Double Bass Clevenger Keyhole Bartolini Magnetic Pickup

[Ric Vice]

I bought a set of Zyex used to see if they work with the Bartolini PUs on my Clevenger Keyhole Bass. Deets to come in the following weeks.

 

[dylanjohnson]

I bought a set of Zyex used to see if they work with the Bartolini PUs on my Clevenger Keyhole Bass. Deets to come in the following weeks.

Ric,
What's the story on the Bartolini pickup? Is this new? A friend at Bartolini was telling me they are working on a db pickup.

 

[Ric Vice]

Ric,
What's the story on the Bartolini pickup? Is this new? A friend at Bartolini was telling me they are working on a db pickup.

Martin Clevenger had Bartolini design a pickup for his original "Keyhole" EUB
That was back in 1984. It sounds respectable.

Ric

 

[Maple]

Bill gave me a set of these in the mid '90's to play around with. I recall they had a nice tone but as you play higher positions, the stings get closer and volume goes up a lot.

 

[Ortsom]

That is one of the problems of magnetic (reluctance) PUs. How much louder it gets depends on the field gradient.

I just tested my Zyex light's with a magnet, and the EAD are quite magnetic, maybe even more so than Spiro's, which surprised me. However, the G seems quite a bit less magnetic. Maybe it's different with the medium's, but you may have string imbalance.

 

[Francois Blais]

The G, being quite thinner, has less metallic content (the core is non-metallic) so it's not much a surprise to me.

 

[Ortsom]

True, but d'Addario may have used a different alloy for the wrap on the G. To the touch, the G feels hardly magnetic. What was surprising to me was that the lower ones feel more magnetic than spiro's. Of course feeling them with a magnet is a very crude test.
Has anyone actually tried a mag PU on these Zyex / Zyex lights?

 

[Francois Blais]

Some metals have more powerful magnetic properties than others.
Like nickel for instance.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Spiros has a lot of non-magnetic windings inside, copper or brass for instance.

 

[Ortsom]

I agree with what both of you say, and the other effect that plays a role (when feeling them with a magnet) is that in the case of the Zyex'es the magnetic material is right at the surface, touching the magnet, while the Spiros have the magnetic material in the core, hence inside & not touching the magnet. Due to field deformation (particularly when touching) the force felt is strongly non-linear with distance.

Ric, seems like we would be interested to know how they do on the mag PU, thanks.