Do the piezo pickups in the Full Circle wear out? Do they wear when a patch cord is plugged in even without playing, as in 9 volt batteries? Or conversely do they wear when playing acoustically, without a cord plugged in to the jack?
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Double Bass Full Circle question
- Thread starter MisterFred
- Start date
I think pressure over a long period of time is what tends to wear out piezos? You are more likely to have trouble with the jack than the piezo unless the cable coming out of the adjuster has issues.
I had one years ago. The jack/wire failed on mine. I gave it to a friend who fixed it and is probably still using it.
As such things go, the Full Circle seems to not be a particularly robust design. Most of us users who depend on the FC have replaced the transducer one or multiple times. Fishman seems aware of this characteristic and is often helpful with repairs and replacements. I haven’t found a solution to the dilemma and both of my uprights still wear FCs.
I'm thinking preventive maintenance, like I always unplug active bass guitars when not in use
Preventative maintenance would be to try to not wear the jack, and make sure you don't ever accidentally tug on the wire. In other words, I don't think it's worth worrying about. By the time you have issues you will likely have years on it. I will say that either way, Fishman sells replacement jacks, and someone can resolder the cable for you if it breaks.
In my personal experience, the problem is generally not the very thin wire leading to the string-mounted female 1/4" connector. The problem seems to be gradual delamination of the strain gauges inside the bridge height adjuster per se. I suspect that one contributor may be uneven loading of the adjuster, say when the bridge is not appropriately vertical above the top of the bass. This would lead to bending loads on the adjuster and that's probably hard on the internal gauges.
The one time my cable failed was a singular event. We were fostering a stray mother cat and her many kittens. The basement where my studio space is was awash in kittens. I got to a particular rehearsal, plugged the bass in and, well, no sound from the amp. I checked all sort of possible problems and then twigged to the fact that the thin white cable was in two pieces. On closer inspection I discovered that there was many, many tiny kitten tooth marks on the cable. Yup, it had been chewed through. Again Fishman helped me out. I think maybe there were some cat fanciers there.
The one time my cable failed was a singular event. We were fostering a stray mother cat and her many kittens. The basement where my studio space is was awash in kittens. I got to a particular rehearsal, plugged the bass in and, well, no sound from the amp. I checked all sort of possible problems and then twigged to the fact that the thin white cable was in two pieces. On closer inspection I discovered that there was many, many tiny kitten tooth marks on the cable. Yup, it had been chewed through. Again Fishman helped me out. I think maybe there were some cat fanciers there.
Yup, it's got FISH and you can play a TUNA two on it!Dude...It's got FISH... in the name, and you are shocked that cats wanted to eat it?
