any one using lace alumitone singles
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TroubledTreble
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I have a set I no longer use. I would like to get rid of them....... :icon_biggrin:
TroubledTreble
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I usually wear red or black lipstick, never thought of gold... ooops! crap! :help:
PM Sent.
PM Sent.
Here I go again... being the crusty ol' man.
A review from Guitar Noise.
Lace Alumitone Pickups
By: A-J Charron
Time for a change (finally) in pickups. For decades, electric guitar pickups have all been built along the same principles. Basically, running long lengths of copper wire around a magnet. To reduce noise, you’d add another pickup, invert it’s polarization and have a double-coil, or humbucker. This has been the standard since the electric guitar was invented and it’s what you have on your axe.
Lace have changed all this. They’ve been making conventional pickups for 25 years; Eric Clapton uses Lace pickups on his strat. But it’s time for something else.
The Alumitone pickup is a radical departure in pickup making. Conventional pickups are voltage designed, meaning it’s the voltage in the current that makes them work. The Alumitone is current-driven instead. What this means is a much more fluid system which allows smoother operation.
Also, the Alumitone is aluminium-based rather than copper-based. Aluminium is a much better conductor than copper. This gives you less resistance and higher output.
Overall, the Alumitone has a single coil of wire and, although it does use copper wire, it uses 90% less than a conventional pickup.
First of all - I know Lace says they're "current" based, but really... every amplifier out there, every single one from tube to transistor, uses a voltage swing on its input as its form of "signal" to amplify. Given that, all amplifiers also use some form of current passed through a resistor, to create another voltage swing to drive the next stage of the amplifier. Just makes me go hmmm.
Alumitone is aluminum based... ok, but the dimwit doesn't know that Aluminum is NOT a much better conductor of electricity than copper. In fact, its about 65 percent higher in resistance (something like 10.8 to 17.1 copper vs aluminum, per circular mils). That said - the ace hole reviewer also goes says that they still use copper wire, so why the big deal about the low resistance. He needed something to say.
Let me quote "What this means is a much more fluid system which allows smoother operation."
That my brothers and sisters, this is just a load of meaningless fluff. It has the solidity of cotton candy. What in the world is "a much more fluid system". Does some fluid come out of it? Does it oil dampen your pots for you? What? I was thinking it must, because it makes things smoother. I have no idea.... clueless. Its fluff.
He goes on, later in the review to say you immediately notice more bass, and more treble. And more mids. So everything is louder? Ya know, like a Fender amp where you turn down the bass and treble and mid... and get "nothing" out of the amp. You've cut it all. So when you raise it all... doesn't it just get louder?
Oh well. Just my crustyness showing. Its good to be old.
A review from Guitar Noise.
Lace Alumitone Pickups
By: A-J Charron
Time for a change (finally) in pickups. For decades, electric guitar pickups have all been built along the same principles. Basically, running long lengths of copper wire around a magnet. To reduce noise, you’d add another pickup, invert it’s polarization and have a double-coil, or humbucker. This has been the standard since the electric guitar was invented and it’s what you have on your axe.
Lace have changed all this. They’ve been making conventional pickups for 25 years; Eric Clapton uses Lace pickups on his strat. But it’s time for something else.
The Alumitone pickup is a radical departure in pickup making. Conventional pickups are voltage designed, meaning it’s the voltage in the current that makes them work. The Alumitone is current-driven instead. What this means is a much more fluid system which allows smoother operation.
Also, the Alumitone is aluminium-based rather than copper-based. Aluminium is a much better conductor than copper. This gives you less resistance and higher output.
Overall, the Alumitone has a single coil of wire and, although it does use copper wire, it uses 90% less than a conventional pickup.
First of all - I know Lace says they're "current" based, but really... every amplifier out there, every single one from tube to transistor, uses a voltage swing on its input as its form of "signal" to amplify. Given that, all amplifiers also use some form of current passed through a resistor, to create another voltage swing to drive the next stage of the amplifier. Just makes me go hmmm.
Alumitone is aluminum based... ok, but the dimwit doesn't know that Aluminum is NOT a much better conductor of electricity than copper. In fact, its about 65 percent higher in resistance (something like 10.8 to 17.1 copper vs aluminum, per circular mils). That said - the ace hole reviewer also goes says that they still use copper wire, so why the big deal about the low resistance. He needed something to say.
Let me quote "What this means is a much more fluid system which allows smoother operation."
That my brothers and sisters, this is just a load of meaningless fluff. It has the solidity of cotton candy. What in the world is "a much more fluid system". Does some fluid come out of it? Does it oil dampen your pots for you? What? I was thinking it must, because it makes things smoother. I have no idea.... clueless. Its fluff.
He goes on, later in the review to say you immediately notice more bass, and more treble. And more mids. So everything is louder? Ya know, like a Fender amp where you turn down the bass and treble and mid... and get "nothing" out of the amp. You've cut it all. So when you raise it all... doesn't it just get louder?
Oh well. Just my crustyness showing. Its good to be old.
After a jillion rave reviews*, I finally put an Alumitone pickup on my Carter pedal steel guitar. It does exactly what you want a pedal steel guitar pickup to do: cleanly transmit mids, lows and highs all across the frequency range. Pickups actually only do a few things, you know - they transmit proportionately-different levels of different frequencies, they are more or less powerful, they pull on strings or they don't, they're microphonic or they're not... Anytime anybody does any realistic blindfold A/B testing, the self-proclaimed "tone experts" always, invariably, dismally fail in a pathetic way to identify just about anything at all, accurately.
Having said that, there are three kinds of (functioning) pickups in the world: the traditional humbucking ones that are all midrange, like the old Gibsons, and the newer reproductions usually called PAF-something-or-another. Or "woman-tones", or "fillmores", blah blah. Then there are the overwound, higher-powered variants of these which can drive an amplifier harder, and are even more middy. The second kind of traditional pickups are the single-coils, which transmit more highs and are less powerful, and the overwound variants of these.
If you want to sound like rock guitar from the last fifty years, it's simplest to do it with some version of either of these.
The third kind of pickup - the Lawrences, the Laces, the EMG's, the Alumitones - are flatter hi-fi pickups that seeks to more accurately transmit the widest possible range of the string vibrations, i.e. they have more highs and lows, as well as midrange. You can trick these into sounding like "classic" rock pickups, but you have to know how. I personally like this style of pickup, but they're not as simple to EQ as a "classic" design.
I wouldn't put an Alumitone in the bridge of a guitar that I wanted to plug straight into an amp to play grunt 'n' squeal rock 'n' roll with; I would put them into any guitar that I was planning on using for jazz, or through some serious tone-processing equipment. Les Paul himself was aghast that because of historical accident, the low-fidelity, high-impedance model pickups became so popular, when the low-impedance active pickups were so clearly a "better" design, from an engineering standpoint. But the whole rest of the signal chain is designed to sound "best" with the primitive pickups, so unless you want to actually work on tone you're kinda stuck with the caveman version.
*(On the STEEL guitar forum....)
Having said that, there are three kinds of (functioning) pickups in the world: the traditional humbucking ones that are all midrange, like the old Gibsons, and the newer reproductions usually called PAF-something-or-another. Or "woman-tones", or "fillmores", blah blah. Then there are the overwound, higher-powered variants of these which can drive an amplifier harder, and are even more middy. The second kind of traditional pickups are the single-coils, which transmit more highs and are less powerful, and the overwound variants of these.
If you want to sound like rock guitar from the last fifty years, it's simplest to do it with some version of either of these.
The third kind of pickup - the Lawrences, the Laces, the EMG's, the Alumitones - are flatter hi-fi pickups that seeks to more accurately transmit the widest possible range of the string vibrations, i.e. they have more highs and lows, as well as midrange. You can trick these into sounding like "classic" rock pickups, but you have to know how. I personally like this style of pickup, but they're not as simple to EQ as a "classic" design.
I wouldn't put an Alumitone in the bridge of a guitar that I wanted to plug straight into an amp to play grunt 'n' squeal rock 'n' roll with; I would put them into any guitar that I was planning on using for jazz, or through some serious tone-processing equipment. Les Paul himself was aghast that because of historical accident, the low-fidelity, high-impedance model pickups became so popular, when the low-impedance active pickups were so clearly a "better" design, from an engineering standpoint. But the whole rest of the signal chain is designed to sound "best" with the primitive pickups, so unless you want to actually work on tone you're kinda stuck with the caveman version.
*(On the STEEL guitar forum....)
@stubhead: thanks for the overall review of pickups, but that doesn't answer my question, neccasarily. How do you think an alumitone would sound in the bridgeposition of a les paul? Would it be muddy? harsh? With what other pickupbrand/model can you compare these pickups? With emg's? Bill Lawrence L500?
jackthehack
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My only experience was playing somebody else's Strat at a jam that had a set of the Alumitones SCs, pretty sure it was just a std. American Strat.
Clean as mentioned previously in the thread is correct, I'd go a step further and say "sterile". No balls at all when compared to a set of Fender Custom Shop SRVs/Fat 50's. Low output; I plugged into my effects chain/Fender Blues Deluxe that was set for my Strat and it was like the master volume was turned down one notch.
I don't care for them at all, although they DO look cool-assed....
Clean as mentioned previously in the thread is correct, I'd go a step further and say "sterile". No balls at all when compared to a set of Fender Custom Shop SRVs/Fat 50's. Low output; I plugged into my effects chain/Fender Blues Deluxe that was set for my Strat and it was like the master volume was turned down one notch.
I don't care for them at all, although they DO look cool-assed....
O
OzziePete
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stubhead said:
He wasn't the only one in the business with that view either.
I read ages ago that Bill Lawrence's experiences in Europe, before he came to America, was that they (in Europe at the time) were developing a signal chain based on Low Impedance pickups. The guitars, cord and amps were all being designed for low impedance as it was perceived by many engineers in Europe, pre-WW2 & immediately after, to be a better option with greater control (and you could go straight to tape with less hassles).
http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/About_Bill/vgarticle.htm
Then along came Gibson and Fender with their older amp designs and high impedance pickup designs & because of their popularity (and the rise of rock n roll's demand for hotter guitar sounds), sunk the whole 'low inpedance school' in Europe.
What we have now is still a high impedance set up. Only the pickups on the guitars are low impedance is you go for the likes of EMG, but they have to convert to a higher impedance signal (using a pre amp) to match the amp designs' inputs.
If that is correct technically (I'm not an expert and would greatly appreciate any correction to what I understand to be the situation re: high impedance and low impedance over the years), I am left wondering how a genuine low impedance guitar set up would sound?
There are a number of players in the guitar playing community who would probably love the idea of a complete low impedance system... but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.
OzziePete said:
Its not the tone of low impedance, but the lack of hum that makes them desirable.
You want hi-fi? Plug in a Fender Champ (tweed) or other "only a volume knob" amp into a set of flat hi-fi speakers. The tone is terrible. Its dead. Sterile. There's no flavor.
Its a happy accident that Jensen had speakers with dipsydoodles in the response curve. Its similarly a happy accident that Leo used them, or that the designs he came up sounded pretty nice with those speakers - no matter who's pickup you're using.
OK, to try to answer - yes, I would compare Alumitones most closely with EMG's or Lawrences. The reason that those are called either "harsh" or "sterile" is because they are putting out much more treble than the average amp is designed around, because the average amp is designed around midrangey conventional pickups. When you plug a trebley pickup into an amp and don't change the tone settings, you get a flat, sterile sound turned down low and when you overdrive it, it sounds harsh.
I've been listening to Jeff Loomis's excellent instrumental shred album lately, and he gets a great tone with EMG's into Engl amps. Whatever you may think of Metallica, nobody ever says Hammett's tone is less than stellar, and that's EMG's into Randall, Marshalls, Boogies... so these certainly can be used to get a great tone, but you'd have to work with the tone controls. A lot of people just want to plug n' play, which of course is what it ends up sounding like. :sad1: I mean, I had the opposite experience - all my tone settings were geared around Lawrence L500's and singles, then I had to use ordinary midrange pickups to build my seven string. I had to re-jack everything in search of my dear departed treble... :sad: I'm still not ecstatic about it, I may yet go to EMG 707's or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjfUMLeKd5E
I've been listening to Jeff Loomis's excellent instrumental shred album lately, and he gets a great tone with EMG's into Engl amps. Whatever you may think of Metallica, nobody ever says Hammett's tone is less than stellar, and that's EMG's into Randall, Marshalls, Boogies... so these certainly can be used to get a great tone, but you'd have to work with the tone controls. A lot of people just want to plug n' play, which of course is what it ends up sounding like. :sad1: I mean, I had the opposite experience - all my tone settings were geared around Lawrence L500's and singles, then I had to use ordinary midrange pickups to build my seven string. I had to re-jack everything in search of my dear departed treble... :sad: I'm still not ecstatic about it, I may yet go to EMG 707's or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjfUMLeKd5E
O
OzziePete
Guest
stubhead said:
I have a guitar that has a L500 in the neck and an original DiMarzio Super 2 in the bridge. I think the L500 is from Bill's company BEFORE the huge split with his business partner.
Anyways, working with the Super 2, the guitar rocks big time. Big chunky riff tone I call it. But use the same settings for the L500 and it's complete overload... But turn everything down and work up to the desired tone on the L500 and, yes, great tone in the pickup/amp combination.
=CB= said:
I think the flat, dead, sterile tone is what the jazz aficionados were searching for in the 50s? Pure tone of the instrument with no colouration of the amplification process? In other words, high fidelity. To me, that seems the school of guitar players that the likes of Les Paul and Bill Lawrence sprang up from.
I think that is workable if you understand that you have to add colouration to the tone if you want any other tone other than dead flat. Not my cup of tea, but as I suggested, there may be others out there who want that pure tone as a starting point.
And, getting back on topic, there does seem to be a school of pickup makers who simply try to get a transparent replication of the guitar's tone and another school who try to add some colouration of the tone through the pickup making process. It seems from comments of those who have tried the Alumitones, that these try to be a clear transparent replication of the guitar's tone.
TroubledTreble
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OzziePete said:
I think that is an insightful observation.
Also some people turn all of their amp tone knobs to ten and work it from the guitar, while others set the guitar tone to ten and work it at the amp. It all depends on the approach you prefer.
I would also say that when people compare pickups, guitars, strings even, that they evaluate them based on the settings on the amp which rarely if ever get changed. I think we are all guilty of that from time to time.
O
OzziePete
Guest
Max said:
Les Paul was a tinkerer of the worse degree (in a good way :icon_thumright
. I bet Gibson could build him a guitar exactly to whatever specs he'd demand and then 6 weeks after delivery he'd have it apart modifying it!But the LP Recording and Personal guitars were the ones he used the most during the latter stages of his long career. So he obviously favoured whatever benefits the low impedance pickups gave him.
