Lace Music Products Alumitone Bass Bar 4.5

Passive Dual Coil Humbucking pickup. Not splittable, 'current driven' design. Supposedly meant to be more environmentally conscious, i.e. green(Is that word played out or what?). Lace says that the Alumitone?? family of pickups use 95% less copper wire then standard pickup designs. By reducing the need for copper it saves valuable resources, reduces open pit mining and the very high energy need for converting copper ore to fine wire. No sure what the technical specs are for these P/U's; Lace doesn't list them at their websight, nor were they included with the pickup.

I installed this pickup on my single pickup Warmoth/Gecko 6 string fretless bass. The previous pickup was a passive EMG 45HZ. Simple controls; just a volume, tone, and output jack. For the record, I'm a bit of a sonic noodler, never afraid to try something different...within reason of course. Trying different pickups is one of the easiest ways to radically change the sound of an electric guitar or bass, because they are essentially the vocal cords of the instrument. I was hoping this pickup would not only live up to its claim of being lightweight, but also sound better...and without the hefty pricetag or hype of those so-called 'boutique' pickups.

When I first installed this pickup, I was upset that the output was kind of low. Turns out that it was due to me wiring the pickup wrong. A wiring diagram wasn't included in the box the pickup was sent in, so I had to downloaded from the Lace website. Anyways, after retrieving the instructions I rewired the pickup with minimal hassle. The output was much better, about the same as the pickup I exchanged it for. Mounting the pickup in the pickup cavity however, was a bigger hassle. See my comments on that in the Overall Rating for my gripe.


I took my custom Warmoth 6 string fretless with the newly installed Bass Bar to a gig at a local restaurant in a four piece group which included keys, guitar, and a loud and fast playing drummer(big surprise). The stage at this venue is one of the worst for bass guitar: In back of the stage is a large pane glass window which totally screws up the low end. My stage rig consists of a MXR M-80 DI/preamp into a Berhinger 1400watt power amp bridged mono, which is driving two Avatar 210 cabinets.


Sonically speaking, I immediately noticed was that the Bass Bar has more burp and growl in the upper midrange than my other pickup. But the midrange was focused and not muddy. The lows are punchy but not boomy; the treble is transparent and glassy without being harsh. As we went from playing swinging jazz standards into playing loud fusion and funk tunes, the Bass Bar continued to cut through and not get lost. I was inspired to go into a Jaco-esque state of mind at times because the harmonics were so much easier to play and hear. The notes just seemed to jump out with presence; and this is on a passive bass!

I been a semi-pro bassist on and off for almost 20 years. I just started playing fretless last year.

It was not lost on me how much lighter the bass guitar was because of the Bass Bar being installed. My shoulder and back thanks you, Lace! Another thing I like is that the pickup was very quiet. I didn't hear hardly any noise, even when I kicked in the distortion switch on the M-80. Very nice.

Another thing I noticed about the pickup was how sensitive it was. I initially had the pickup height set pretty close to the strings. I like setting the pickup height that way as it helps keep my fingers from digging in and plucking too hard. But when I plucked the high F and C strings I heard this clicking sound from my fingertips tapping the pickup on the followthrough. So I tapped the pickup directly and was surprised at how alive it was. It made me wonder if the pickup was microphonic. That might be a bit frustrating to some players, but some might actually like it. I ended up lowering the pickup just a bit and the clicking was minimized.

One gripe I have is that because the Bass Bar doesn't have the weight and mass of traditional soapbar pickups, it was harder stabilize it in the routing cavity. Trying to find the right amount of foam to place under the pickup was a chore. It took some time and finding the right padding to get it right. Foam is not quite firm enough. I ended up using some weatherstripping foam, and it did the trick. Whatever works, huh? Perhaps a special mounting kit with screws and springs should be included with the pickup in the future. Or perhaps you could have some kind of padding already attached to the bottom of the pickup to make mounting a bit easier.

I wished I had a pair of them so I could try them side-by-side in one of my fretted six string basses. I'd like to hear what they'd sound like using a pick or using slap/pop techniques. I plan to get another one so I can do that test. I was also disappointed that the coils on this pickup were not splittable. I'm hoping that Lace will address that in the near future.