My Ehrlund Acoustic Pickup arrived this morning.
I ordered it directly from Goran along with a preamp too. It seems to be working well for me... I have had no feedback issues (I was getting worried by quenoil's post!)
I think I feel a long post coming on.. so do feel free to read something else instead. I am a better sound / recording engineer than I am a bass player, so my ears are well trained at listening and fine tuning sounds.
Here's what my experiences have been so far:
I've tried it in three positions and I used headphones to listen:
1 - about 4 inches south of G foot, and towards f hole
2 - about 4 inches south of E foot, and towards f hole
3 - a few inches from E side edge of the top, at about half the height of the TP (hard to explain!)
Results:
1 - I liked it.. bass warmth + strings + body sound
2 - Almost same as 1) slightly warmer perhaps, apart from what I might describe as an "echo bass resonance" - it started shortly after a plucked note and stopped just before the note died away. I don't know what it was - something inside the bass resonating. (the bass bar?? is it glued to the top usually??)
3 - A very woody sound, lots more body and less low end.
I decided to move it back to position 1) for the time being.
I will echo Bill and Rich when I say the Ehrlund is very very sensitive - by that I mean that it will pick up the sounds of anything touching the bass top - fingers on strings, slapping, any sort of accidental fumbling or bad technique (my speciality
), buttons on shirts.. that sort of thing. The whole bass seems to behave like the diaphragm of a mic - and all the high frequencies come through in astonishing detail. As I have been using a Realist for a number of years it is like a breath of fresh air!
I also tried using the EAP with a different preamp; an Award Session AP10 which I have on long term loan from a friend. The EAP worked very well with this preamp too... but... there was a buzz. Sounded like a mechanical buzz - something rattling... I tracked it down to... The Realist!!??!! Huh??? ..... (it wasn't even plugged in.. What??)... What I could hear was the copper foil round the edges of the Realist that extend past the E foot rattling against the bass top! I swapped back to the Ehrlund preamp and the noise was virtually gone, although now I knew what I was listening for I could just about make it out. I swapped back to the AP10 and the buzz came back. I tried putting a bit of blue tack at the corners and that almost cured it - but I couldn't get the tack underneath properly. I think I need to remove the Realist and refit it with extremely tiny blobs of tack at the exposed edges.
This buzz / lack of buzz leads me to suspect that Ehrlund's preamp might have some kind of low pass filter that removes these super high frequencies. I will need to make some recordings and listen back on my monitor speakers to find out for sure.
Using Ehrlund's preamp I then plugged the EAP into Ch1 of my EA Doubler with the Realist into Ch2. My bass is a Romanian 3/4 flatback, about 35 - 40 years old and it's sound is... hmmm.... it speaks very well in the midrange shall we say! It does have a lovely voice acoustically, especially when I manage to get the bow to work properly, but it doesn't have a great deal of ultra low warmth (I noticed this when I compared it to Laurence's 7/8 bass last week)..... Anyways.. the sound with the EAP... I would say basically the same results as reported with Laurence's bass last week. The midrange is forward, but this can be brought into check by using the doubler's mid EQ. Through the amp I really did like to blend in some Realist to enhance the low end. Especially as my DB is a bit thin acoustically. I tried the bow, and IMO the Ehrlund's top super defined top end response did make my bowing sound a bit scratchy - when the EAP was used by itself. Moving the EAP to a different place would probably reduce the scratchiness - where it currently is: by the G foot, is probably the worst place it could be. But blended with the Realist it sounded spot on, the two signals worked so well together. Bowing didn't sound scratchy when blended. Pizz sounded great.
Swapping between the inputs on the Doubler seemed like this to me:
Ch1) Mid driver and tweeter (Ehrlund)
Ch2) Bass driver (Realist)
Ch1+2) - A full range speaker
That's the best way I can describe it. I don't mean to do the Ehrlund's bass reponse down.. on headphones it sounds great, but through an amp I don't think you can can beat the low end thump of the Realist.
I must retire now.. phew that was an exhausting post. I hope somebody finds it useful.
Rick
EDIT:
AFter a day or two I'm loving the bass end of the Ehrlund through my amp. I like it better than the Realist. I have a Jump Jive Jazz gig tonight so I will be able to test the setup out properly
