jte said:
I'll defer to you on this, but the material I quoted from Wickersham himself is the source for my statements, not vague internet ramblings. In the same book cited, Wickersham on page 19 says "My background in in broadcasting and hi-fi electronics- magnetic phono cartridges and tape heads- led me to realize that putting the first amplifier close to the pickup would improve this further" (high frequency loss due to loading the pickup).
Then Wickersham refers to the emitter-follower as an amplifier and talks again to where the amp is placed- "To get the best response, it was necessary to reduce the lead length to zero, so the electronics ere built into the terminals of the pickup." Now the semantics of "active pickup" to ME mean the active stage is right there at the pickup. No, it's not inside the Hagstrom pickup housings like an EMG, but it's right on the pickup assembly, so it's not like a typical bass pre-amp that's connected to the PUP with 6" of wire.
So, the RCA CA 3018 Darlington-connected monolithic circuit (again quoting Wickersham in "American Basses", page 19) IS active, yes?
And that circuit was connected right on the pickup terminals and not on wires extending from the pickup terminals, but right on the pickup, correct?
There's where the semantics of "active pickup" comes from in my use. I appreciate the clarification.
John
Not a problem, friend. The material I'm quoting is from almost 4 decades of talking to Ron, and Rick, and Jack, and bizarrely, Bear - who insisted to me that Jack never played a hollow bass in the 60s. Obviously, as the saying goes, he WAS there.
So, yes, an EF circuit IS active. Ron's latest take (see Blair's book) is that the bass Phil gave me was the first active bass - but the circuit wasn't on the output terminals of the Hagstroms, it was hung from the top of the bass - it still has the two holes. But circuit-wise it was. They're two different meanings.
An amplifier can have a unity gain structure, meaning no increase in volume, but buffering. In this case the goal was a drop in output impedance. These particular Hagstrom pickups were pretty high in output level.
Jack's brown bass wouldn't have had it - this is where Ron and Bear begin their collaboration. The next instrument seems to be mine, although it might have been an early stage of playing with Phil's Starfire. Then Phil goes back to the heavily modified EB-O, which probably had it too. Jack's sunburst Starfire might be right before, or not - I don't remember if we figured out when Phil puts down the Guild for a couple years and goes to the Gibson. And then on to more elaborate experiments. The big revelation was a few years ago when, from listening, and playing with the elaborate filters, I realized that Jack's sunburst Starfire had to have passive filtration. I called Ron and he agreed.
So, then, finally to the point: if you play whatever bass you're using through tweeters, especially bullet tweeters, and then play it through an amp with a normal speaker arrangement, and listen to the top end, you'll hear what I'm writing about. The treble that we associate with the sound of Alembic's early experimental days isn't what passes these days for full-range sound. Its based on limited bandwidth drivers. As far as a I recall, the presence of a bass tweeters goes back to late 80s SWR, and even then it was Steve's complete misinterpretation of something. The Baby Blue came closest - no surprise Jack used it. Although there are 2 speaker Versatones, with a 12 and an 8, as near as I can tell Jack didn't know they ever existed until 93. He had 4, and they were single 12 models.
As for the Wall, it was more than technically impressive in theory - it sounded incredible, which doesn't mean the Dead were at their height, even then. I'm most fond of 71-72. Henry Kaiser just sent me the 72 Rotterdam Dark Star- holy bejesus.
Love that 66!!! Two words, flatwound strings! At least if you're looking for that thick, early jack tone.
