| "Powering the neck pickup" means you have the same preamp for the whole guitar. It just happens to be located inside the bridge pickup. So you run both pickup hots to the switch like passive pickups, and then essentially loop the hot through the preamp in the bridge pickup. See, active Bartolinis start life as a totally usable passive pickup, rather than an EMG for example which would be extremely low output if it didn't have the preamp. The EMG relies on the preamp to attain usable gain levels. The Bartolinis only require the preamp for tone shaping and a more subtle gain increase, for a more efficient output level. But then they have the headroom for a HUGE output/mid boost, that you can set by how you design the preamp circuit. It sounds hard to do, but most of the time the standard Bartolini recommended preamp components are perfect. And since the Bartolini is a good passive pickup, it can get a more traditional passive tone/dynamic vs. an EMG. That's why if you design it right, you can have a guitar that goes from solid passive tones to EMG (with increased dynamics) with the flick of a switch.
The street price should be around $100 each. Well worth it. I haven't noticed any decrease in usage, contrarily I've seen companies like Ibanez start using Bartolinis in their high end basses, and the mk1 is a Korean licensed product (with little or no real connection to a USA Bartolini) that's getting lots of usage. I've also never noticed an inconsisitency. BUT remember even the same pickup can sound very different if the preamp is set differently. So my best advice for a potential Bartolini client is to forget everything you've heard so far, and just tell me what you like. Then I design the system. With that, I literally have a 100% success rate over a period of 10+years. (that includes 6's and basses too) If someone says "I liked some and hated some" it's because he truly makes pickups for everyone. It's not like Duncan or Dimarzio where the bulk of their pups fit within a general vibe. He's got lots of pickups I don't like, too, because they were made for some jazz cat to use with a clean tube amp and the tone rolled off. On the other side, I don't like his ultra high gain, screaming "Evo" type pups either. But they are still awesome.
And when I say "blows away" a "brand x" pickup it's all still subjective. I don't mean it as a "Romanism" or in arrogance or anything. I just literally have had no client disagree after installation. But maybe that's just because those who would try the Bartolinis were more open minded, or had already decided they wanted something different or better than a typical "brand x." I don't know. |