Yes, Alumitones will do thunk - even in a solid body

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I've been very pleased to see the recent interest in Alumitones here. Since some have asked if they're good for straight ahead jazz, and Kris posted a nice track with a beautiful balanced tone, I thought I'd reinforce the "yes!" with some thunk. This is my Tele 7 through the Twin (ex-Jazzkritter) that I restored a few months ago, with bass on 4, mid on 2 1/2, and treble on 3. The guitar is a set mahogany neck in a mahogany body with maple cap, strung with JS112s. The guitar's tone pot is about 1/3 open. I exaggerated the darkness for illustration - I generally run my EQ flat with the Tele or my LP.



These are the most versatile pickups I've ever used. They'll go from this dull thunky vintage tone to a bright clear hifi sheen to the rich and balanced tone Kris brought us. They drop right into standard HB routs and rings and I highly recommend them.

[dconeill]

Which alumitones? There are several models, (plain, Fusion Jazz 251, Deathbucker, and maybe others) ,do they sound different? What resistance are the pots, and what capacitors did you use?

[0zoro]

Thanks for the post nevershouldhave! This is great tone imho as well as playing! I second dconeill´s question above concerning all the techy stuff, very relevant. Btw, do you have alumitone´s in both the neck and bridge? are you playing both in the above? are they a matched pair or different pu´s? or even a Lace in the neck and a single coil in the bridge?

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Lace recommends 250k pots and 0.022 caps for all Alumitones. This guitar (a 7 string) has a matched pair of 251s that were made to Benson’s specs for his stage Ibanez. Gabe (at Lace) recommended them to me when I called to discuss my options.

This track (like most of my playing) is through the neck pickup alone. I use both pickups together for a brighter, more acoustic tone and the bridge alone for a full tilt boogie Albert Collins blues tone. Alumitones have very little magnetic string pull, so they can be as close to or far from the strings as you want them. This guitar has only a single pair of pots, so I balanced the pickup outputs by adjusting pickup height.

[Marty Grass]

Here is a thinline Golden Eagle with Alumitones that I put in. It now belongs to a friend.

[WilliamScott]

Here is a thinline Golden Eagle with Alumitones that I put in. It now belongs to a friend.

Was there supposed to be a photo?

[Marty Grass]

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Here is a thinline Golden Eagle with Alumitones that I put in. It now belongs to a friend.

I want to try one in my Ibanez AF207, which now carries a Benedetto B7 that sounds great as a humbucker - smooth, warm, and nicely woody. I wired it through a push-pull switched pot for coil splitting, and I love the tone for fusion and funk. But it’s a single coil when split, and it’s very noisy in that mode where there’s a lot of stray EMF. I think the Alumitone will be as great in an archtop as the B7 for straight ahead jazz but will also stay silent while giving me the chime and clarity I like for fusion, blues, and pop tunes.

Unfortunately, they stopped offering the 7 string version in gold soon after it was introduced - and both the Ibanez and the Tele have gold hardware. The stock black Alumitone is less than good looking, but it’s tolerable on the Tele with black knobs and tuners. The B7 is also black, but it’s a plain, simple matte finished block that lets the attractive wood surround stand out. So it doesn’t look too terrible. But I suspect that a black Alumitone 7 will stick out like a sore thumb and look awful on the archtop. If it sounds great I’ll live with it anyway.

[Bop Head]

My third natural finish Yamaha Pacifica 120s will hopefully arrive soon. Had to have the axe because of the beautiful birdseye maple neck and the general good shape. Her sisters have rather some "natural relic".

I decided that she deserves to get Alumitones.
(Hers first sister has Häussels humbuckers and the second one will get Rosswell humbucker-sized "Charlie Christians".)