[stonerbass]

Hi guys. I'm about to buy this Gibson LP Special. It is the one with 4 controls and the bartolini's, but how much should i pay for it? And would it be possible - and good - to replace the barts with t-bird pups? Oh, and can you tell me which materials it is made out of? Thanks.

[donnervogel]

Those pups are TB Plus pups, nothing else. Referring to them as "Bartolinis" is a common mistake, in fact just the active electronics are a Bart TCT circuit. The Les Paul DeLuxe basses were the ones with Bart electronics AND Bart pickups (they had Bartolini embossed on them and had a guitar humbucker shape) and sounded not nearly as raw amd mighty as the cheaper Special series.

Yes, you can chuck out the Bart circuit and the bass will be a passive LP with perfectly regular TB Plus pups. Whether you do that is a matter of taste, I find the active TB Plus pups still sound miles better than active Bartolinis, but of course they distort if you dig in too hard (as most only 9 volt fed active electronics do) and I find that they make the already assertive TB Plus sound a little too overbearing except for really hard/heavy music. But people have done it and not regretted it.

How much should you pay? 800 to a 1.000 bucks if in very good condition in the US, 900 Euros would be a fair price in Denmark considering how the Dollar has unnaturally (and unhealthily) declined in comparison to the Euro and how "everything is more expensive in Scandinavia".

Uwe

[stonerbass]

Then the seller didnt know about the pups, i guess.
But thanks for the help.

[donnervogel]

Lots of sellers do that, the old LPB line was confusing:

LPB-1/Specials were either passive OR TB Plus soapbar with Bartolini TCT circuit.

LPB-2/DeLuxes were always active with Bartolini pups AND Bartolini TCT circuit.

LPB-3/Standards were initially active with TB Plus chrome humbuckers (not soapbars like on the LPB-1/Specials) AND the Bartolini TCT circuit, but later on dropped the TCT circuit.

You can be forgiven to get it wrong sometimes!

Uwe