Here's my rig

[Double Daddy]

I've been playning small group jazz pizz and some arco in the south Atlanta metro area for the last 8 years on a plywood Dvorak 3/4. I wasn't particularly happy with the tinny, string-raspy sound I was getting from the fIshman BP-100 that I mounted with clips per the instructions. And mics (lavolier wrapped in foam or a small goose-neck drum mic clipped on to the bridge) give feedback. So, after looking at some forums, the Gage Realist looked appealing, particularly because of its mounting under the foot of the bridge. It seemed that would produce a more natural sound.

But rather than spending the $175 for the Gage, I put the Fishamn piezo plates under both feet of my bridge. Other than slightly canting the bridge due to the thickness (or thinness!) of the pickups, it works fine. I get a fairly smooth sound both arco and pizz when running thru a small (Behringer MX802A) PA and a Yamaha MS400 powered speaker. I run the keyboard and my vocal mic thru that board, too. Works pretty well at high volumes with no feedback problems (although not a naturally acoustic sounding as I'd like at higher volumes - the quest goes on).

Anyway, just thought I'd pass on my present solution to y'all.

[Double Daddy]

I (Bill Nelmes is my real name) play upright and vocals with keyboardist Rick Massengale mostly in a duo restaurant thing (all old standards). Occassionally play with sax Ira Polk and trumpet Martin Rudy. Have played a couple of gigs down town with Gordon Vernick, prof at GA State Univ. Am pretty satisfied with the south metro area; have a day job and understanding spouse that keep me able to do a steady weekend gig and a lot of casuals.

How about you?

[Pacman]

Last I heard, Ed, Sambuca and 290 were still going on. The straight ahead thing was Churchhill Grounds (swing association plays there). Niel is still one of the only upright players in town (real upright players, that is), or at least he was when I left...

Did you ever play with Jaques Lesure? Guitar player, pretty good.

[Double Daddy]

Never played with Jaques, but have met him . He is a good player. Smbuca and Cafe 290 are still around.

[Matthew Tucker]

Double Daddy, going back to your rig description; I've been experimenting with pickup solutions for my "4x2" stick bass and through much experimentation ended up with a similar bridge-foot rig, but instead of using a regular pickup I've used a pair of $2.00 piezo buzzer elements (pull the plastic cover off and pull out the piezo plate) from an electronics store, wired together and each encased in a thin coat of araldite epoxy resin. Yeah I'm really a cheapster.

Now, initially just sandwiched between the bridge and body the tone was rather thin and I got a lot of finger noise.

However, with a thin strip of inner-tube under the pickup, the tone is much stronger and clearer. I put this down to the damping effect of the rubber on the high frequencies.

Then I discovered that by pulling the bridge OFF the body a fraction - I used a timber wedge while fiddling around - thus relieving the bridge pressure on the pickup, the tone and volume improved dramatically again.

This observation concurs with the "too tight" descriptions of some bridge-wing pickup designs.

So now I have to find a better way of relieving and/or adjusting the pressure on the piezo element.

My thoughts about thumb-screws on some kind of base-plate sound similar in theory to the adjustment available on the full-circle Fishman.

But I AM surpised that these ultra-cheap peizo plates sound so good. I have tried some regular contact pickups borrowed from my brother but my home made ones sound heaps better. Maybe because the elements themselves have quite a large
surface area - about 3/4 inch square each.

I'm wondering whether the size of the element has anything to do with the acoustic properties of a piezo transducer? It does when used as a buzzer, so I guess in reverse ...

How big would the element be in the new Fishman?

I can post some more pix if anyone is interested.