I just got the Ehrlund and it's pre and found a working position for it (under the E string side F hole). I used it on a outdoor trio gig today with the drummer using only a snare, ride and hats. I loved it. My question now is does anyone find that the Ehrlund, through the Ehrlund, pre put out a really weak signal? I use an EA iAmp800 into a Wizzy 12 MLine. The iAmp has an led indicator to show the amount of input gain coming from the input source, to allow you to adjust the amp's gain stage accordingly. I can't seem to find a position on my carved Shen SB200 that yields a healthy amount of input gain. Maybe the supplied battery in the pre is weak?
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Double Bass ehrlund contact pu-mike
- Thread starter igor kondur
- Start date
James,
That's not what I have experienced. The Ehrlund boosts the signal into both my Walter Woods amps slightly. It also improves the EQ of the pickup, giving it better definition and clarity. When I take the pre amp out of the loop it loses the edge on the sound, if that makes any sense.
Ric
I'm hoping this will be the case for me. I swapped out the shipped battery in the Ehrlund with one I had left over in my gig bag(unused, but I can't remember when I bought it), and I still couldn't get a strong input signal from the Ehrlund.
I tried the Ehrlund>Ehrlund pre>Headway EDB-1>iAmp front end. I was able to get an input level equal to that of my Realist by using the Headway's gain. I'll have to try a brand new, fresh battery and hope the Ehrlund starts pumping out more juice. Or maybe I can try blending the Ehrlund and the Realist, or maybe my old K&K BassMax, to justify packing the Headway pre in my regular gig bag.
Might I suggest (if you haven't already gone thru this) that the placement and attachment might be altered as part of your trouble shooting...For example if you put it right over the bass bar or sound post it can be on a node that vibrates less and will produce less sound. Also if it is not attached firmly it may have a distant low volume sound. You probably tried all this...someone here returned a faulty pickup and if I remember it correctly this was the problem they were having....
@James, yeah that was my experience as well. The Erhlund had a much lower output than the other Pick ups I've used. @Ric, your experience is so vastly different than mine Ric. I can't help begin to wonder if there are quality of construction issues with this product. The first Erhlund I received failed/died within a few weeks. The 2nd pick up had very little gain; much less than the Full Circle, The Realist or the Bass Max. Maybe it's a consistency issue and you got a great one Ric.
So you wen't through two Ehrlunds? Did the first one have a substantial output, but it died?
I wouldn't put consistency issues out of the question. It's my understanding that Goran Ehrlund builds these himself?
I had a bunch of different issues with the first pick up. I didn't order the pre-amp on the first go around. I was just trying out the pick-up and I was using a Fishman Platinum Pro pre amp. I never really got into the output issues until I got the 2nd pick up and the Erhlund pre amp that goes with it.
Treyzer,
Yeah, I suppose that's possible. Zeb Briscovick and Rick Haydon in St. Louis both have one and as far as I know they love them. I also recommended one to a touring bassist in England and she wrote me back to tell me how much she liked the pickup. Rick's and mine are from the first batch and Zeb's was from the second batch. Another possibility is that my Walter Woods MI-400-8 is a 400 watt amp into a 8 ohm load and the Walter Woods Ultra is a 600 watt into a 8 ohm load, so headroom isn't much of an issue for me. Maybe that's the difference. But I'm using the EA VL 108 and VL 208 that aren't particularly efficient cabinets compared to their newer stuff.
Ric
Ric
James
If you look at the package for the Ehrlund (since I happen to have one), it says
"Design: Goran Ehrlund"
"Manufacturer: Pearl Microphones www.pearl.se"
So I'm not sure that Goran hand builds the pickup all by himself. You could email him if you wanted to know.
Ric
Ric, your guess is as good as mine. I know that I really wanted it to work and tried everything I could think of. Since I'm out here on Kauai which has zero luthiers, I've learned to do many minor repairs and fixes so attaching the pick up was not a big deal. I will say that Goran was very nice and helpful as was Jonas from Lando music. Both were very fair and treated my well. It could well be that my amp set up or something in the chain from double bass to amplifier just wasn't compatible. I do have a Walter Woods amp and an older EA Cab with 2, 8" speakers and a horn. That rig is kind of my back up rig or my rig when I have to play loud. It is way more trouble to cart around than the Flightcase 300. I never thought to try the Erhlund with that rig. I've been using a QSC 10" for duo gigs lately or gigs without a drummer. Using the Full Circle in one channel and my AMT mic in the other. That is the clearest most articulate double bass sound that I've discovered to date.
Treyser,
If it has 2x8 a midrange and a tweeter then it's a VL 208. Great cabinet for DB but, yeah, it isn't what you would call ultralight. We have a Phil Jones dealer here in St. Louis (unfortunately it's pretty far from where I live) so if I can get out there some time I'll try the Super Flight with the Ehrlund. If I didn't have a great set of ebony adjusters on my bass I'd have tried out the Full Circle.
Ric
Ric
I was going to ask a similar question. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Mark Gollihur (of Gollihur music) to work out customs issues that held up their shipment Sweden, I received my Ehrlund pickup and preamp a few days ago. I don't have a bass amp, so I plugged the preamp into a powered studio monitor. I did this a few weeks ago to try out a microphone and a Presonus Tube-Pre that a friend lent me, and it worked very well. So I excitedly connected the Ehrlund and heard . . . nothing. Just a whisper from the speaker.
I ended up connecting the Ehrlund pickup/preamp to my iMac, and the level worked just fine to record using Garage Band. I set the record level about the same for the pickup and the iMac's built-in mic. So I don't know why I got so little sound going into the powered speaker.
One question, though--connected to the iMac, I could not discern any difference whatsoever when I turned the volume control on the Ehrlund preamp. The volume into the computer seemed identical no matter what. Has anyone else experienced something like this? Do you find that the Ehrlund preamp's volume control has only a small effect, or is something weird going on with my recording setup?
- Hal -
Hi Pastor Hal,
just make sure you are not recording through your inbuilt mic in the Mac - this would create the effect you are describing.
Steve
just make sure you are not recording through your inbuilt mic in the Mac - this would create the effect you are describing.
Steve
Pastor Hal,
If I understand what you were doing correctly then I don't think that would work. The Ehrlund Pre amp is a buffer preamp designed to be used alongside a bass amp. Its design provides correct input impedance, phase cancelation and EQ to the pre amp section of a bass amp.
Well, that was a stupid thing of me to do . . . I've gotten so used to the Mac just working the way I want that I figured it would automatically switch to an external audio input when one was plugged in. Not so--I had to change it in the Mac's sound settings. Now I'm getting the sound from the Ehrlund into Garage Band. The output level from the preamp is on the low side, but records very nicely. This should work well as a way to experiment with different positions of the pickup. I can record from two or three positions, and then compare the recordings back-to-back through headphones.
Thanks for pointing out my mistake!
- Hal -
After a few weeks with the Ehrlund I am still on the fence. It has a big fat acoustic tone that is very intoxicating solo, and sounds great Duo but I am mixing in the FC with a drummer. It can get a bit either muddy or brittle as contact mics do but mixed with the FC I can get a really excellent sound.
The question is: is it better then mixing a mic with a pickup?
if I were going FOH all the time I'd prolly opt for a good mic and just use the FC for monitoring, but i mostly play thru an amp and I am almost never happy with just a piezo.
If you put the Erhlund near the bass bar near the F hole and keep some space between it and the bass (how much contact it has with the bass makes a vast difference in sound)
and then mix a bit of FC for clarity (rolling off the mids) it is a sweet sound....
but not plug and play, more like plugs and fiddle and play.
....But Im taking about playing modern jazz with a drummer...If I were playing any number of other less thickly textured styles I think I'd love this sound straight. But I'd also love a good mic....
The question is: is it better then mixing a mic with a pickup?
if I were going FOH all the time I'd prolly opt for a good mic and just use the FC for monitoring, but i mostly play thru an amp and I am almost never happy with just a piezo.
If you put the Erhlund near the bass bar near the F hole and keep some space between it and the bass (how much contact it has with the bass makes a vast difference in sound)
and then mix a bit of FC for clarity (rolling off the mids) it is a sweet sound....
but not plug and play, more like plugs and fiddle and play.
....But Im taking about playing modern jazz with a drummer...If I were playing any number of other less thickly textured styles I think I'd love this sound straight. But I'd also love a good mic....
Hi everybody.
I am french so excuse for my syntax. I have juste ordered an Erlhund at Lando music and I have got it just now on my knees, ready to put it on my bass. I have read last week a lot of post here, but not all (... 18 pages...), and I don't remember everything, specially about the location of the mic (I am sorry, I know that it has been talked about very very much but...) and I don't remember to have seen some pictures of the area that suits the mic.
So Flatback when you say
... Is someone has a picture?
Edit: there is no instructions with the mic. Do I put 3 little pieces of tack-it at the bottom of the triangle?
I am french so excuse for my syntax. I have juste ordered an Erlhund at Lando music and I have got it just now on my knees, ready to put it on my bass. I have read last week a lot of post here, but not all (... 18 pages...), and I don't remember everything, specially about the location of the mic (I am sorry, I know that it has been talked about very very much but...) and I don't remember to have seen some pictures of the area that suits the mic.
So Flatback when you say
the bass bar is the big piece of wood under the table and on the E side?
... Is someone has a picture?
Edit: there is no instructions with the mic. Do I put 3 little pieces of tack-it at the bottom of the triangle?
- Dec 9, 2003
- 369
- 45
- Disclosures
- Kontrabass-Atelier, Lando Music (Germany), "The Double Bass Book"/"Das Kontrabass-Buch"
