamp, so they still load the pickups the same way. The Blaster does isolate the guitar's passive components from the effect of cable capacitance and amp/pedal input impedances which might slightly affect the common tone change when you turn down the guitar volume. But tonally, it mostly just lets you use high capacitance cables or long cable runs without much treble loss, and mitigates the tone-suck of some old-style pedals.

One disadvantage of the Blaster is that the gain is preset -- you have to use a screwdriver to change the boost level. So if you want to flick between passive and boosted to boost your solos you're stuck with whatever level of boost you've preset.

Personally, I much prefer stompbox boosts to built-in boosts. More flexibility and easier battery changes. The only reason I'd choose a built-in is if I moved around a lot on stage and didn't want to have to walk over to a pedal every time I wanted to turn the boost on/off, or if I ran an extremely long cable between my guitar and pedalboard.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 9:44 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:40 am
Posts: 987
Well, I decided to order one. I'm going to mount the battery in the trem cavity, as well as a spare battery... I picked up a few 9volt battery holders at Radio Shack. It'll be nice to have one close at hand should the battery crap out.

The idea is not to crank the thing up, but rather, try to boost the single coil outputs to match that of the humbucker when it's running at full steam (not split).

As I stated before, I don't foresee it being noisy as there's no noise to amplify by engaging the preamp... things are running very quietly at present. I'll keep you all posted on how it turns out. Cheers.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 10:47 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star

Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:37 pm
Posts: 8708
Location: Natural Bridge, Virginia
Too late now if you have already ordered the Blaster, but it looks from your photo that the two single coils are set pretty low and the humbucker set pretty high. You might try raising the single coils slightly and dropping the humbucker slightly to balance the outputs better.

_________________
Bill

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 10:59 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:40 am
Posts: 987
I like the tone and balance of the pickups as is... the split coil bridge setting is matched to the single coil output of the middle and neck, and regardless, the Tex-Mex single coils are not going to compete with the Super Distortion in full humbucking mode. The middle pickup is currently set fairly low to achieve a little more quack in the 2&4 positions.

I was just hoping to add some new flavors to the guitar... I'm happy with the tones I'm getting now but I thought it would be nice to boost the single coils up to the level of the humbucker as a jumping off point... at least when using the bridge pickup at full output.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:11 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star

Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:37 pm
Posts: 8708
Location: Natural Bridge, Virginia
You do realize that the Blaster will affect ALL pickups that are active as chromeface pointed out, right? So if you are using the middle pickup with the Blaster and switch the bridge in so both are operating, the humbucker will also be boosted and overwhelm the middle pickup once more. Maybe even more.

_________________
Bill

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 12:27 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:40 am
Posts: 987
Yeah, that's what I figured... I plan to use the booster for the neck and middle positions primarily, and with the humbucker when the coil split is engaged.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 12:40 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star

Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:37 pm
Posts: 8708
Location: Natural Bridge, Virginia
Good luck.

_________________
Bill

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Contemplating installing an Alembic Blaster Preamp
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 9:27 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:40 am
Posts: 987
I got it installed and it sounds fantastic! Check out my blog post for more details...
Image
http://jgsguitargoodness.blogspot.com


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 11 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: