{"id":42659,"date":"2014-09-07T11:16:41","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T18:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=42659"},"modified":"2024-06-16T10:09:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-16T17:09:19","slug":"conns-r-b-electronic-pick-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2014\/conns-r-b-electronic-pick-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Conn\u2019s R-B Electronic Pick-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw something very interesting on eBay<\/a> last night. It was something that I had never heard of before. Have you ever heard of Conn\u2019s R-B electronic pick-up that was intended for use on all wind instruments?<\/p>\n

\"Conn\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: ANTIQUE~GRAPHIQUE on eBay.com<\/span><\/p>\n

Unless you’ve been in a coma since the 1960s  \ud83d\ude09 , you should have heard of Selmer’s Varitone, and quite possibly the Buescher Varitone<\/a>, as well as the Vox systems that were utilized by King<\/a> and Beaugnier<\/a>. However, from the research that I have done, Conn\u2019s R-B electronic pick-up was a bit more obscure.<\/p>\n

Now I freely admit I’m not really a gear head. True, I do have a lot of saxophones, and yes, out of necessity I also have an amplification system. What I have though is not antiquated like the Varitone, Vox, or this R-B electronic pick-up. My system is relatively modern, and very digital.<\/p>\n

I do have a fascination with the older, analogue systems of sound amplification and modification, so this morning I decided to see if I could find out something about Conn\u2019s R-B electronic pick-up. A rather cursory Google search turned up only one reference to this Conn system. It came from the September 9, 1967 edition of Billboard<\/em> magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the following article written by Bruce Weber about the amplified instrument market, he writes about the premier of Conn’s Multi-Vider, which put it in direct competition with Varitone and Vox.<\/p>\n

\"Sept<\/a><\/p>\n

Now this made sense, the Conn Multi-Vider is a much more common<\/em> piece of vintage saxophone electronica. Here’s an ad for the unit from 1968…<\/p>\n

\"1968<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: ANTIQUE~GRAPHIQUE on eBay.com<\/span><\/p>\n

If you’d like to see what they looked like in real life, Doctor Sax has a couple on his site. The first<\/a> is perhaps the first made<\/a>\u2014at least based on its serial number. The other<\/a> came with its manual, pickup, two pickup port grommets, plugs, cords, power supply and original shipping box<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Multi-Vider ad above doesn’t state if the “American-made microphone with moisture-resistant stainless steel diaphragm” is Conn\u2019s R-B electronic pick-up, or a variation on it, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t be.<\/p>\n

\n
…this is just my blog<\/em>. <\/span> My \u201creal\u201d <\/b> website is<\/span> www.bassic-sax.info.<\/a> If you\u2019re looking for <\/span> sax info<\/strong>,<\/span> you should check it out too.<\/span>There\u2019s lots<\/em> there! <\/span><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw something very interesting on eBay last night. It was something that I had never heard of before. Have you ever heard of Conn\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[94],"tags":[638,660,681,604,644,666,343,38,540],"class_list":["post-42659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accessories-saxophone","tag-conn","tag-ebay","tag-electronic-effects-unit","tag-multi-vider","tag-photos","tag-varitone","tag-vintage-accessories","tag-vintage-ads","tag-vox"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t