Bartolini HI-A tone. Any similar pups out there?

[Thor]

A friend is buying a new custom HB bass, and he wants to replicate the kind of tone he has on his other basses, a Gibson Grabber and a Guild FrankenStarfire both retrofitted with Bart HI-A's.

I am not familiar with this pup, and the search here was inconclusive.

What can you tell me about it? Is it no longer available?

One fellow bassist suggested EMG's might offer a similar sounding pickup but I have found no info on that.

Comments and suggestions would be welcome, thanks in advance.

[Stealth]

Incoming SGD in 3... 2... 1...

(He's the only Hi-A user I know of, anyway)

[garmenteros]

HI-As were bartolinis first line of pickups in the early to mid 70s when they started. I had them in a 70s jazz bass I owned. I spoke to pat bartolini over the phone a couple of times asking for information about a bulk purchase of other pickups and we chatted quite a bit. I asked about the HI-A pickups and he said they simply renamed them to bartolinis. Your best bet is to purchase the original series pickups.

heres the bass for reference.




They sounded very rich and warm, more low end than stock fenders i've tried from the 70s and a bit less high end than their modern classic series bass pickups.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by Stealth

Incoming SGD in 3... 2... 1...

(He's the only Hi-A user I know of, anyway)

My old Hi-A 2B "mini beastie" that I bought in 1976 from my '73 Ric 4001. I spoke to Bill on the phone when I bought that.

The Bartolini Classic Bass series are based on the Hi-A design. The Original Series are the newer darker sounding pickups.

I've also used that as a benchmark for my own pickups, so they have a similar vibe as well.

[garmenteros]

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

.

The Bartolini Classic Bass series are based on the Hi-A design. The Original Series are the newer darker sounding pickups.

I've also used that as a benchmark for my own pickups, so they have a similar vibe as well.

I got mixed up, I thought it was the other way around... strange your pickups say HI-A on the front, mine had them on the back...

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by garmenteros

I got mixed up, I thought it was the other way around... strange your pickups say HI-A on the front, mine had them on the back...

You would think that the "original" series were the, umm, original series! I thought so too.

Mine is one of the early dual coil humbuckers Bill made. He had just introduced the monophonic models the previous year. All the other Hi-A pickups had one coil per string and separate putputs.

The original pickups all said Hi-A on the front. Then he had some that said Bartolini and Hi-A, then he went to all Bartolini.

A couple of picts I found on the 'Net:

This was replaced a Ric mute in the bridge


The backs look like this. Mine is similar:

[garmenteros]

Mine said bartolini on front and on the back etched into the pickup housing HI-A was written like they do now a days with the specific pickup models sometimes

[garmenteros]

All in all AWESOME sound... I'd buy reissues if they released them (that said HI-A) on front...