DarkStar Pick Ups

[astack]

I'm somewhere between DIY and making pickups to be sold. At the moment I'm making three DS-inspired pickups in Mojotone Jazzmaster covers. I'm not planning to make a huge amount of these (or any other pickups) but can make a few when time allows. This is more like a hobby than anything else.
Marko

I looked up some of your other "hobby" builds - everything looks amazing! Quite the innovative craftsman. Can't get over the cfrp neck you did.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I looked up some of your other "hobby" builds - everything looks amazing! Quite the innovative craftsman. Can't get over the cfrp neck you did.

He's very talented, isn't he?

 

[MPU]

He's very talented, isn't he?

I'd rather say Gyro Gearloose
I like to do something outside of the box. That's why I'm not making Jazz basses with Jazz pickups and sunbursts. I'm making headless things with weird pickups. At the moment I'm waiting for an analog synth module so that I can make my own Taurus pedals.
Marko

 

[loopee]

cool....next pickups will be SGD's DS inspired......

 

[mgod]

Also, before they were rewound, he added a second magnet (which the DarkStars had) and Ron Wickersham added emitter follower buffers.

Not correct. The 2nd magnet goes back to the early 60s, and Jack's brown Starfire did not have emitter followers. Nor were his pickups rewound.

BTW, if anyone actually cares, there has been one actual lo-Z Bi-Sonic done; Rick did it for me in 96 using Cardas Litz wire. Sounds great, predictably no output but that didn't matter as I ran it into an EAR 824M mic amp.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Not correct. The 2nd magnet goes back to the early 60s, and Jack's brown Starfire did not have emitter followers. Nor were his pickups rewound.

BTW, if anyone actually cares, there has been one actual lo-Z Bi-Sonic done; Rick did it for me in 96 using Cardas Litz wire. Sounds great, predictably no output but that didn't matter as I ran it into an EAR 824M mic amp.

Jack says he added the second magnet to his pickups:

I took the pickups, that was my idea, and flipped them out and added another alnico magnet on the other side so each pickup had twice as much power.

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I've read where Rick said the same thing.

I didn't think his pickup were rewound since Rick said the stock pickups had a very wide frequency response.

Jack did say in that article:

The other issue that expanded the quality of the tone that they suggested was to take it and bump it back down to low impedance. By low impedance I was able to expand the dynamic range and that's what Les Paul had used and still did use his whole career, he played a low impedance guitar. Though he didn't get the volume of the squashed up high impedance pickups, that became fashionable later on.

I never heard about them rewinding the pickups, but Rick said they used emitter followers on them.

The stock pickups are only 6k, so they are almost in the medium-low impedance area as far as bass pickups go.

Also when you say the brown Starfire, you mean the one with the carved control plate?

A friend of mine, Owsley Stanley, (famous for other things) was into electronics and he also knew a guy named Ron Wickersham who later on became involved with Alembic. And we started talking about that Guild bass. So that was when he suggested that we put a preamp and run it with a 9 volt battery and also use components that were of a higher quality, including the pots. I took the pickups, that was my idea, and flipped them out and added another alnico magnet on the other side so each pickup had twice as much power. The other issue that expanded the quality of the tone that they suggested was to take it and bump it back down to low impedance. By low impedance I was able to expand the dynamic range and that's what Les Paul had used and still did use his whole career, he played a low impedance guitar. Though he didn't get the volume of the squashed up high impedance pickups, that became fashionable later on.

The idea with the Guild was to experiment a lot with the preamps and also tone variants. It was nice and fancy, the one Owsely worked on. He made a nice carving, and a modular inset for the electronics.

FlyGuitars: That was the bass you're seen using at Woodstock and on various TV show clips on You Tube?

I think on You Tube there's a picture of the first bass with Jorma and I doing an NPR program. On that one you'll see the nice carved piece, beautiful the way I've stained it dark brown and it had all this inlay at the top.

This bass had the Owsely electronics in it:

 

[mgod]

My point was, the double magnets are something that Hagstrom, or whomever actually built the pickups, was doing before Guild used them. Its a mystery to me why some of the ones Guild used had one magnet, but not all of them did.

Rick came into the scene in 1969. Jack's first bass predates him. According to Ron, I own the first bass that had emitter followers, which he thinks was the world's first active bass (which he did in 1969). I'm not sure he's right about that, although I don't doubt that he's correct in his idea of what is or isn't active.

And the 6k is what they found appealing about them, although it wasn't something they went looking for. Phil and Jack loved them, and RT/RW/AOSIII concluded that was why - it was serendipity. The one RT did for me is an actual 600 ohm, which was the point of the experiment.

 

[Jazz Ad]

Pardon the derail - what's that thing in front of the bridge assembly? A lever-operated mute?

http://www.bassmute.com/bassmute/bm_mainframe.html

 

[SGD Lutherie]

My point was, the double magnets are something that Hagstrom, or whomever actually built the pickups, was doing before Guild used them. Its a mystery to me why some of the ones Guild used had one magnet, but not all of them did.

Rick came into the scene in 1969. Jack's first bass predates him. According to Ron, I own the first bass that had emitter followers, which he thinks was the world's first active bass (which he did in 1969). I'm not sure he's right about that, although I don't doubt that he's correct in his idea of what is or isn't active.

And the 6k is what they found appealing about them, although it wasn't something they went looking for. Phil and Jack loved them, and RT/RW/AOSIII concluded that was why - it was serendipity. The one RT did for me is an actual 600 ohm, which was the point of the experiment.

I'm sure some of the history gets a little mixed up over the years.

I think I've seen the bass you now own.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

http://www.bassmute.com/bassmute/bm_mainframe.html

No, the bridge's front edge is on an angle.

 

[mgod]

I think I've seen the bass you now own.

Maybe, but I've owned it for almost 40 years.

 

[mgod]

I see you've gone and edited your earlier post. Yep, there's all that info. So, despite lengthy conversations with both Jack and Ron about that bass (and its sunburst replacement), I'll let it rest at that. I'm certainly not going to get into an argument with a cut 'n' paste from interviews Jack has given, nor am I going to quote at length conversations I've had with either man, or Owsley. After all, its Internettown. But I'd be curious to know where you might have seen my bass.

 

[Jazz Ad]

yes I copy it, it's not rocket science.

Somehow I have a hard time believing this.
Why would you do a straight copy of a perfectly functional existing design, up to the shape of the lever?
It makes absolutely no sense. It is obvious that this device is a Bassmute, especially since Laurent Cokelaere has been endorsing it for years.
Why insisting that you made it yourself?

 

[cropshy]

At Curtis Novak's website he has some photos of an original Bi-sonic he repaired and it shows some sign of having two magnets at some point:

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So maybe some did have two magnets originally.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

At Curtis Novak's website he has some photos of an original Bi-sonic he repaired and it shows some sign of having two magnets at some point:

Invalid Link Removed

So maybe some did have two magnets originally.

He's assuming it's missing a magnet. It might very well be, but it also seems they were built for two magnets but sometimes used only one.

I'm also surprised he'd have the right size magnet. They are not standard sized, and are rather thick.

 

[andertone]

Great to hear from you MGod. Some folks that have been following this conversation for many years are still paying attention.

Phil Anderson
Tucson, AZ

 

[Dave Campbell]

I'm also watching with interest. What a bummer that Hammon could not stay in business as there seemed to be a healthy demand for the product.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I see you've gone and edited your earlier post. Yep, there's all that info. So, despite lengthy conversations with both Jack and Ron about that bass (and its sunburst replacement), I'll let it rest at that. I'm certainly not going to get into an argument with a cut 'n' paste from interviews Jack has given, nor am I going to quote at length conversations I've had with either man, or Owsley. After all, its Internettown. But I'd be curious to know where you might have seen my bass.

I'm just saying all we have to go on is what they say. And they all say something different at different times. I've also corresponded with Rick on a few occasions. He's a very knowledgable guy. Rick has said he added the second magnet in interviews, and so has Jack. Clearly some of the pickups had two, and some didn't.

Here's the thing about old pickups. Let's take the PAF for an example. When people try and recreate them they agonize over the details; what alloy steel is in the keepers and pole screws, what grade alnico was used, etc. All these things add up to the finished tone, and pickup makers often mistakenly think these parts were chosen because of the way they sounded. But they weren't. They used off the shelf parts. They just happened to have come upon a good combination. Even down to the amount of wire wound on the pickups. Seth Lover, who designed the Gibson humbucker, has said they didn't count turns in the beginning, they just wound them until they were full!

So Hagstrom probably did the bare minimum to get a working pickup. Not because they were being cheap, but because as long as the pickup worked the way they intended, that was what was needed. But also when you are manufacturing something, you do have to watch the bottom line. So it's very possible they designed the pickup for two magnets, but sometimes made them with one.

Another point is the laminated keeper. Some people think it was to reduce eddy currents, but since they were not insulated from each other, it was likely just because it's easier to stamp or drill a series of round holes in a thin piece of steel than a thick one. Then you just stack them up to the thickness you need.

Also I realize I was thinking about the fretless M-85 that Lesh had. Ron Wickersham says that was the first active bass they did. But then Dan Schwartz says no, it was Jack's Jazz bass or the sunburst Guild. Jack says the brown Guild was active, and Rick says no, it had a varitone in it. Confusion abounds.

So I'll take you work for it!

 

[mgod]

Hi Phil. There are changes afoot, though slow.

So SGD, when did you see the M-85?

In my experience, Hagstrom used a second magnet on the back pickups of the Coronados, which some Hagstrom historians date to 63-64. I have two - a IV and a VI.
As did the Starfire IIs I've come across.

 

[mgod]

BTW, I don't think I've ever said Jack's Jazz was active. I don't think I've ever said much about it. The sunburst Starfire post-dates the M-85 fretless.