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Double Bass Aptflex Pick up (from Jonas Lohse) review

#41
ya know I went to the B Band web site to re read their line about what this non piezo pick up is. It talks about tiny gas bubbles and a bunch o hoopla. it sounds great, calls it an electret film. jonas recently told me that though it is the same stuff in the Aptlex, the Aptlex has a lot more of it and all under the foot.
Though this pick up is raw and a little harsh straight, it responds really well to eq. i did a few gigs this week with it straight into the focus rolling the mids way back, and bumping up the gain considerably (the Aptlex is not the hottest pick up) ...then went right back to the U5 which does its special magic so well. But straight into the Focus sounded great too.
 
#42
Thank you for your comment about the Aptflex. I'm trying to find the pickup in north america. Do you know any distributor selliing them over the net in NA?

Thank you again
Simon.

flatback said:
Jonas just sent me an Aptflex to try. It is an under foot pick up that looks similar to the Pick up the World or Realist. The piezo element is housed in copper foil, and fits nicely under the E foot . I believe it is a piezo film developed by the company that created the B-Band pick up. The under the foot concept has a lot going for it, it seems like a perfect place to get a combination of body and bridge sounds.
I have gone thru a lot of pick ups looking for a sound that is a compromise between a real bass sound and a sound that works with a band.(Fishmans, Underwood, Schertlers, Wilson, Realist, PUTW, Rev Solo,Etc.)
I like to mix a mic signal in with the Pup too. What the mic does, a pick up won't do and vise versa. There are two pick ups that I think rise above the rest for different reasons: The Vektor, which is a contact mic embedded in the foot, and the Full Circle which is embedded in the height adjustment wheel. The Vektor has a crazy installation requiring a hole be drilled into the foot and careful placement, but it has a warm (contact) mic like sound. I love the Vektor because it is elegant and natural sounding and there is no piezo twang. Piezo's can have a 2 dimensional sound, that can be really useful for cutting thru but uninspiring and electric sounding. The FC has been my favorite piezo cause it has a fattness and naturalness (on my bass) that no other piezo has had...Until now.
The Aptflex sounds very similar to the FC. It is, on my bass, a lot brighter but even all across (my) Bass does not have too much of the piezo nasal twang or the electric sound(at least as little as the FC). The Aptflex is super clear sounding with a lot of harmonic richness. I played it on a gig last night going back and forth between the FC and Aptflex and I really dug it. Like the FC it has a nice thump at the front of the sound, and the Thumb Position sounds excellent. Arco sounded really good too (not as good as the Vektor but really usable)
Installation was easy and it worked without fussing from the moment I plugged it in.
This is a serious contender not a finicky boutique Pup. Requires no special install, does not require adjusters, is as elegant as the realist but sounds a lot better (no mud)..
I did not push it too hard so I dont know yet how it will sound cranked, but It will stay on the bass for sure.
Wanna hear it? Heres Jonas playing a chorus of the blues...(I dont know how he recorded it)....ok so my upload failed...maybe Jonas will upload it?
Piro
Click to expand...
 
#43
Hello everybody,
Though I've been searching the forum for almost 2 years (it's really great source of information - thank you) it's probably my first post.
I'm double bass player, from Cracow, Poland playing mainly with Di Galitzyaner Klezmorim and from time to time baroque music using of course gut strings.
I use Apt-flex, which I've bought directly from Jonas Lohse (Greetings Jonas!), during a tour in Germany. I'm very satisfied with it's sound in general, when playing with my Klezmer trio. It's really good pickup for both arco and pizzicato.
But last time it happened to me to play a few times with very loud band - electric guitars, percussion. And the problem was a feedback.
I've red some threads about this, I know that it's unavoidable on the big, acoustic instruments.
But as I've had no experiences with piezo pickups so far, my question is:

Has any one compared the electret Apt-flex with a piezo (especially Upton Revolution Solo II, after Aug. 2006) regarding the feedback compliance?
And if possible:
Regarding the other factors like the sound level - output, impedance, natural acoustic sound the both of them.
 
#44
Hi,

My Realist broke one day. While trying to repair it, helped by a Philips shaving device electrodesigner, we came across a in serie resistor and capicator. This works as a low pass filter, and also maybe explain it's muddyness.
After some soldering and me not able stopping him redesigning the thing, it ended up to be less flexible. As you might imagine, it altered the sound and feel when amped in a negative way.

There seems to be different results on different amps. This could caused by the differences in impedance of the input. This might explain the direct content result of Dr. G. And I would advice any preamp with high impedance.
The lower the note the higher resistance. So when the input is too low in impedance the low notes will not be put through(amplified) adequate by the two (pickup and input) resistors in serie.(>>>>>pickup>>>input>>).
 
#45
Darn,

These links aren't working...

Did anyone download these clips? Or can you repost them please Jonas? It would be good to hear this pickup.

Ta,
Rick

jonas said:
Actually, there is no piezo (!) inside the copper foil. The material is called "electret film", and it's different from the PVDF-film used by PUTW or others.



Ok, the URL is [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
It's just a quick'n'dirty recording: the APTflex plugged directly into my Digitech JamMan loop pedal. No preamp, no editing. Generally, I don't like this kind of directly recorded soundclips for demonstration, because if played live and amplified, it sounds very different ... but it may give you an idea of the sound, however. The bass is a 1954 Framus Cutaway (fully carved) with Presto Nylonwounds (light gauge).

Update: the URL has changed to [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].
This new clip was recorded with APTflex --> d-tar Solstice preamp --> JamMan; and again without further editing. The preamp's tone controls were all flat (12 o'clock).
I think that using a preamp makes the soundclip more significant.
Click to expand...
 
#48
I've been slumming it lately and sometimes it catches up to you. ;)
I've had a coupla gigs recently where the sound guy just couldn't deal with a mic only signal from the bass (keep in mind this is a combo with no drums or electric instruments, only guitar and ukulele! This guy pretty much sucks at sound). I've been using the AMT only for a while now but in an effort to provide a bombproof signal that I could live with, I recently acquired an Aptflex pickup and an L.R. Baggs Paracoustic DI/pre to run with it. I really didn't want to go back to the more 2 dimensional sound of a pickup but I've been curious about this pickup for a while and a great deal came along from a fellow TBer.
To sort out the sound I used a PA and my AMT to A/B the signal, spending all Saturday afternoon tweaking. The Aptflex signal is very mid heavy and unusable to my ears with no EQ. It took quite a bit of tweaking (some of which was my learning the preamp) to dial it in but I was really surprised at how close to the mic sound I could get. The attack is totally different but I really got close to all of the other qualities of the sound. The Aptflex sounds like my bass with only a little of that pickupy type of compressed initial attack. Even that was minimized with a little more tweaking with gain and such.
On Sunday I played a benefit gig with lots of other bands as a shake down. It's a restaurant type room, kinda noisy. The sound guy is a friend but he had his hands full with 7 bands in 4 hours so I literally plugged in and did a line check and away we went. All he touched was the gain. Best of all the bass player in the band following us also used my bass so I got to hear it in the house.
My initial impression is very positive. The bass sounded really good in the monitors and I got really positive feedback from the other bass players in the room. After I heard it in the house myself, I was really pleased! It definitely sounds like my bass (it's also definitely a pickup but without any of the piezo midrange honk or excessive compression you usually associate with pickup signals). Feedback was also not a factor and I think the window of usable volume is much greater.
I've got a lot of gigs in the next few months so we'll see, but I think I've got 90-95% of my sound covered in difficult rooms which is often more than I could get with the AMT.
End progris report.
-J
 
#49
Just an Update for me..after a double serious flirtation with the Ehrlund and way to much fussing around with it I sold it and am turning the money into a DPA4099
But all the fussing got me thinking about the Aptflex again and the fact that I had not tried it with the EDB1 preamp...
Now that is a really great pairing
The APTflex is RAW by itself and can be really unpleasant left un eq'd into a bass amp but as I have said before it completely changes character with even slight eq adjustments. But man even flat into the Headway EDB1 this thing comes to life.
I like it way better then the Ehrlund for directness thump and mimicking a mic sound...in fact it sounds (thru the headway) kind of like you are blending already. Roll off some mids and it is mellow and solid.
Im not trying to sell these things (Jonas gave me one to try and review here many years ago now)
but man I keep coming back to it. I have the FC and Aptflex both on there and I like both but the Aptflex sounds to me like a FC blended with a mic (you know the live mic thing not the recorded mic thing)
and its back line directness and punch really cut thru the band when you need it.
Just sayin'
 
#50
Well combined with a 4099 into a Headway this is a fantastic live sound.
I wish someone else would try the Aptflex/Headway EDB1 combo and report on it here because it is really really good.
And at the gig it is so clear and so much volume, Im just loving it.
 

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