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Background - Recreating the Hagstrom single coil bass pickup used on Hagstrom Coronado IV, Guild Starfire and M-85 basses. The following text is from Fred Hammon, owner and head bottle-washer at Hammon Engineering:
The "Bi-Sonic" pickups were manufactured in Sweden by the Hagstrom company and have not been produced since the late '60s. Having a background in mechanical design, I decided to make them myself. A good friend, bassist Dan Schwartz introduced me to Rick Turner. Rick was really enthusiastic about the project and both mentored and encouraged me throughout the recreation process, mostly via email.
I feel extremely fortunate to be able to participate in the history of the pickup I'm recreating.
I started playing music in the 60's being influenced early by the Beatles, Stones, Animals, even Tommy James and the Shondells.
Eventually I went the way of the hippy and got into the San Francisco psychedelic sound but was a little too young to participate in the scene.
Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane was a hero and major bass influence although I didn't discover that until years later when I started listening to their old stuff and heard myself in Jack's playing (or the other way around).
Jack and Phil Lesh (Grateful Dead) were playing hot-rodded basses that were modified by some hippy electronics wizards who gravitated to the San Francisco scene in the '60s. Ron Wickersham, Owsley "Bear" Stanley (LSD fame)and Rick Turner (luthier), later went on to form the Alembic company.
I became nostalgically obsessed with that whole scene a couple of years back and started looking through the internet to gather information. I became fascinated with the Hagstrom pickups that were used on Jack's Guild Starfire bass and was disappointed when Guild reissued that bass with the WRONG PICKUPS!
Check out the bass sounds on Jefferson Airplane's "Crown of Creation" and Grateful Dead's "Live Dead" to get an idea of the Hagstrom pickup sound.
We here at tonebender love the result of Fred's hard work and offer the DarkStar in our premium P-basses - There is NOTHING else that compares to their sound! |
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