I have a new student this year who has a Realist on his bass and the signal is super hot, so much so that it distorts the input section of most amps. On my PJB combo, you can turn down the input gain almost all the way and it will sound OK, but not all amps have that feature. Has anyone else experienced this?
A high output signal from a piezo could be reduced in level by a capacitor connected in series (open up the hot wire and put the capacitor in between).
This is built into the Full Circle underlength jack adapter, but I have sold my Full Circle for the Yamahiko, so I cannot measure the value.
@fdeck might help you here, I learned that from one of his postings.
But back to the question why it is so loud. The piezos generate voltage due to pressure and bending/deformation. The ceramic is more sensitive in one field than the other depending on in which direction the ceramic is cut.
I’m not sure what works better in a bridge foot pickup. The deformation variance because of the side movement of the bridge or the pressure variance because of the downward pressure on the pickup from bridge foot.
But I think it is more the deformation that is also the typical application in thin piezoelectric elements.
So for some reason there might be a higher deformation if the top under the bridge foot (or the pickup slips with vibration, rather unlikely). Or the bridge foot is not well shaped and might cause a higher deformation with vibration than an equally distributed pressure on the pickup.
Or, as someone else mentioned, it might be dying...
