Author Topic: Beautiful guitar, Alembic, Oasis, Stars, etc. experts needed (Read 768 times)

gtrguy · « **on:** April 30, 2009, 10:46:47 AM »

Just bought this guitar but do not know much about it. It has been sitting in its custom case for years. It?s a bubinga neck-through with some Alembic influence, from the look of it. It had the same knobs as a 70?s Alembic, and the original electronics use a 5 pin cable (like my Alembic) to a bubinga housed power supply. There is a module in the electronics that says ?startone?. HiA pickups. I am thinking this might be from Stars Guitars in the 70?s? It has gold Schaller tuners. It was made by a Keith Watson, according to the seller. Quite heavy, as you can imagine. I am planning on restoring the original electronics to the guitar. There is also another module that is encapsulated with a lot of wires. Old description says: ?controls do the following: LED nearest the bridge - on-board preamp on/off indicator. Next switch - pickup selector, next switch ? on-board preamp boost on/off, next ? instrument electronics on/off, next switch ? PUP phase. LED ? inst on/off indicator, knob nearest bridge ? preamp vol when preamp boost engaged, next 2 knobs ? vol ea PUP, last 2 knobs ? parametric EQ. One seems to set freq and the other boosts or cuts selected freq. I know there are some 70?s experts here who might know something about it (Oasis, Stars, and Irwin experts) or the electronics. I am going to try tha cable on my series bass and also open up the power supply to see what it does. Thanks, Dave

(Message edited by davehouck on April 30, 2009)

57basstra · « **Reply #1 on:** April 30, 2009, 10:52:46 AM »

interesting ax

jedisan · « **Reply #2 on:** April 30, 2009, 11:02:43 AM »

Yes, interesting axe indeed. Me thinks the bulder became confused, as I think the power supply case should have been used for the top of the guitar. Just a personal thing, I guess. Sweet pieces of wood, though.

jedisan · « **Reply #3 on:** April 30, 2009, 11:03:30 AM »

Yes, interesting axe indeed. Me thinks the builder became confused, as I think the power supply case should have been used for the top of the guitar. Just a personal thing, I guess. Sweet pieces of wood, though.

elwoodblue · « **Reply #4 on:** April 30, 2009, 12:02:54 PM »

That's a strange beast,

What kind of pickups are those? bartolini's?
...also it looks sorta like the intonation is opposite from what I usually see on a right-handed instrument ...could just be the picture (the third one).

...and that rack case takes the cake...wow

olieoliver · « **Reply #5 on:** April 30, 2009, 12:11:57 PM »

I think its pretty cool looking myself. Kind of an Warwick Alembic hybrid. HMMMM a Warlembic.

OO

lbpesq · « **Reply #6 on:** April 30, 2009, 12:31:31 PM »

IIRC I had a 2 band eq that I got from Stars Guitars that I think was called the StarTone. The electronics were all embedded in a plastic box, about 1 by 2 that was filled with some type of epoxy so you couldn't see the circuit. It had two pots that replaced the tone pots on a strat, one for treble and one for bass. It was an active eq that required a 9v. Does this description match what you have? Either way, congrats on a very cool looking guitar and a great find, though those horns look like they could be dangerous! lol.

Bill, tgo

keith_h · « **Reply #7 on:** April 30, 2009, 12:55:23 PM »

Elwood,
HiA's are an early Bartolini pickup model. I have also seen them on some Hyaks if my memory is correct.

Keith

elwoodblue · « **Reply #8 on:** April 30, 2009, 01:39:05 PM »

Thanks,
I missed the pickup info in the description somehow.

cozmik_cowboy · « **Reply #9 on:** April 30, 2009, 02:16:48 PM »

HiA's are an early Bartolini pickup model

IIRC, HiA was actually the original brand name - later changed to Bartolini.

Peter

dela217 · « **Reply #10 on:** April 30, 2009, 05:03:57 PM »

That is definately Stars electronics. It looks like the startone module with another one. They also made something called stardrive. That was some sort of overdrive circuit, I guess. Perhaps that is the other module pictured? I have a Stars brochure around here somewhere, I will check it out and see.

Hyaks did not come with Hi-A pickups. I had one of the first Hyaks out and even the earliest ones had their own pickups. The Oasis basses and guitars were the ones that used the Hi-A pickups.

How about sharing a picture of the logo on the headstock? That could shed some light.
Thanks!
Michael

(Message edited by dela217 on April 30, 2009)

gtrguy · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2009, 07:24:27 PM »

Michael, I think you are the person I need for my answers! The 1st module is a Startone and the other has no name. I think the builder was a luthier who just knew his stuff. His initials are on the headstock. The power supply is not the same as my 76 series blue box. It has a smaller transformer and 50 volt caps and the output is only mono. The five pin cord, however, is identical to my series one cord and now i can't tell which was which! At this point w/o the actice electronics installed it sounds like a 70's Les Paul recording I used to have years ago that I sold (wimpy and too clean). I am interesting in what the 'startone' module is. Thanks, Dave

(Message edited by davehouck on April 30, 2009)

jagerphan84 · « **Reply #12 on:** April 30, 2009, 08:24:19 PM »

I used to have a Stars explorer-shaped bass (now in the hands of another club member) which also had a StarTone preamp. Here's the description I got a few years ago from a fella out in the Bay area who worked at Stars:

The Startone is a state variable sweep filter, similar to the Alembic Bass design but with much simpler circuitry. The rectangular, two section black pot is the sweep. It goes across the spectrum from 40hz up to about 2Khz in an approximately one octave bandwidth. The shorter black rectangular pot is the gain and will give you up to +18db boost or down to -18db cut at the frequency the sweep pot is set at. The switch is a bypass.

The batteries are paralleled so that they still only supply 9 volts to the circuit but last a lot longer than one battery. You can use two or only one. With one battery you should get between 40 to 60 hours continuous use. If you decide to use only one battery, put some plastic foam or piece of a sponge in the compartment to keep the single battery from flopping around. I can't see the output jack, but it should be a rectangular black type. It has a shunt on it that turns the circuit on when a cord is plugged in, and off when you unplug it. So, don't leave the cord plugged in when you are not playing it as the batteries will continue to drain.

Seeing the caramel colored potted circuit I can say that the Startone is a second generation made somewhere between 1980 and 1982. I redesigned the existing circuit board to be about half the size of the first generation making it a lot easier to fit into existing control cavities without additional routing.

From the pics it looks like your setup is a little more elaborate than that on my old bass, but I thought I'd pass the info along anyway.

gtrguy · « **Reply #13 on:** May 01, 2009, 09:19:24 AM »

Thank you!

tmoney61092 · « **Reply #14 on:** May 01, 2009, 10:27:53 AM »

I think I bought one of those startones off of eBay, the guy had it listed as an alembic, if anyoneould like to buy it then send me an email

Taylor