Bartolini Mk1 pickup

[Alun]

Hi all. Anyone know if the Bartolini Mk 1 bass pickup is active? The reason I ask is that I have one in my Cort Curbow, along with 3 band active EQ, and am debating whether it's feasible to fit a switch that will route the pickup directly to the jack should the battery die.

Is there an easy way to tell? I could just pull the battery but as the signal will still be trying to go through the EQ, I still won't know.

Any help gratefully received.

Ta,
Alun

[garbev]

Hi Alun,

Greeting from sunny Maesteg.
The MK1 is a 'passive' pickup in that it doesn't require a power source to work unlike Emg's.
It should be quite straightforward to bypass any preamp but the output of the bass may
drop unacceptably. An elegant but expensive option would be to modify or replace the
preamp to one with a bypass option such as an East or some of the Bartolini's.
To check out the levels I would suggest 'hotwiring' the p/up to the output jack, I
did it once with a Bart soapbar and it was fine and quite liberating not having a
Vol or Tone control on a gig!

Hope this helps,

Gary.

[Alun]

Thanks Gary, that's the answer I was hoping for

Will have a go when I get five minutes.

Cheers
Alun