Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Anyone heard of these pups? SVZ lists these as the pups on his 2 '59 reissue Strats (lists his 2002 660/12TP and 350V63 Liverpool as well)on his touring gear list. I currently have SRV's on my '92 American Strat. GC don't know nuthin'.

If what's left of my memory serves, years ago I was told that Elloitt Randall played a Stratoblaster equipped Strat on Steely Dan's Reelin' In The Years. I think it's some kind of preamp system, haven't heard the name in a long time though.

The Alembic Stratoblaster was a 9v powered preamp. you could adjust the levels and EQ by internal trimpots. I'm not much on active EQ guitars.. I like the old fashion pickups into a cable into an amp. There was lotsa experamentin' back in them seventies. Some of it not so great....All it really was is a preamp/booster with some EQ. I think there are pedals now that will do that stuff better. You'd have to route some wood out of your guitars to make it all fit.

http://store.yahoo.com/alembic/blaster.html

This is all it's down to now. I inquired about this when I was at Alembic and it's similar to what BC Rich was doing to their stuff in the 70's etc. Good for boosting a lower output pups.

At 100mA drain, the battery will NOT last approximately 10 months as the ad states, unless you use an external pack of D cells. They may have meant 100uA (microamps). 100mA would drain a 9V battery within 10 hours. 100uA would give 1000 times longer battery life than 100mA.

I wonder how it'd be on a Ric - on a hollowbody, you wouldn't need to rout out any wood...

I prefer preamps and boosts (for leads) over distortion pedals, so I am intrigued. Anyone ever had one on a Rickenbacker?