The Last Bass Outpost

How do you overdrive pickups themselves? Surely that is impossible.

Jack Casady used to add a second magnet to the Bisonics back in the day. Some came from Hagstrom with two magnets on the back, and some came with only one. Jack had an extra magnet added to one half of his signature Epiphone's pickup as well. Jack definitely seems to think that magnet strength alone is enough to change a pickup favourably.

For reference my repro Guild BS-1 (I wonder who made these? Artec? G&B? There is a Far-East OEM feel to this pickup), has two magnets, and is a 'bridge' pickup.



And that quick connect thing can get in the bin.

I thought the Bisonics in Jack and Phil's basses were stock, and it was all the downwind primitive active stuff that was the unique bit. Phil, Jack and the proto-Alembic crew favoured the Bisonic because it had quite a flat, even response and wide bandwidth. It made a good pickup platform to start shaping tone with active systems, because it provided such a 'blank canvas', tonally. That is why I can't quite drink the Dark Star/Bisonic KoolAid. The Crown of Creation/Live Dead tone is the product of uniquely modified basses with other stuff going on in them, rather than the tone of hotrodded Bisonics. Live Dead was an EB-3 anyway, with some unusual looking pickups going on that might have been rebuilt Bisonics and might have been something else.

Phil started off with a bone-stock Starfire II bass:



But by the time the Alembic guys were done with it it had turned into this:



The Bisonics are gone!

I have a Line6 *thingy* (Live X3, or something like that) which apparently has a Versatone Pan-o-Flex modeled in it. I just can't work out which model it is. They've not modeled the actual Pan-o-Flex function of the original amp as far as I can tell.

The tone on the track 'Crown of Creation' is something to behold. The way Jack clings onto those notes at the end, right to the point of feedback, is brilliant.

Mani (Stone Roses/Primal scream) is going to have a shop on reverb.  Prices will be stupid but there's some cool shit including 2 Mesa 400+ heads , a Ric 4005, EB3...

I spotted that! I would prefer his gear if he hadn't scrawled his signature on the instruments! That signature needs wiped off the pickguard of the 4005!

Luckily he kept the Sharpie away from the Mosrite, which is a gorgeous bass. The EB-3 apparently has artwork on the back, and it looks sanded. The neck pickup also looks a bit big and a bit too square?

Mani has some cool vinyl-wrapped Jack Casady basses, but I'm not seeing any mention of these in the sale. I wonder how much a stock gold JC will go for, with the Sharpie scrawl included.

I've just spotted the red jumper wire grounding the Bigsby to the switch! Sure enough Ritchie's appears to have a wire in the same place, taped over.



I also found this image:



That looks a bit more roadworn, and the wire is very clear!

The $2 million axe:



There appears to be the same bare spot to the left of the neck pickup in all three photos.

The pickup looks sharp, but the bass has a long way to come yet!

I'm planning to get it sprayed in the colour called 'RAL 9001', which is a bit like this:




My project last night was to radius the pickup's black under-ring to match the top of the bass. I also used fine, heavily worn-out sanding blocks to knock the shine and sharpness off the black ring. It looked a bit cheap and chintzy.

I think a dummy coil might rob too much of the magic from the Bisonic. I have a dummy coil in my PJ bass, and it has robbed that bass of some of its magic.

Anyway, now I'm here:

The Guild Bisonic showed up! I will need to match the underside of the trim ring to the radius of the top of the body, which will be good fun. Presumably lots of sandpaper and double-sided tape will appear in my future.

The pickup itself is nicely made, and I will have to remove some wood from the factory pickup route in the body to make it all fit. Quite an unusual and inspired design, where the pickup is its own mounting frame to some degree. And of course, once you get in amongst it, it is a fat single coil pickup with a fiddly over-engineered pole height adjuster setup. The emperor is naked!

Dummy coil, yay or nay? How noisy are these pickups?

No idea what they are worth, being honest... I remember asking a long time back but didn't get a clear response... Don't tend to see them come up here too frequently... If it was an "unknown" source I was hoping for a steal...

Your selling the Cassidy bits too...?

Yup the entire harness and pickup assy from my Casady is up for grabs as I'm swapping the pickup for a reproduction Bisonic pickup.

I bought the Thunderbird pickups for a guy who had removed them from a Thunderbird. I had them in the Jazz bass I posted about here.