Phil Lesh Appreciation Society: Enter the Philzone...

[Leialoha]

Bear definitely carved the plate. Casady claims the added magnet was his idea, I guess that's possible, but it seems more likely that it was Bear's. Who knows?! Bear built the electronics in that bass around a (likely modded) Gibson Varitone circuit.

The only thing I remember reading about was his use of a thumb pick in SVT, but I'm not a huge Casady-phile. In that pic it sure looks like he's holding a pick. With all the experimenting they did, it wouldn't surprise, especially in an informal situation like
this.

I always thought Jack was an active participant in creating his bass. I remember a show w/Airplane at Fillmore West in 1970 where, as they were setting up, Casady was clearly bothered by something sound-wise. He set his Starfire down on the stage, opened it up an began pulling out wires and adjusting things with his tiny screwdrivers. Like performing surgery. After a few minutes of this he reassembled everything and seemed happy with the results. This was the first I was aware of electronic basses. It sounded great, of course. My favorite bass sounds in those days were from Jack and Phil so it wasn't surprising to find out that both their basses had common origins; all those knobs...

 

[edwinhurwitz]

If you want the sound Phil got from Sunshine Daydream, you have about 10 minutes to hop on these (although it's possible the reserve won't get met). My holy grail for tube amps:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/McIntosh-Mi...d=100009&prg=1088&rk=2&rkt=5&sd=141124675154&

 

[Stranger Danger]

If you want the sound Phil got from Sunshine Daydream, you have about 10 minutes to hop on these (although it's possible the reserve won't get met). My holy grail for tube amps:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/McIntosh-Mi...d=100009&prg=1088&rk=2&rkt=5&sd=141124675154&

WHOA!

 

[moonliner]

It would be pretty easy with a top plate, as getting it in there would be the hardest part. I bet you could run it off the same power that the preamps use, as there's probably current to spare with a DS5.

How would you set it up? One filter per pickup or run them together in series? Or have it switchable? So many options!

It would be interesting to play one of the Alembic modified filter equipped Starfires. I know of one (with the moniker of The Supreme Being) in LA.

Can't wait to see how yours comes out!

Yes, I was talking to Dan a while ago and he mentioned he was care taking one but that it had some issues which made it dangerous to amplify
Switchable would be a dream. I have a guy who would be up for attempting the task.... so a DS5 would power it ok? Oh dear, I don't think I'll sleep much tonight.... visions of philters dancing in my head!
Edwin, what current Alembic pickups you think would be best for this project?

 

[kohntarkosz]

Alembic. There's a guy who goes by Moonliner who getting some of the work done.

My bass has some similarities in hardware and electronics. I did the work myself with the help of local luthiers. At some point I might try installing a Superfilter, but that would require creating a top plate. That wouldn't be altogether a bad thing because it would allow access to the whole side of the bass and I could shield it much more completely than it is now. I do get noise sometimes, although it's not terrible.

That is an amazing looking bass. I love those pickups. Interesting that the coils are trapezoidal, yet the cases are rectangular. I've seen earlier pickups that look like this;

I guess the theory behind them is that they need to sense a greater area of string on the lower strings because of the wave-length of the notes being produced?

 

[edwinhurwitz]

Yes, I was talking to Dan a while ago and he mentioned he was care taking one but that it had some issues which made it dangerous to amplify
Switchable would be a dream. I have a guy who would be up for attempting the task.... so a DS5 would power it ok? Oh dear, I don't think I'll sleep much tonight.... visions of philters dancing in my head!
Edwin, what current Alembic pickups you think would be best for this project?

The SF2 handles 10.5 to 17 volts DC and pulls around 200ma.

So, it depends on how much extra power there is coming from the DS5 and whether the current pulled from one side would create an imbalance in the power going to the PF6 card. I'm not all that versed in these kinds of things, but my guess is that it would be OK. If the power supply is at too high a voltage, a resistor or two would bring it down.

Switchable signal paths shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just a question of figuring out the best method of switching. After all, it's already got the stereo to mono switch built in. Then it's just a question of how you want to route it to the outputs and how much complexity you want to have in the bass. I love having stereo outs, so my choice would probably be one filter per pickup.

 

[edwinhurwitz]

That is an amazing looking bass. I love those pickups. Interesting that the coils are trapezoidal, yet the cases are rectangular. I've seen earlier pickups that look like this;


I guess the theory behind them is that they need to sense a greater area of string on the lower strings because of the wave-length of the notes being produced?

I have no idea what the theory is. In some ways, I'd think you'd want the wider part over the thinner strings to create a more uniform tone across the bass, but I don't know if the wider string sensing affects level or if it just affects the aperture of the pickup. Regardless, it sounds good enough that I'm not too tempted to mess with it.

 

[edwinhurwitz]

I think you're pretty much right on. There are only a couple I'm not totally sure about.

(Self-titled) - Jazz Bass?
Anthem of the Sun - I'm almost positive it was the Starfire.
Aoxomoxoa - Starfire
Live/Dead - Starfire or EB-3? (Edit: looks like the dates are too early for it to be the EB-3)
Workingman's Dead - EB-3
American Beauty - EB-3
Skull & Roses - EB-3
Europe '72 - Starfire (modded)
Wake of the Flood - Starfire (modded) or Alembic Osage Orange? (Not sure if Phil had the Alembic yet. I know at RFK 6/9/73 he was still using the Starfire. Also not sure exactly when in '73 WotF was recorded.)
From the Mars Hotel - Alembic Osage Orange
Blues for Allah - Alembic Osage Orange

Is the first album actually a Starfire? Here's a studio shot from 1967. it could be from one of the sessions that amounted to nothing, though.

Also a picture from the If I Could Only Remember My Name sessions.

 

[spacebassed]

Is the first album actually a Starfire? Here's a studio shot from 1967. it could be from one of the sessions that amounted to nothing, though.

Also a picture from the If I Could Only Remember My Name sessions.

I think the Jazz Bass is probably the right call, he used it into '67. Couldn't have been the Starfire, dual pickup Starfires didn't exist in '66.

I always assumed that pic of Phil/Jerry was from around the time of Anthem (or maybe even Aoxomoxoa). If you look closely at that pic, you can see that the Starfire had already begun it's first mods. Here's some Rosie McGee pics from '68 that show them better:

http://rosiemcgee.smugmug.com/GratefulDead-1/Grateful-Dead-Photos/i-dK28bBk
http://rosiemcgee.smugmug.com/GratefulDead-1/Grateful-Dead-Photos/i-mRcGKXs
http://rosiemcgee.smugmug.com/GratefulDead-1/Grateful-Dead-Photos/i-jdL23rz

 

[spacebassed]

Cannot blame Phil for being hazy now.

It does sound like he is remembering two different basses. For starters I don't think Gibson called the EB-1 after its single pickup. Maybe Phil did have an EB-1, then the Jazz bass, then the Starfire then the EB-3....

The EB-3 looks like it left the factory as an EB-3, not as a modded EB-0. It is interesting to see that both Bisonics were fitted facing the same way, and with a long thumbrest attached between them. Phil must have intended this to be a 'fingerstyle' bass, so his dabbling in that technique must have been fairly involved for a while.

From "rusty the scoob" on the Alembic forum:
"I've been obsessed with the details of this bass for well over a year and I have to respectfully disagree - I think the earlier EB0 and the later EB3 were not the same bass.

In those early years Phil went through basses like Bobby went through guitars in the 70's and 80's, and he rarely keeps his basses once he's bored with them.

In order to make a 60's EB0 match the details of the bass in the pics above they would have had to:

1. Swap the 3-ply pickguard for a 5 ply one.

2. Rout for the 2nd pickup in exactly the right location - the Hagstrom/DarkStar is wider but after much debate and study with my dad, determining the scale of the pics using the distances between the frets as a known distance and comparing it to measurements from currently-produced EB3s, the distance between the Hagstrom and bridge matches the distance between the Gibson mini-humbucker and bridge. The far edge of the pickup rout on a current Gibson and on Phil's EB-whatever are both 28 1/4" from the nut.

3. Drill three holes for the two additional knobs and the Varitone switch in exactly the right places for 1969-70 EB3 specs.

4. Possibly replace the bridge - I don't have SFTS in front of me but the main tray of the bridge on Phil's is exactly right for a 1969 bass. Gibson changed their bass bridge designs extremely often in the 60's - probably because they were all bad designs!

I especially can't imagine them bothering to do 1 and 3. I think they'd have left the 3 ply pickguard on it and drilled the extra knob holes wherever they felt like it."

Hope that helps.

 

[spacebassed]

That is an amazing looking bass. I love those pickups. Interesting that the coils are trapezoidal, yet the cases are rectangular. I've seen earlier pickups that look like this;

I guess the theory behind them is that they need to sense a greater area of string on the lower strings because of the wave-length of the notes being produced?

I have no idea what the theory is. In some ways, I'd think you'd want the wider part over the thinner strings to create a more uniform tone across the bass, but I don't know if the wider string sensing affects level or if it just affects the aperture of the pickup. Regardless, it sounds good enough that I'm not too tempted to mess with it.

They did both! If you watch the Tivoli '72 video (at about the 11 min. mark) you can clearly see the trapezoidal pickups in his Starfire with the wider aperture under the treble side. You can also clearly see him switch from a pick to fingers during "It Hurts Me Too" (just under 42 min in).

 

[edwinhurwitz]

They did both! If you watch the Tivoli '72 video (at about the 11 min. mark) you can clearly see the trapezoidal pickups in his Starfire with the wider aperture under the treble side. You can also clearly see him switch from a pick to fingers during "It Hurts Me Too" (just under 42 min in).



Here are some screen captures from the vid, where they do indeed look trapezoidal. It would be interesting to try to find some good shots from Sunshine Daydream to see what's going on there. A BluRay version should provide some very good fidelity.

 

[moonliner]

They did both! If you watch the Tivoli '72 video (at about the 11 min. mark) you can clearly see the trapezoidal pickups in his Starfire with the wider aperture under the treble side. You can also clearly see him switch from a pick to fingers during "It Hurts Me Too" (just under 42 min in).

I was going to mention that too. Clearly there was a lot of experimentation going on.

 

[FretlessMainly]

At 24:40-24:43 of Sunshine Daydream (beginning of Rider, but it's tail end of the transition from China Cat) there's a tight shot of the pickups and they appear quite clearly to be black and rectangular.

 

[spacebassed]

Here we go (@ 27:20)


It also has the wood pickup ring and not the earlier brass(?) one in the Tivolis video. Definitely different pickups. It appears that the tailpiece was also shortened (or broken) between Copenhagen and Veneta too.

 

[wisconsindead]

some interesting discussions going on here.

Edwin, is there any place where we could access some good audio recording of your starfire?

 

[edwinhurwitz]

some interesting discussions going on here.

Edwin, is there any place where we could access some good audio recording of your starfire?

Good question. I'll have to search around. I haven't really played many gigs I've wanted to post since the bass got upgraded.

 

[moonliner]

Here we go (@ 27:20)


It also has the wood pickup ring and not the earlier brass(?) one in the Tivolis video. Definitely different pickups. It appears that the tailpiece was also shortened (or broken) between Copenhagen and Veneta too.

My guess is that the tailpiece was altered for weight concerns.

 

[kohntarkosz]

I had never noticed the change of pickups between Europe '72 and Veneta before. What good eyes you all have! I guess the consensus was that the trapezoidal shape didn't contribute anything significant. My guess would be that it would have quite an unbalanced output, and the lower strings would dominate. For "fun" once, I set up a cheapy P-bass so that each pickup half went to a different output. It was amazing to hear a little of the G string, and quite a bit of the D string bleeding through the E-A side of the P pickup.

I guess that the same would be true of the trapezoidal design. A bit of the A string would be picked up by the E string area of the pickup, a little less of the D string into the A string area etc etc... The strings would get progressively quieter as each one in sensed by slighly less pickup area as you go from E to G.

 

[edwinhurwitz]

I had never noticed the change of pickups between Europe '72 and Veneta before. What good eyes you all have! I guess the consensus was that the trapezoidal shape didn't contribute anything significant. My guess would be that it would have quite an unbalanced output, and the lower strings would dominate. For "fun" once, I set up a cheapy P-bass so that each pickup half went to a different output. It was amazing to hear a little of the G string, and quite a bit of the D string bleeding through the E-A side of the P pickup.

I guess that the same would be true of the trapezoidal design. A bit of the A string would be picked up by the E string area of the pickup, a little less of the D string into the A string area etc etc... The strings would get progressively quieter as each one in sensed by slighly less pickup area as you go from E to G.

You'd think so, but you don't really notice it while playing the bass. It does work, for some reason. I haven't had a string balance issue. But, obviously there was a reason they quit doing it.