Pickup on Eub?

cigi · #1 08-22-2006, 12:02 PM

Hello,

I just bought an electric upright bass without a pickup. I tried it with my Shadow sh951 (which works fine on my acoustic upright) and the output of the D- string was very weak if you compare it to the output of the other strings. My local luthier said, who also did the setup, he thought it was because the bridge and the instrument did'nt resonate as much as with an acoustic instrument and therefore the vibrations don't reach the pickup as good as those of the other strings. He suggested to put a double pickup in (between both wings of the bridge).

Now i'm thinking about putting the shadow sh sb2 on my eub. This is a double disc piezo transducer pickup. The big difference between this one and the sh950 (an underwood copy) is that it has 2 piezos in stead of 4. In the sh950 you have 2 piezos on each side, one pointing to the strings to pick up their sound and one pointing to the body to pick up the bodys sound. Now I was thinking about the sh sb2 that has only 1 piezo per side because on my eub the body sound is virtually nothing, so it would be stupid to put a double piezo on each side.

Can anyone give me advice about my problem and which choice would be the best?

p.s.: the sh sb2 costs about a third of the sh950

Thanks

Cigi

**Bob Gollihur** · #2 08-22-2006, 02:05 PM

IME it's the bridge: the type/style, height, composition, thickness, etc., combined with the body material, thickness, etc.... that determine which type of pickup will be most successful. Also, knowing if you're trying to emulate an acoustic bass or a hybrid sort of instrument is helpful.

If you can post that info I think we all can more successfully pitch in with suggestions for you.

cigi · #3 08-24-2006, 03:43 PM

Hello Bob thanks for the reply.

The eub I have is basically a copy of a vektor eub (with a few own touches of the builder). It is built out of a massive piece of oak, ebony fingerboard and a bridge out of maple. The bridge is smaller than a regular bridge, but also has wings to put an underwood style pick up in between.

With this kind of eub I don't expect to ge a sound that comes near the sound of an acoustic, so it is more my intention to get a kind of hybrid sound.

The sound with the one sided underwood (shadow 951) is very good voor de E and A string, but the G and especially the D string don't give enough output.

Greetz,

Cigi

**Bob Gollihur** · #4 08-24-2006, 05:53 PM

I am guessing that your pickup is inserted in the low side, which results in a sound that is biased towards the side into which the pickup is inserted. The shorter than "normal 3/4 size" bridge means that the distance between the top of the bridge, and there isn't enough wood for the sound to diffuse and capture all four strings evenly.

There are a number of ways to go. You could use a pickup system that has a transducer on each side of the bridge, or one that has transducers positioned higher on the bridge evenly below each string. I would not recommend any under-bridge foot pickup as your solid body may not vibrate enough to deliver a distinct signal.

Since you already have a single transducer, if you want to experiment with the bridge you have, or make another to work with, you could also try to locate the pickup in the center of the bridge to get all four string sounds evenly.

Given you are going for a less natural URB sound, you could consider a mix of pickups, perhaps bridge-top type transducers (which result in a string-centeric character) with wing or even magnetic pickups.

It's worth experimenting, within rea$on, of course, to get the character of your own special instrument to sound the way
you expect and want.

Good luck with your project!

cigi · #5 08-26-2006, 04:30 AM

Thanks a lot for the reply Bob!

I'm first going to put the singel transducer in the middle, that's a good idea.

I'll let you know how it works out!

Greetings,

Cigi

cigi · #6 08-26-2006, 06:00 AM

ok Here is how the experiment worked out.

I put my half-underwood shadow pickup with an extra piece of wood between the opening in the middle of the bridge.

I plugged the shadow into my boss bass eq and in to my roland cube 60 as i always did before. The A and de D string sounded very good, but now the E and the G sounded flat and weak.

The conclusion I draw out of this experiment is that the best sollution will be to buy a pickup that I can but between the two wings.

Now there still is the question if I should buy a pickup like the Shadow 950 (underwood copy with 4 piezos, 2 on each side, one for string sound, one for body sound), or the sh sb2 (one piezo one each side, with this eub best directed towards the strings I think).

In my opinion the best sollution is to buy the sh sb2, since this non-acoustic instrument does'nt give much bodyvibrations.

What do you think?

Cigi

**Bob Gollihur** · #7 08-26-2006, 08:28 AM

I don't think you'd gain any advantage to having a transducer under the foot on a solid body EUB.

**Francois Blais** · #8 08-26-2006, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Gollihur

I don't think you'd gain any advantage to having a transducer under the foot on a solid body EUB.

I'm afraid I don't agree.
As an example, the Kydd EUB (all models except the XL) use a Fishman BP100 under the bridge feet.
I'd use the same setup if my Carruthers allowed it!

ToneRanger · #9 08-26-2006, 09:20 AM

I've had great success with these home-made piezos under the bridge foot - www.fittell.id.au/piezo
I found that using a thin shim of cork under the pickup helped get a reliable contact between bridge & pickup.

**Bob Gollihur** · #10 08-26-2006, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by francois

I'm afraid I don't agree.
As an example, the Kydd EUB (all models except the XL) use a Fishman BP100 under the bridge feet.
I'd use the same setup if my Carruthers allowed it!

Not in this case; please read the earlier posts that point out that he has a tall, almost full size bridge. That's why I asked him for details, as I believe pickup choice is ruled by bridge size/character and body material.

Quote:

...The eub I have is basically a copy of a vektor eub

See http://www.vektor-bass.de/vektor_e.htm

The Kydd bridge is very short; IME transducers under the feet are really only suitable in a solid body EUB if you have a very short bridge like the Kydd. My own EUB project also has a very short bridge, about Kydd-size, and I have a similar K&K Big Twin under that bridge.

Putting transducers under tall bridge feet on a solid body EUB results in a very distant and weak signal IME, as well as picking up as much handling noise as bass signal.

cigi · #11 08-28-2006, 05:06 AM

Thank you all for the information,

However, I don't think my last dillema is being understood correctly.

I'm not thinking about putting a pickup either between the wings or between the feet of the bridge and the body.

Both pickups are going to be placed between the wings if I would buy one of them.

The only thing i'm trying to find out if I have to buy a pickup which has four transducers (2 between each wing), or 2 transducers (1 between each wing.

In this case :

The shadow sh 950 (4 transducers)

http://www.shadow-electronics.com/vi...tml?id=&loc=BE

or

The shadow sh sb2 (2 transducers)

http://www.shadow-electronics.com/viewpro.html?id=38

Timothy