Double Bass Ameka?

[Samophlange]

Anybody familiar with Ameka pickups?
Its not something that I want to modify my bridge for if they are just "ok".

They seem pricey though. About $270 US (202 Euros)

 

[Ric Vice]

Anybody familiar with Ameka pickups?
Its not something that I want to modify my bridge for if they are just "ok".

They seem pricey though. About $270 US (202 Euros)

Samophlange,
It looks very similar to a K&K Bass Max. They only cost $101.00 in the U.S. @ 71.00 Euros. It may be a better pickup, but for that kind of money you should be able to get a Fishman Full Circle or Realist Life Line.

Ric

 

[Mark Gollihur]

Yes, it does appear to be similar to other options.

The Bass Max is probably by far the most common one of that ilk, and unlike the other options (AFAIK - no specs on the Ameka), it has TWO transducers inside (most have only one - again, AFAIK). Other similar ones would be the Schatten RB-1 and the Upton Revolution Solo pickups.

This Ameka pickup seems to be in a hard cover, perhaps wood? Plastic? Some other hard material? The installation docs mention that you will scrape some of the paint off when installing (and that this is normal.) So it might be closer in sound/performance to the Upton pickup, which is encased in wood. The Schatten and K&K Pickups are wrapped in rubberized plastic type material (heat shrink.)

Each pickup has their pros and cons; but they're all pretty similar.

 

[MR PC]

Each pickup has their pros and cons; but they're all pretty similar.

That's why I kept using the Underwood for so long, especially considering with that pickup there is the option of using one or two elements. FWIT, all of these single element pu's do have different timbres..I own the Bass Max too, and have found that using a single element of the Underwood to be more to my liking when I've compared them on the band stand. The other wing element style pickups I've tried over the years haven't convinced me I needed to own them.

Seems the sound of the Headway Bass Band will be the new standard for DB piezo style pickup performance..before the Headway there was a pu called the C Ducer that sounded great but was butt ugly and awkward/messy to mount on the instrument. Headway has solved that problem. We'll see where it goes..

 

[Ric Vice]

That's why I kept using the Underwood for so long, especially considering with that pickup there is the option of using one or two elements. FWIT, all of these single element pu's do have different timbres....... and have found that using a single element of the Underwood to be more to my liking when I've compared them on the band stand. The other wing element style pickups I've tried over the years haven't convinced me I needed to own them.

I called Don Underwood once, to see if I could buy one of the pickups he had custom designed for Glen Moore and David Freiesen, that were installed on the Oregon Bass. What he did was encase two piezo's, within the brass surrounds, on both of the two wing slot pickups. He only made a handful of those units. During our conversation, he explained to me why he designed the pickup in that particular way. Since a bass bridge functions as a cantilever arch, he felt that you needed to sense the vibrations on both sides of the bridge, to get an accurate sensing of the frequencies. Many piezo pickups built since then are based on his design, but due to a U.S. patten restriction, then can't have dual elements that are inserted into the wing slots on both sides of a bridge[/QUOTE]

Seems the sound of the Headway Bass Band will be the new standard for DB piezo style pickup performance.. Headway has solved that problem. We'll see where it goes..[/QUOTE]

It does sound very good for a piezo, but I still prefer the Ehrlund EAP and Pre Amp. On my bass it's as close to a microphone as I can get with a pickup.

Ric

 

[MR PC]

Ric, I have one of those Underwoods you describe. I called Don in So Cal in '77 or so, his mother took my message, and he later called me back and took my order. It does sound different than the other two Underwoods I have, but not by a lot. When that particular unit started to get unreliable about 10 years ago i called Don in Oregon and he sent me a new pu, foc. Super nice cat.

But the Ehrlund isn't really a piezo is it? Seemed like it's more of a contact mic or electret type mic, like they use in military field applications.

OP sorry for the derail..I think you'd be better off with the Bass Max, Upton, Shadow, or Planet Wing if you are looking for a single element wing pu. The Ameka is way pricey for what it looks to be.

 

[Ric Vice]

Ric, I have one of those Underwoods you describe. I called Don in So Cal in '77 or so, his mother took my message, and he later called me back and took my order. It does sound different than the other two Underwoods I have, but not by a lot. When that particular unit started to get unreliable about 10 years ago i called Don in Oregon and he sent me a new pu, foc. Super nice cat.

+1 I spent over an hour on a long distance call, because he was so interesting to talk to. He told me how Walter Woods bought one of his early pickups, and set the input impedance on his MI series amps to 1 Meg Ohms. He was also involved in the design of the Baldwin Electronic Harpsichord which had a piezo pickups system.

But the Ehrlund isn't really a piezo is it? Seemed like it's more of a contact mic or electret type mic, like they use in military field applications.

Heck if I know, it the sounds like a really high quality Contact Microphone and an Electret Microphone combined.

OP sorry for the derail..I think you'd be better off with the Bass Max, Upton, Shadow, or Planet Wing if you are looking for a single element wing pu. The Ameka is way pricey for what it looks to be.

Ditto on the derail, personally, I'd get an probably Underwood, if I was going to revert to a wing slot piezo, and didn't have the money to buy the Headway Band. Underwoods, are very even pickups, and don't have that extended low end, that some of the newer piezo pickups have.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Too much is thrown in the same can ...

Piezoelectricity is a characteristic of a material. Contact mic is a way to transduce vibration of a (heavier) mass.

The usual Bridge wing pickups and piezo disks are made from a piezoelectric ceramic material. Either much less than a millimeter thin (disks, laminated on a brass disk) or several millimeters thick (most bridge wing pickups).

The Ehrlund, the Shadow Nanoflex use piezoelectric foils, that could be bend easily. So these materials have different acoustic properties (also dependent how they are applied).
There is even electret-foil (APTflex) that might look similar to piezo-foil if packaged into a pickup, but that is not a piezo (as far as I know).

A contact mic usually has a small mass on the membrane and much more mass on the body it is attached to. This is different from sensing the pressure (bridge foot pickups, bridge wing pickups) or (less often) the bending (i.e. Fishman BP-100, a bit also the bridge wing pickups) of the piezoelectric material. The Ehrlund probably has a mass in the middle of a triangular piezo foil and is supported at the corners of the triangle. At least this makes most sense to me after reading the patent.

Piezoelectric ceramic (specially thicker crystals and disks that are unsupported at the edges) seem to have vibrational modes (resonances) that lead to that unpleasant "piezo sound". But it wouldn't be fair to say any piezoelectric-material-based pickup needs to have these acoustically "bad" characteristic, because this simply not true.
(OK, other materials have other characteristics, but hopefully that might not matter for our application for the piezo foils.)

The badest thing about the piezo foil I found is this rather high input impedance (22 MegOhms) needed for the first amp stage, because it makes almost any (thinner) cable from foil to first amp stage microphonic. Putting the JFET directly beneath the foil (like in the Shadow Nanoflex) is a good solution to avoid that. Using a lower input impedance ruins the sound more than any other piezo crystal pickup I know. But the thickness of the foil may have some influence on this too. I only tried the thin ones myself yet.

 

[james condino]

I've been using an Ameka on my '47 Kay for a couple of months. it was given to me as a demo unit. Overall it works reasonably well. I had to rewire it to a different jack. The one it came with was a mess and did not work reliably. My default pickup tends to be a K&K bass max- not a great pickup, but a good pickup that is low maintenance and versatile, for about half the price. The Ameka tends to be a little bit hotter in the mix and there is a lot more brightness to it- I have to eq out a lot more of the string noise and such compared to the K&K. If I lived in Paris, I'd probably use the Ameka and support the local guys....

If I was paying for one, I'd stick with the K&K. For what it matters, the rest of my rig is an Acoustic Image Focus head with acme B1 cabs ( with the B2 and a flat wound it was still very bright) and a baggs pre amp. I tried the Ameka with a few old Kay's, an American Standard, a nice carved bass, and an occasional ALCOA or Pfretzschner aluminum tank, all loaded with Spirocore mediums and some version of gut D and G.

Yes, the Ameka is encased in a Hard metal cover. When mounted, it is thinner than a K&K, so you'll risk nothing if it is the first pickup you cut the bridge for, but if you already have it cut for a K&K, you'll need some spruce or maple to shim it. It's is a single side bridge wing type pickup and on the positive side, it does come with a long wire, so you have options for modifications. I almost universally hate the string clip thing that falls off every set on the K&K that is also too short to modify....

You are welcome to stop by the shop and checkout the Ameka in person. 'Hope that helps.

J.
Www.condino.com
Www.kaybassrepair.com