Couple of Jack Casady questions!

[Basvarken]

Stratocaster jack

[Dave W]

The Guild reissue pickup is certainly truer to the original than the Dark Star.

[gearHed289]

While I'm routing the top of the bass for this pickup I might as well fit a Stratocaster jack, eh?

[Alanko]

The Guild reissue pickup is certainly truer to the original than the Dark Star.

Impossible! I thought those things were the pinnacle of passive bass guitar pickups, leaving a trail of knackered up basses with weird square routes in their wake? Honestly I remember a time on Talkbass where any bass that sat still long enough got the Dark Star treatment... glad to hear that you consider my £90 BS-1 pickup to be closer to the original Bisonic than the Dark Star.

The Strat jack comment was a joke-ish. I saw a picture on my Instagram feed of a '60s ES-355 with a freshly compressed/angled output jack with splintered wood etc. It have me the fear! Plus the Strat jack route gives you another angle to get to the pots from. Plus the Bisonic is a big chrome hunk, so why not have one more?

[Pilgrim]

While I'm routing the top of the bass for this pickup I might as well fit a Stratocaster jack, eh?

[Dave W]

Impossible! I thought those things were the pinnacle of passive bass guitar pickups, leaving a trail of knackered up basses with weird square routes in their wake? Honestly I remember a time on Talkbass where any bass that sat still long enough got the Dark Star treatment... glad to hear that you consider my £90 BS-1 pickup to be closer to the original Bisonic than the Dark Star.
...

A longtime local friend bought one of the Chris Hillman Signature Guilds and has been gigging with it this year. Sounds like an original to me.

Same thing happened at the Dudepit as must have happened on Talkbass. Any old beat up 80s plywood import would get posted as "Dark Star candidate?" What really floored me, though, were the guys buying new expensive basses and routing them for Dark Stars, then they'd get tired of them and try to sell them for more than they had invested. That only works for a while, then you run out of customers.

[Alanko]

I guess a lot of gear has that sort of 'mania' period. I just Googled "Dark Star pickup" and saw a lot of basses with those pickups fitted.

Thinking ahead, how noisy is one of these pickups? Will a dummy coil be a sound addition, or will it kill the delicate tone of the pickup?


Also....

[Highlander]

Go XLR...

[Alanko]

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?

[Dave W]

My friend's Guild hasn't been noisy on stage. OTOH I haven't heard it in isolation and I have no idea how well the bass is shielded.

[Alanko]

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:

[bassilisk]

That looks sharp! All this talk of Bi-Sonics made me dig out my 60's Coronado IV sporting 2 of them.

I forget how good these pickups sound.

[Alanko]

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.

[Dave W]

I like that color!

[Rob]

I like the color too.
This seems a great project.