Double Bass BP-100 String Balance Problem

[AZNBassist]

Hi good folks of talkbass. I've been using the BP-100 as a pick-up and running it through the fishman platinum pro-eq preamp before going into an amp. Now before someone goes on about the fishman bp-100 let me explain my situation.

I'm currently in another country touring around so I opted to leave my bass (with the realist pickup installed) at home and I'm very lucky to have so many nice people let me borrow and use their basses. The trouble is is that many of them don't have pickups. So I decided to bring the bp-100 instead of my realist because its much easier/quicker to install and take off than the realist.

I'm running the BP-100 through my preamp to tackle the feedback/bad sound issues normally associated with the bp-100 and I usually keep the preamp setting as flat as possible. But I've been playing on several different basses and several different amps and one consistent thing I've noticed is that the E and lower strings are much louder than the G string which makes it hard to set my volume and balance on the band stand because when I'm playing the E string its too loud and when I play the G string its not loud enough. I was wondering if anybody has experienced this problem and how did you go about solving it?

 

[Roger Davis]

AZNB, my memories of using a pickup for the first time, a BP-100, were just as you describe. Someone in the audience told me he couldn't hear anything on the G at all. I never sorted it but it seems that this could be a characteristic of the pickup. I hope someone on the forum can give you some help on this and so sorry that I can't.

 

[Francois Blais]

The surface on the bridge must be very flat where the elements are installed.
I suggest you mount them on the tailpiece side of the bridge, which is likely to be flatter.
Just a shot in the dark.

 

[Ric Vice]

I'm currently in another country touring around so I opted to leave my bass (with the realist pickup installed) at home and I'm very lucky to have so many nice people let me borrow and use their basses. The trouble is is that many of them don't have pickups. So I decided to bring the bp-100 instead of my realist because its much easier/quicker to install and take off than the realist.

Now, personally I've never had good luck with ye olde BP-100. You certainly have the right preamp, because according to Rick Jones the BP-100 works best with the 10 meg ohm load that that Fishman Pre Amp Provides.

But I've been playing on several different basses and several different amps and one consistent thing I've noticed is that the E and lower strings are much louder than the G string which makes it hard to set my volume and balance on the band stand because when I'm playing the E string its too loud and when I play the G string its not loud enough. I was wondering if anybody has experienced this problem and how did you go about solving it?

I think that as you move from bass to bass each bridge has a slightly different taper, so that could be the problem, but you could just have a defective pickup with one element that's weaker that the other. As I remember my BP-100 had the same problem. Try reversing the elements to see if the G sounds better than the E. You should also try Francois' suggestion as well, because putting the elements on the underside of the bridge will reverse them anyway.

Ric

 

[RhodriBass]

I've been experimenting today with my fishman bp100. You really need a pre amp due to the high impedance of the piezo pickup and the lower impedance expected by amps/pa. The sound is brittle and thin without the preamp. I've got the fishman pro eq platinum bass and it works well to sort that problem out.
I've never been happy with the sound from the pickup and decided to experiment with it's placement. I've tried it:

On the front of the bridge - lots of string noise, quite boomy and not much sound of the actual body of the bass;

back of the bridge - similar to front but less noisy but a bit thinner in sound;

and finally I took the 2 piezo elements and the foam circle use to hold the wire in place and made a sandwich with the foam in the middle. Then I put this in the wing of the bridge on the E string side. The sound was much better straight away. The output is slightly lower, even with gain on full, but this was expected as the pressure isn't as great on the elements compared to using the clips. I've now got a good bass response, with a nice balance across the spectrum. The sound is more 'woody' and sounds more like the bass amplified. There was a little too much treble, but with the pre amp eq I can dial in the sound I want. In summary I'm much happier with the sound from the pickup now it's placed away from the strings and in the wing.