Experience with the Planet Wing Pickup

[Eastman]

I have the Planet Wing pickup on both of my basses now. One is a German Emanuel Wilfer, the other one a no name Hungarian 5-string, both strung with “The Jazzer”. I choose the Planet Wing pickup after I have tried several other pickups e.g. Wilson, Schertler DYN-B, Shadow.

The Planet Wing pickup has a more natural sound than other piezo pickups have. It reproduces the sound of my basses well and even the low B string of the Hungarian one it tight and focused. It seems that this pickup has no problems with these low frequencies.

I run the signal of the Planet Wing pickup directly in my Acoustic Image Focus and I have no problems with impedance matching and distorted sound. Sometimes I use a Retrospec compressor to make the signal a little bit smother and damp the hard attacks. With this configuration, the Planet Wing pickup sounds fine and I am happy with. Every note over the whole fingerboard comes clear and with the same volume. So far, I could not find any dead spots in the frequency range. As expected from this type of pickup, feedback is not a problem.

It has also more or less destroyed all the prejudices I have had against piezos. In fact I liked the fat and full sound of the Wilson, but it is more on the electrical side and I didn’t like the necessary drilling. I also liked the natural sound of the DYN-B but I never could get a loud, clear and focussed sound out of my very resonant 4-string bass. The Planet Wing pickup does it all … and it is quite simple, no extra holes need to be drilled, no phantom power is necessary.

From my point of view, it is a good alternative to other, even more expensive upright bass transducers.

Have fun with the Planet Wing pickup …

Eastman

[Eastman]

Uhps sorry, it has appeared several times before and I have forgotten to ad the link. Here it is:

http://www.planet-pickups.com

Eastman

[Slappin' PeeWee]

funny, I thought I was perhaps the only one on this forum to use this pickup, as it has just hit the market.

Eastman, I fully agree with you, this is the best pu I have tried so far - and I have tried many, in particular pu's for bridge mounting. It's not just a little better, it's by far better than the rest of the bunch.

The buttom is simply overwhelming: massive, yet thight and natural. The sound it produces seems coming from a large membrane conderser mic placed in front of the urb, not from a piezoceramic pickup.

Also, it's the only pickup I have tried that doesn't sound "piezo" on the highs.