View Single Post
  #18  
Old 11-27-2008, 01:50 AM
Ken Smith's Avatar
Ken Smith Ken Smith is offline
Bassist, Luthier & Admin
 
Join Date: 01-18-2007
Location: Perkasie, PA
Posts: 4,851
Ken Smith is on a distinguished road
Cool some information?.. only?...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Braun View Post
Hey Ken,

Can you please give us some information on the development of the pickups, electronics, and pickup placement?
This is actually 3 separate answers as far as how things happened. I will be relatively brief for now and go deeper into it later if asked.

The Electronics in the Basses now are not at all what I originally intended. It was suggested to me in the beginning to go simpler like a Bass/Treble circuit other than the original big circuit like on 3 of the Basses we made for Stanley Clarke but I wanted what was in my head at the time.

The first BTs were started in 1981 with 4 knobs and some switches. These wend thru a few changes. In 1986 we did the concentric BT and made it for sale as a replacement for Fender type basses with some modifications needed but it would fit most. Then in 1993 we did the 4k-knob again but with an addable mid 5th knob. A few years ago we modified that and re-designed it to the current unit we have now.

On all the circuits from the first BT 4-knob to the Concentric and onwards I had played around with the Treble frequency center point as well as the shelf of the bass control. Mind you, the Amps we have today were not around in 1981 so the studio was about as close as you could get to hear the full range of the bass with they full range playback speakers.

The Pickups were also an idea in my head that took 3 years to get to and stayed there ever since the first Soapbars were completed in 1981. I personally made the first wooden casting molds out of Curly/Tiger Maple in my Brooklyn shop. The pickups we have now and since then is the sound in my head.

Placement... ok.. this was not as planned but it did come about unintentionally.

The first 20 pickups after a proto-type were all made by Bill Lawrence. Bill made a wooden cover for the first one and we made the other 20 in the shop. Then I ordered 60 more pickups and had some covers waiting. These were different. Bill had changed his tooling and didn't tell me. These used plastic mounting rings like a guitar pickup.

On one BT we made in 1981 the customer asked that we put the pickups as far back as possible towards the bridge. We did so and the mounting rings were almost touching each other. In a year of so he traded up and I took that bass back. Now though I had the new Soapbar and wanted to upgrade this earlier bass. We were able to re-route a slightly larger cur for the new pickup to fit and just barely routed away all the screw holes from the mounting rings. Now the pickups were further back towards the bridge with about 2 fingers of space between them, like they are now.

Maybe it was that bass, or that bass with there pickups or the placement or the re-build and re-firb of an older broken in bass.. something.. BUT, that bass was smoking.. I made the decision then that this would be the new pickup spacing.. Why? Because I liked it. No R&D.. just my gut feeling and some R&B actually..

That's in in a nutshell..
Reply With Quote