Stock pickups in 81 ibanez blazer bass

[johnnyflats]

Does anyone know what make the stock pickups were in an 81 blazer bass, i 've heard they were dimarzio but im not sure.

[synaesthesia]

Ibanez. With adjustable polepieces.

[johnnyflats]

cheers for the reply.
I picked one up yesterday and the pickups do have adjustable polepieces
Problem solved.

[louloomis]

I was under the impression that they are Dimarzios...but I am not 100% sure (although I've heard this from qualified sources....).

Regards,
LouLoomis

[synaesthesia]

Ibanez did not generally start using Dimarzios as stock on instruments until the Satriani/Vai + various now-anonymous-spandex-hairband endorsement era, which is roughly 1986 or thereabouts, roughly the time when the blade headstocks became the sharktooth headstock. They used pickups of their own spec. in all of their models, until the mid or later half of the 80s; most of which were highly underrated. Even then they still used their own spec'ed pickups except for the artist/signature models that did used Dimarzios or EMGs or whatever. The Blazer name was replaced in the early part of the 80s and became Roadster, and then Roadstar.

The Blazer was kitted with Ibanez Super P4 pickups as stock. I had two lefty Blazers back in the day, and bought a righty for my guitarist who covered some of my gigs. The all had the same stock pickups.

There are a few Ibanez collector sites with data, here is one of them.
http://www.noahjames.com/vintagepage/blazbass.html


Michael Wright's book "Guitar Stories" has these details in print.

[NickD]

Originally Posted by johnnyflats

Does anyone know what make the stock pickups were in an 81 blazer bass, i 've heard they were dimarzio but im not sure.

They are very similar to Dimarzios though, makes me wonder who actually made them for Ibanez(?)

I've got a natural finish ash bodied '81 recently too.
It's a great bass, & as good as some Fenders I played

Personally think the stock pickups are petty good, are you happy with them yourself?

[synaesthesia]

Originally Posted by NickD

They are very similar to Dimarzios though, makes me wonder who actually made them for Ibanez(?)

Fujigen Gakki.

[johnabasstool]

Originally Posted by NickD

They are very similar to Dimarzios though, makes me wonder who actually made them for Ibanez(?)

I've got a natural finish ash bodied '81 recently too.
It's a great bass, & as good as some Fenders I played

Personally think the stock pickups are petty good, are you happy with them yourself?

My fretless that I made from a Cimar Gibson Grabber copy neck - defretted and filled it myself 26 years ago - has the body from my original Ibanez Blazer. Megga brass bridge and great pup too . Got to be careful how high you set both the pup and the actual pole pieces as you can get a pop if they're too close to the strings . Sounds great as a fretless!

[louloomis]

Originally Posted by NickD

They are very similar to Dimarzios though, makes me wonder who actually made them for Ibanez(?)

I've got a natural finish ash bodied '81 recently too.
It's a great bass, & as good as some Fenders I played

Personally think the stock pickups are petty good, are you happy with them yourself?

I have the same bass as you do and it is phenomenal!

LouLoomis

[NickD]

Originally Posted by synaesthesia

Fujigen Gakki.

Would be surprised if Fujigen Gakki actually made all (if any) of their pickups back then(?)

[synaesthesia]

Fujigen Gakki had the capacity to make pickups and made them in that era that Blazers were made, circa 1981. Dimarzio were largely US based and were not really OEM budget suppliers at the time. For the price of a new Dimarzio P back in the day, you could add a bit and probably buy the Blazer, new. Dimarzio had just about made its name then and an instrument that sported dimarzios would have made this known to the world. Several top o the line (in their day) instrument manufacturers made this point at the time, BC Rich, S D Curlee, etc etc

The other companies that were also making pickups were Nisshin Onpa, which had a relationship with Hoshino, the actual company behind the Ibanez brand. They made pedals and assorted elctronics for the Ibanez badge. It is possible they made some pickups for Cimar/Ibanez. Matsumoku, Tokai, Yamahai etc were competitors and were unlikely to have made pickups that ended up on an Ibanez. Ibanez were also one of the first companies that emerged from making copies, to making original designs, that gave specific product names to their pickups.