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Double Bass 6/2009 Pickup Roundtable

TroyK

TroyK

Mar 14, 2003
8,127
10,484
Seattle, WA
#1
Thinking about pickups again and started by reading all that I could. I went to the site where the guy has every pickup ever made listed with stats, but not opinions or reviews. There are a whole bunch of things listed there that I didn't know existed.

Here's my history and criteria. I've used;

A Barbara (I think). I briefly owned a kind of crappy playwood bass that had a pickup installed into the wood of the bridge. I quite liked it and didn't ever think too much one way or another back then about other pickups. It was out of the way and did it's job. When I sold the bass, the pickup went with it.

A Stat-B - I had it for a few days and returned it. There were a couple of things I didn't like at the time. 1) it noticably changed the acoustic properties of my bass. I think a lot or most pickups do, but it was easy in this case to play with it in and have a buddy dislodge it and hear my bass open right up. 2) It sounded good with the right amp and right pre-amp, but it wasn't a plug and go pickup and at the time, I was playing in a few places that had me plugging into the resident amp, with a wide range of results. I thought about trying it again, as I generally supply my own amp now, but the acoustic degredation is a problem for me.

The Realist - Liked it, replaced it after several years because I thought it was time to before it failed and I had some work done on my bass and didn't want to remount it on the table. As much as I liked it, I don't like (my luthier at the time) didn't like what they do to the table.

The RevSolo - Say what you will, but I didn't like it. In fairness, I don't like any bridgewing pickups. The sound doesn't work for me. My bandmates hated it and I flipped it quickly. If you love it, please don't defend it here. It's great that it works for you, it doesn't for me. Because I expect someone will, I took great care in sanding it to fit just so, maybe my bridge is a bad shape for it, but it is what it is.

Fishman Full Circle - Had it for a few years now. Similar in sound to the Realist, but clearer and more versital and without marking the table. I've actually been quite happy with it until....

I started reading that people found they interfered with the acoustic output of the bass significantly and when we had the bass hang at my house on memorial day, Jake was talking about a setup in which he had before and after on the same bass and the volume dropped off quite a bit. We played with things like swapping endpins on that day and I realized how much things like that effect the natural sound of the instrument.

My bass sounds great and it made me greedily think about how much greater it might sound with light adjusters or none at all. So, I started thinking of alternatives to the Full Circle.

It seems that depending on your perspective, all pickups either do their job with some tradeoffs or just generally suck.

The new kid on the block this year is the Vector, which intrigues me. I'm also looking over the wall at the AMT mics. I always think about Dyn-B's when this comes up because the are totally out of the signal chain, but it seems that as much as people want to love those, they have trouble getting along with them in the real world.

I'm skeptical of the mics for all of the normal reasons, feedback, bleed, etc. If I were to leave the Realist or Full Circle on for backup or blending, it would defeat the purpose. I'm skeptical of the Vector because it's new and there is always love for a new pickup and it usually starts to look like every other one with it's own tradeoffs once the honeymoon ends. I also wonder how it can function like the Dyn-B, but get better results with less ability to move it around to find the sweet spot. Maybe that flexibility is what makes people not enjoy the dyn-b? If you can, you will futz?

So, talk to me, what's new? What's working, what isn't. I've read the lovefest threads and done my research, but let's talk loyalty-free.

* No bridge wing pickups.
* Can't interfere with my acoustic signal.
* Needs to work in a variety of circumstances. I'm not such a bigshot that I can expect ideal seperation from the drummer or for that matter, the dishwasher. I do have 2 good doublebass amps, if it matters, a GK and an EA.
* I won't say "LMBOL", but I don't want the pickup to have a sound of it's own. It's job needs to be to amplify as neutrally as possible.

I can always stick with the Fullcircle if there is nothing else. I'm happy with how it performs as a pickup, but I salivate thinking of my bass actually sounding better and louder on it's own. I like to play unplugged when it's a reasonable thing to do without killing myself.
 
#2
I've come to dislike wing pickups myself but have made an exception with Planet Wing pickups. Working it with the EQ is very easy - you add a frequency and you get that frequency without too much weird behavior. I prefer it over FC and obviously Rev Solo. I came to disliking RS and DynB didn't work for me either.

Barbera might be good but requires a bigger $$$ commitment.
 
#6
Troy,
I took a look at your profile and frankly you've tried a great many more pickups than I have. I get what you are saying about the Realist. If I didn't like my wooden adjusters then I'd probably have a Full Circle. Just from a personal perspective, I took a look at the new Vektor and read the positive reviews it's getting. I'm not entirely enamored with the way that particular pickup mounts. It kind of reminds me of the old Polytone, but this is from a guy with a Realist mounted under his bridge foot. As you well know most any pickup with the exception of the Full Circle and possibly the Schertler Dyna-B has to be mounted to the instrument in a way that "interrupts" the acoustic sound transmission of the instrument. Technically the Full Circle is "contained" inside a bridge adjuster that also influences acoustics, but most of us accepted the convenience of adjusters long ago rather than fuss with multiple bridges that have to be changed out several times a year. So the Full Circle, under those circumstances, wins out. I prefer the Realist for bowing, so under those criteria IMHO the Realist wins out.
I'd spring for a Vektor if they had a U.S. distributor or even a supplier (like Bob G did with the H Clamp).

Ric
 
#9
It really depends on what you expect a pickup to do for you and your sound.

None of the pickups out there successfully recreate the natural acoustic sound of a double bass. Once you except that fact, then you try and find one that gives you a sound you like that works with your music. The sound of an amplified double bass is something unto itself and has a place in many styles of music as is.

If you want "bass only louder" then use a microphone and turn down, way down. You either play loud, or you don't.

I can't believe that a pickup "chokes" the response of a bass enough to matter to bandmembers, and sure as hell not the audience.

I like the Underwood with gut strings for the Roots music I play. (strings make a difference in my pickup choice too)
 
#10
Troika - I've used everything on your list except the Rev II, and have also tried the Bass Max, Polytone, Underwood, and Dyn B. For me, with my hands and on my bass, the FC is the hands down winner. I like it blended with a mic, but with the Phil Jones Super Flightcase, I like it just fine by itself. At the moment I have a choice of whether to take the Focus and the FC/mic combo or the PJB combo with just the FC, and I'm choosing the latter for tonight's gig. I'm sure something will come along eventually (or maybe it's already around) that will do better than the FC, but once I put it on, I stopped looking at pickups. My .02c. MMWCB.
 
#12
FBFW, I'm actually leaning more toward a Ron Carter/Buster Williams kind of sound now. Pure acoustic sound is fine and dandy but a deep, bellowy, articulate tone really gets me these days. I still am keeping a BP-100 just to try it on my soon-to-be bass. If BIGGUS into K&K I'm willing to give a whirl. ;)
 
#13
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Troika - I've used everything on your list except the Rev II, and have also tried the Bass Max, Polytone, Underwood, and Dyn B. For me, with my hands and on my bass, the FC is the hands down winner. I like it blended with a mic, but with the Phil Jones Super Flightcase, I like it just fine by itself. At the moment I have a choice of whether to take the Focus and the FC/mic combo or the PJB combo with just the FC, and I'm choosing the latter for tonight's gig. I'm sure something will come along eventually (or maybe it's already around) that will do better than the FC, but once I put it on, I stopped looking at pickups. My .02c. MMWCB.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the performance of the full-circle as a pickup. My only issue with it is what I suspect it may be doing to my bass acoustically. No, it doesn't matter to bandmates or audience, but it matters to me. If I could increase my volume and "goodness" acoustically by 10% I would love to do so. I could play with less or no amplification more often and enjoy the sound of my bass more. Based on recent experiments, I suspect that there's something to that, but to your point, they all have some degree of suckiness and the full circle performs as advertized and I've been pretty happy with it.

Chris, tell me about your experiences with the Dyn-B and seperately with the mic you use. Is the mic not practical in all situations without having something closer to the strings to blend it with?
 
#14
Troy, seems like you bring up this thread every other year, IIRC. Still not satisfied with "good enough"?

I would also look elsewhere... maybe try a better preamp before you go changing pickups. The FC is good. Respectfully, my answer for you is still the same, nut up and experiment with your own $$$. It's the only way to find out. Pay yer dues.
 
#15
TroyK said:
Chris, tell me about your experiences with the Dyn-B
Click to expand...

I couldn't get it to work on my bass - it always distorted. I was worried that it was a defective unit, but during the camp that year (I bought it around the time of the camp) Rufus took the one off of his bass - which works perfectly on his bass - and it distorted on mine. Whatever. I sold it in a week, and my understanding is that the person who bought had no issues. Maybe I'm just too much of a brute? (If you've never seen me, that last bit is a joke...)

and seperately with the mic you use. Is the mic not practical in all situations without having something closer to the strings to blend it with?
Click to expand...

The mic thing. There's a thread around here somewhere where I posted a bunch of clips and rambled nonstop and in an extremely OCD manner about it. Basically, it comes down to this:

For quiet gigs where the amplification is blended with the bass, I just use a pickup nowadays. When the volume of the amp gets much louder than the volume of the bass, I like to mix in a mic to add a little air and articulation to the sound. I use a cheap mic - a Beta 57 - and only enough of it to add some highs and a little clarity to the pickup sound. It all sounds like crap right up on the amp, but out front, it blends in better than you'd think.

As far as the Full Circle dampening the bass, I have a hard time imagining that it does much. My old Czech bass, which I used a lot of different pickups on, ended up with a Full Circle on it before I sold it, and I didn't notice any difference before and after. I wasn't doing any bowing on it, though.
 
#16
I'm trying to imagine what the Full Circle could do to the acoustic sound of a bass that would be discernible more than two feet away. It's been pretty well established, as far as I know, that aluminum adjusters have virtually no effect on the sound. I've had them on every bass I've owned, and if they were detrimental, I'm sure the luthiers who installed them would have warned me. After a while, this starts to remind me of the guitar players who hear a difference in sound when they change battery brands in their effects pedals. I guess I'm just one of those "stop obsessing and play" guys.
 
#17
I understand what you're saying, but we had 7 basses in my house a few weeks ago and 7 players, we all put our keys in the punch bowl and started swapping basses. then we started doing things like swapping end pins. With my back turned and the same guy playing the same bass, I stopped my conversation a couple of times to say "what did you just do?" I was surprised too.

Jake the luthier said after installing a full circle on a particular bass, he noticed a big drop off in volume. I had Jake lighten my tailpiece last year and it was like getting a new bass. I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm just saying that I'm am much happier playing my bass now than before and as a result, I play better. I don't think that the issue with the full circle is that they are aluminum adjusters, it's that they are fairly high in mass adjusters. I don't know how much difference it would make, but if there were a suitable pickup alternative, I'd like to find out.

It sounds, honestly, like there is not, so I'm likely to stick with what I've got. Again, I'm happy with it as a pickup. My interest in the mic thing would be as an alternative to a pickup, not a suppliment, so I won't think too much more about it. Damn, the Dyn-B for not working better. I'm not going to order the newest thing on the market form Europe until it's been better vetted. Not going back to the Realist (though it's a fine pickup). Not going to try any more bridge wing mounts, so I guess I'm home.

Thanks for the sanity check, everyone.
 
#20
Gearhead43 said:
It really depends on what you expect a pickup to do for you and your sound.
Click to expand...


Gearhead43 said:
None of the pickups out there successfully recreate the natural acoustic sound of a double bass. Once you except that fact, then you try and find one that gives you a sound you like that works with your music. The sound of an amplified double bass is something unto itself and has a place in many styles of music as is.
Click to expand...

Very true, that's why there are so many different kinds of pickups.
Live concerts, in big venues, with sound re-enforcement kind of forced the issue IMHO. Piezo's were one solution to the problem, easy to mount and very affordable, so they became popular. I also think that the evolution of the multi laminate "super drums" that most set players own now were built for the same reasons. Even with the most musical and tasteful player modern drums are louder than they once were.

Gearhead43 said:
If you want "bass only louder" then use a microphone and turn down, way down. You either play loud, or you don't.
Click to expand...

To me at least, the whole band has to "turn down" and listen to each other. Granted, thats not always possible, it kind of depends on the gig and the style of music. If the group has a Double Bass, then other folks on the bandstand have to listen and blend with that sound. At least for me, trying to "push" a piezo past it's tone threshold usually produces a terrible sound. Microphones have there own set of problems, but when they work the sound is much more articulate and warm.

Gearhead43 said:
I can't believe that a pickup "chokes" the response of a bass enough to matter to bandmembers, and sure as hell not the audience.
Click to expand...

This has always been a tough one for me. The one thing I do know is those brass clips on the Fishman BP-100 act like a mute and change the sound drastically on my bass. Wether or not the band notices it depends on how good of ears they have, but you're right, it may not bother them at all. Audiences generally hear something completely different than we hear on the bandstand anyway. That's why I like to send a mic to the house if at all possible.


Gearhead43 said:
I like the Underwood with gut strings for the Roots music I play. (strings make a difference in my pickup choice too)
Click to expand...

That's very true. I love the sound of a bass with guts. I used an Underwood for a long time. The Realist just sounds a lot better on my bass.
 

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