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Double Bass Gage Soundclip

#61
I put the SoundClip on the main bass before last night's gig. I took it off before the first tune. I couldn't get a good sound out of it. To be fair, this is the bass that the Realist doesn't work on at all and I had to work extremely hard to get an even acceptable sound with the SoundClip in my practice room. A real gig test is going to have to wait for a few weeks until I take the Kolstein Travel bass out for an outside gig.

mark
 
#64
FYI,
I was in Bob Riccardis shop over the weekend and we did a quick test drive with the new Gage sound clip. Went from a plywood bass to a 1920 something juzek in hardly no time and dialed in a decent sound within a few minutes plugged into a old polytone amp.It is very easy to move, take off.
While I am not in the market for a PU ,and it is rather expensive.
I think i would consider it if....
I did not want to alter my bass/bridge installing a pu ,needed to change from bass to bass , or wanted the quick option of playing the bass with no pu attached to the bridge.
He recently did some excellent repair work for me ,and also has some nice bass's available ...
http://www.riccardisviolinshop.com/
 
#66
I'm still unsure if it actualy sounds 'better' than the realist. I've got one bass so won't be moving it about, although I like the option to remove it for classical work and very occasional overseas gigs.
I've just got the bass so havnt tried any pickups yet.

I've been using the full circle on my old bass and do like it, perhaps it needed more bottom end, but acousticly the new bass is huge.

I've always loved the sound of the realist when other people use them so fancy giving one a go. .
 
#69
I put a Gage Soundclip to my carved bass which already has a Full Circle. I played them through my AI Ten2 combo. Results on this bass were clear.

FC sounds better. More balanced and pleasant HiFi sound in it as I expected.

BUT the Realist Sounclip is also a good pickup and it´s nice to just plug in and play and then remove. It has much more honky mids and less bottom than the FC. But after cutting the mids and boosting a bit bass from the amp my ears soon got used to the sound. It has a nice "wooden" character in the sound especially on the E string which may cut through very well in the band.
Also it was significantly louder than the FC and the volume pot is a great option. I´m going to try it with a mic on my other (classical) bass.

So FC is still the best sounding pu from those I´ve tested (BP-100, Underwood, Shadow, Schertler stat-b, Revolution solo II, Bassmax and "standard" Realist). But if you don´t want to have bridge adjusters and sometimes need a pu to your bass I think this Soundclip is a great product.
 
#70
My dear luthier gave me a Soundclip to try and I reckon that its much better than the muddy Realist, but I also think that every bass has it's own characteristic's so it is hard to say that its the best pickup ever made! I use Planet Wing on both my basses carved and hybrid. My first impression was very positive though, and I must say that it didn't take long to find a great tone and set up between the Soundclip and my Markbass121p!! Keeping that very same set up on my amp I plugged in my Planet Wing and the sound was terrible!! Than I adjusted the set up on my amp and amazingly I found the same or near enough the same also very nice and satisfying beautiful sound!! All I did was I have tweaked my amp to compensate! I am sure that the Soundclip will take off like a kite but I am taking this one back to the shop, say thank you very much but no thank you! Great sound or not Planet Wing, FC, Underwood, even my 4 dollar pickup can be tweaked to get lovely sound. I think personally for a laugh that Mr Gage will come out with something like a piezzo attached cleverly to the sound-post next! That would sound interesting?!?! :ninja:
 
#71
So I finally took the SoundClip out to a gig last Sunday. The results were a little underwhelming although not horrible. I used it with my Kolstein Travel bass through a Polytone Mini Brute 4 (the one with the 15 inch speaker). It was an outside gig and when I left the house, it was storming. I didn't think we'd actually play so I didn't take any of my good gear. If we did play, I wanted to be able to get off the stage fast if a another storm came up and wanted the simplest, least destructible rig possible. Between the time I left the house and got to the gig site, it had stopped raining and the sun came out. So much for that great idea.

I ran the SoundClip attached to the Kolstein's E side bridge directly into the Poly. The sound wasn't horrible but it wasn't exactly inspiring either. There just wasn't much inside to the tone. The Poly didn't help matters but I don't think the big problem was the amp as I've gotten some pretty good sounds out of it in the past and I still use it for fretless electric on the rare dates I have fretless gigs.

I did try moving it around a bit but I don't like futzing around with equipment too much during the gig as it takes away from the music. I also took away and then put back the weights.

I don't know what to think about it right now. I'm sure if I worked with it some more, I could get a better, more useable sound out of it. I just didn't this time. Next time, I'll try it with my AI rig and have my other pickup ready to go as backup.

mark
 
#73
#74
I have one -first place I put it... D:
Second place... :D +9999999999999
I put it from the pictured place to the "top" half (on the other side of the adjuster... the side the strings touch) and it sounds amazing. My teacher, who has tried almost everything, literally was amazed. Then again, it could be my bass. Either way +1 to the Gage Soundclip
 
#75
I would love to pick this up to be able to move over to my fiance's cello. The guys at Gage said I might need to get a small piece of maple to fill the gap on the thinner bridge. They are coming out with a smaller one that uses the same element for cello specifically, but I only want to buy one. Am I nuts!? Might this plan work?
 
#77
She plays mainly classical, so the "regular" Realist is not an option. I want something we both can use as well. The guys at Gage said it has been used on a cello before (with good results) but, yes, a little big and heavy. Nothing is easy, right?
 
#79
pauliebass said:
I would love to pick this up to be able to move over to my fiance's cello. The guys at Gage said I might need to get a small piece of maple to fill the gap on the thinner bridge. They are coming out with a smaller one that uses the same element for cello specifically, but I only want to buy one. Am I nuts!? Might this plan work?
Click to expand...

The new cello version of the SoundClip is now available.
 
#80
What I wanna know is, how in the hell would the soundclip sound anything like the regular Realist? It's a totally different design, not under the bridge foot. Much closer to the strings or can be positioned in different areas to get different sounds. Seems to me it would sound much more like a bridge wing pickup.

I was slightly interested but not if it has the same undefined, feedback prone woofy Realist attributes.

It seems like because you can adjust the pickup tension and weight it would be much less feedback prone and better for louder music - but so many people have said "it's just like the Realist" here that it's got me wondering.
 

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