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DarkStar pickups - starting from ... ?
- Thread starter KISSbestfan
- Start date
I'm just wondering, because I own a Defil pickup, and a friend of mine own Jolana pickup, that have exactly the same construction as the DarkStars, and are from the late 60's.
The darkstars are indeed modern copies of those old 60's pickups. Someone else will have to tell you when they were produced, but my guess is 2007 ish.
I'm not exactly sure on the start date myself, but I know Lakland used them for the original version of the Decade model, which was released in 2005.
I use them first from fred in 2003, it was a set fred sold on ebay, I guess I was one of the first, if not The first european customer.
Darkstars were a modern version of Hagstrom Bisonic pickups found on mid to late 60's Guild and Hagstrom basses. According to 'mgod' (Emory Gordy?) over at Let's talk Guild the concept was born during a meeting with Fred Hammon back in 2003. Not sure when the first pickups saw the light though. I ordered a matched pair in reverse polarity for a Guild starfire back in November 2009 and eventually got them 6 months later. Darkstars are no longer made. Curtis Novak now does his own version
Hagström first launched the bisonic pickup on their Coronado basses in 1963. It came in a 4-string and a 6-string version. Guild then started using them on the Starfire basses until 1970. Darkstar are a modern remake of those. It does not sound exactly the same. I got two basses with bisonics and one with Darkstars. Fantastic pickups!
Alot of '50's and '60's guitars and basses were still tooled with handcrafted steel plates switches and knobs. Meaning creating a slightly different knob button or shield wasn't more expensive. It was even smart as it could boost sales.
End '60's companies like Schaller more and more gained respect for their attention to detail and their quality because of their hardening of steel parts (tuning pegs, saddles, bridges) but keeping the cost reasonable. Since then it became more and more common sense to buy parts.
The downside: creating great pickups like the Bisonics was more and more a bad business idea. I am happy those days, we can choose are back.
End '60's companies like Schaller more and more gained respect for their attention to detail and their quality because of their hardening of steel parts (tuning pegs, saddles, bridges) but keeping the cost reasonable. Since then it became more and more common sense to buy parts.
The downside: creating great pickups like the Bisonics was more and more a bad business idea. I am happy those days, we can choose are back.
