They do, but not the kind you are using (in the bridge saddles).
The Citron AE5-Swallow bass uses EMG piezo transducers.
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.
EMG Club!
- Thread starter Warpeg
- Start date
They do, but not the kind you are using (in the bridge saddles).
The Citron AE5-Swallow bass uses EMG piezo transducers.
- Jul 19, 2000
- 2,014
- 2,224
- Disclosures
- Owner/President, Gollihur Music LLC
Beautiful bass, and nice chops, and impressive that you wound your own pickups. So it is with all due respect that I mention that - despite your efforts, it's very difficult to make a comparison between the recordings. Are you using the same strings? Are they the same age? The same preamp/amp/recording interface? None of the knobs on the amp got accidentally moved? Same bass preamp? Settings? And then, I'm trying to listen to subtle audio differences recorded to a compressed audio file on computer speakers. I'm impressed with your efforts, but the results to me aren't very helpful - I can't hear a difference in tone 1 to tone 2 on my computer.
Anyway, I think we agree to disagree, and I appreciate your efforts and the very measured and intellectual approach you took in making your point.
Now I'll make mine: EMG's FARKIN ROOL!!!!!!!!!!
(Just kidding).
In any case, my EMGs sound very open and transparent, and I've got more bass low end than I can use if I want it. The 18v mod should be a required thing; they should just make them that way stock! IMHO, public opinion of EMG's would greatly improve.
Anyway, thanks for all your trouble, and glad you like the sound of your bass. I'm not trying to make any converts to EMGs; just making sure everybody gets the full dilly-o. Yo?
Just thought I would mention that if you can't hear a difference between the 2 then you really need better speakers/soundcard. While I still prefer the EMG's the tonal differences between are quite noticeable. As far as the question regarding all things being equal, here is a quote from his original post.
"Now here's the same bass with an EMG 40 sized dual coil low impedance pickup I designed. Same bass, same strings, same signal path."
BTW I do agree. EMG's rule
- Jul 19, 2000
- 2,014
- 2,224
- Disclosures
- Owner/President, Gollihur Music LLC
That's hardly scientific. "Same strings" could mean I had a set of D'Addario XL's on the bass for three months, made the recording when I decided to put the new pickup in, took off the strings, installed the pickup, and put another (new) set of the "same strings" on the bass... see where I'm going? Saying they're the same strings could have many shades of meaning.
I'm not condemning his process or hard work - or asking him to "defend" it - I'm just saying there are many variables to be accounted for that may have been overlooked, and we don't know how much time elapsed between recordings, how old the batteries were, whether his hair grew longer between recordings (he'd RAWK harder), etc. Finally, there's a clear difference in gain structure between the two recordings; and every studio engineer knows that "louder sounds better."
As for your other point, I was at work for the last post, and there I definitely do need a new set of speakers. Listening on my marginally better speakers at home (I'm not going through the trouble to open the MP3's in my studio) I hear the difference, though mostly in the slap work. My bass with EMG DC soapbars, a BTC, and 18v batteries doesn't have the same "compressed" sound - dunno what to say on that.
--M
Well you could ask me... The DC recording was made first. Same strings, means the same set... not another like it. Same bass means the same bass, etc. The recordings were done May 13th, 2006.
The strings were D'Addario XL's, (EXL1705 XL 5-String nickel regular light) in gauges .045, .065, .080, .100, .130. They might have been about 3 months old. The low strings sound a bit dead.
The two recordings were made the same day, maybe a half hour apart. I did not remove the strings... I only removed the two screws from the pickup, loosened the bottom two strings enough to slide the pickup out, slide the new one in, and switch the wires, which were connected via alligator clips, and tune the bass back up. This bass was being used as a test bed at the time, and only had one pickup in it.
It doesn't have to be scientific... this is a real world situation. Someone goes and buys a new pickup, and listens to the old one before popping in the new one. And besides, I lived with the EMGs in that bass, and three others for the past 13 years. I've done a tone of gigs and recordings with them, and I know how they sound in the basses I build. Obviously if something drove me to spending close to $900 to make myself a couple of replacement pickups, there had to be a valid reason. To me anyway. Now all basses sound different. This bass is heavy and rigid, has a phenolic fingerboard and graphite and two truss rods in the neck. The body is cherry with a maple top and the neck is maple and purple heart. (My '88 Ibanez basswood SR-885LE sounds great with two EMG J's!)
The reason I made the recordings was for my own use, to serve as a reference point. I recorded my bass in a manner I normally would, except for not using any EQ. With the EMG's I would always have the lows cranked a bit, and when using the 40P5 at the neck, I would crank the highs. I also have recordings of a 40P5 at the neck in that bass, and a 40J at the bridge.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
I actually gig'd a few times with the bass, and even though the 40P5 was still installed, I never had a need for it. Usually I had to mix some of it in to round out the bottom. I was looking for the low end to extend lower, and the high end to extend higher, and I feel a achieved that.
Then there was this bass.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
I had a 40P5 and a 40J originally. I never felt like I was getting enough sound out of the 40J, so I added a 40DC next to it. With the J all the way up (closest to the bridge) and the DC about 60%, and with some P mixed in, and heavily EQ'd, I got this:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
It's a great tone, but it took a LOT of work to get it. And it still isn't as smooth and lacks the depth of the new pickups.
If you listen, the EMG was actually recorded a little louder.. you can hear some clipping in the recording. Because of that I turned down the level a little on the next recordings. Also the new pickup has, obviously, a different preamp, and is indeed a much louder pickup.
I thought I mentioned the signal path... but here it is again. In the bass, pickup was connected to an EMG supplied 25K pot, and then to a BTC, and right to the jack. I used a 10' Spectraflex cable, and plugged into a Roland VM-3100Pro digital mixer, into the "Guitar (Hi-Z)" input on channel 4. The EQ was disabled, as were any built in effects. From this I run a coax S/PDIF digital out to an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound card installed in a 1 gHz Apple G4 Digital Audio running Mac OS X. Was probably running Panther at the time. The AP-2496 is slaved to the Roland's clock, obviously, and the Roland A/D converters were used.
I used TC Works Spark XL stereo editor for he recordings, which were done at the standard CD settings of 44.1KHz, 16bit, so there was no down sampling or dithering.
To get a bit more technical... the new pickup is actually a low to medium impedance pickup. In this case it's due to a low number of winds on the coil. The two coils are wired in series, and the total is about 2.5K. The pickup uses ceramic magnets and steel blade poles. The pickup has an external FET buffer with a maximum gain of about 10. The buffer has a very high input impedance (>10M) and a relatively low output impedance (around 100K). This was wired to a 25K pot and into an EMG BTC. These were the original EMG supplied controls.
The EMG pickups are pretty much high impedance coils (probably 8~10K), wired in parallel, and connected to an opamp in a differential type manner. This buffer circuit has a low impedance output.
Now my reasoning in designing the pickup, is that a low to medium impedance coil has a much wider frequency response. The higher the impedance, the harder it is for high frequencies to get out of the coil... they are impeded (hence the name). High frequencies require more energy, which is why ceramic magnets sound brighter than alnicos. I tried to be careful with the amount of inductance in the magnetic circuit. Too much and things get muddy. Too little and you need more windings, etc. The pickup you hear was over a year in the making, and has since evolved a few more times.
Listen to it with headphones. I probably used a little limiting in the recording after the fact... and I normalized the files to try and get the levels even. This is the nature of digital recording, and you should always compress or limit bass. I tried to be easy with it, and as I said the EQ was totally flat.
As I said, these recordings were for my own personal use... not really for anyone to hear. I like to keep an audio record of what I'm doing so I can go back and listen. If these were for public consumption, I would have rehearsed something and not been so sloppy! I was just making it up as I went along.
But this is what I like in a tone. Everyone is different, and it's all valid. I dislike mushy tube amp tone except for effect, preferring a quicker and more direct SS tone, with zero coloration. To some people that's sterile sounding, but it suits my playing style and let's me hear the sounds I'm getting with my fingers. I built my own basses because I wasn't finding what I wanted commercially... so this is all my own quest for the tone I hear in my head. The DC has an edgier tone, that would be well suited for certain types of music. Plug that into an SVT and it's anything but polite! Mine's a bit flatter and smoother. I was going for more of an Alembic/Stanley tone.
OK.. I went back to the original uncompressed AIFF files, and took the DC recording, and the entire recoding of my pickup and pasted them together end to end. The DC is first, and after the short slapping part is a pause. Oh and by the way, I almost never slap with the bridge pickup! I like the neck pickup for slapping.
After that is my pickup. You can hear the level is slightly less. It doesn't have the same EQ'd sounding top end as the DC, and to me sounds a bit warmer. More low end too. This is just the bridge pickup, there is no neck pickup in the bass. At the very end of the recording I enabled the EQ and cranked the bass and treble up a little. You can hear some digital "zipper" noise from the EQ pots.
I saved this as a MP3, saved via TC Works Spark XL, set at 192kbps, and VBR (which comes out to 88kbps) There is no compression or limiting on these files.. just the raw recordings. There's no audible difference between the compressed and uncompressed files.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] (1.84MB)
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] (3.99MB)
I might join the club with 5 string P/J set, but first, I must know it's dimensions, if my bass will need routing, and if they are better than my other option: Bartolini's
Standard P/J dimensions. The LJ5 is the same as the longer bridge pickup on a 4 string Jazz bass. If you need wider than that, you have to go with the soapbars.
One isn't better than the other.. just different. Bartolini also has many more models.
You know it's been so long since I used anything other than soapbars...
My Ibanez Soundgear has 2 EMG LJ5's. They make a P5 though.
I'm not sure what Bartolini has anymore... I guess I was thinking about the range of pickups they have in general. Their website it not very user friendly.
I think you are really better off going with soap bar shaped pickups. In those, you can have anything. It's easier to get a wider P style and J style for example. I had an EMG 40P5 and 40J in a wide spaced 5 string. Sound of a P and J in a soapbar.
I know Bartolini has similar passive pickups.
My Ibanez Soundgear has 2 EMG LJ5's. They make a P5 though.
I'm not sure what Bartolini has anymore... I guess I was thinking about the range of pickups they have in general. Their website it not very user friendly.
I think you are really better off going with soap bar shaped pickups. In those, you can have anything. It's easier to get a wider P style and J style for example. I had an EMG 40P5 and 40J in a wide spaced 5 string. Sound of a P and J in a soapbar.
I know Bartolini has similar passive pickups.
Thanks!
I want to emphasize that I'm not putting down EMGs. I still have them in some of my instruments, including guitars, and they sound great. I was just looking for a different tone.
It's nice to have options. When I started playing bass in 1969 you were stuck with the pickups (and hardware) that came in your bass, or maybe you could buy a Fender pickup or something. I had added a Fender P-bass pickup to my Ric 4001. Then DiMarzio came out, and lots of bass players used the Model P, and later the Model J. Most people played P basses back then...not as many Jazz basses, or Rics or Gibsons. Then in about '76 Hi-A pickups came out. I got one of those to replace the bridge pickup on my Ric.. which I broke tinkering with it! Hi-A changed their name to Bartolini the next year. I still have that pickup.
I really feel this is the true Golden Age of Basses... so much cool gear out there!
Here's another clip with the bridge and then neck pickups, and the two mixed. These are slightly newer versions of the pickups. The original had rod pole pieces, like a Jazz bass pickup, and the new ones have blades. I'm changing where I'm plucking on the strings, and you can really hear the difference. ( yeah, the bass is out of tune ...
)[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
hi emg club,
I was considering pairing up some emg 45hz's with my already installed OBP-3. This looks like the place to ask the question: Do any of you have this pairing and or what are your opinions/benefits/drawbacks of this? And how hard is it to do at home - do they naturally play well with each other?
Any assistance/advice/opinions would be appreciated.
I was considering pairing up some emg 45hz's with my already installed OBP-3. This looks like the place to ask the question: Do any of you have this pairing and or what are your opinions/benefits/drawbacks of this? And how hard is it to do at home - do they naturally play well with each other?
Any assistance/advice/opinions would be appreciated.
I'm not sure about compatibility but I doubt it would be a problem. As far as being able to do it at home, I have installed many preamps and pickups and with the right tools (fine tip soldering iron, tape, shrink tube, etc) a little know how, and a steady hand it's not a bad process. A great resource is Rick over at EMG. He is the engineering tech and answers emails promptly and friendly. His address is [email protected]
New recruit requesting membership!
Left - "Howard", Dean Metalman V, EMG 40DC (this one used to have a 40CS, but I wanted things dirtier)
Right - "Jimmy", Dean Metalman ML, EMG 40DC (Drop D)
Yes, those are 40's on 4-strings... Deans are weird
Yes, I use DR Hi-Beams (.045 - .105)
Yes, I play with a pick (Dunlop Tortex .88mm)
Left - "Howard", Dean Metalman V, EMG 40DC (this one used to have a 40CS, but I wanted things dirtier)
Right - "Jimmy", Dean Metalman ML, EMG 40DC (Drop D)
Yes, those are 40's on 4-strings... Deans are weird
Yes, I use DR Hi-Beams (.045 - .105)
Yes, I play with a pick (Dunlop Tortex .88mm)
