Double Bass help with my eub

[clockworkcorpse]

hello all, i have a Zeta eub hybrid (34" scale, works with strap or upright). neat little thing, but the piezo is on the fritz. works mostly but horribly distorted at times, my regular trusted tech tells me the problem is inside the bridge and cannot be repaired. Zeta has not yet responded to my emails. dang.

anyway, i'm not too bothered about the piezo loss, as the long term plan for this guy was to install a magnetic pickup, preferably the same emg setup from an NS eub. i've never liked the sound of a piezo, and i really like that glassy emg tone on my electric bass (fender style).

does anyone here know where i might buy an active magnetic pickup set like the NS eub? to answer any questions that may pop up about the actual mechanical fit, i plan to build a half-round block thing to mount on the body to get the pickups up to the strings, as the Zeta is a slab body.

failing that plan, i intend to put another more readily available magnetic pickup in there, unless there's a more genius idea out there?

thanks for reading, hope to get a bunch of good suggestions.

zeta hybrid eub

• clockworkcorpse
• Feb 20, 2015

see title

 

[Hitman(SWE)]

I think EMG makes a pickup (one round pickup for each string) that are used in the more expensive NS Design EUB´s as well as on Blast Cult´s Electric basses. That one would probably fit your Zeta perfectly, I´m not sure they sell that pickup to regular customers (it´s not on the EMG website) - send an e-mail and ask `em.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

But a good P-bass pickup would do the job, because of the two parts you can adjust it to fit the radius on your fingerboard.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Post a good closeup of the bridge. You can do something to make this work.....piezo elements are not rocket science.

 

[Francois Blais]

If I'm not mistaken, there is a choice of bass guitar bridges with integrated piezo element(s).
Maybe replace the bridge with one of them?

 

[clockworkcorpse]

basses

edit: sorry i quoted this ^, not sure how that happened, haha

Post a good closeup of the bridge. You can do something to make this work.....piezo elements are not rocket science.

If I'm not mistaken, there is a choice of bass guitar bridges with integrated piezo element(s).
Maybe replace the bridge with one of them?

thank you both for your advice, i'll get a couple photos up later today if i can find the time.

perhaps i was not clear, i do not want to repair the piezo at the moment, i want to fit a magnetic pickup. i have an assortment on hand, but in order to get a perfect fit, individual coils (like the emg setup from the ns basses) would be needed. a precision pickup is close, and one with adjustable pole pieces (dp122, i have one handy) almost fits, and would work, but really what i'm looking for is a source for a pickup that has four separate coils.

thanks again

 

[Francois Blais]

Ok, so you want the sound of a fretless bass guitar it seems.
I'd go with piezos but that's of course your choice!

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Kent Armstrong made this custom pickup for me about fifteen years ago for a 34" scale bass with a fingerboard very similar to your Zeta. He's kinda hard to get in touch with but he still does do custom work.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

The NS individual EMGs reminded me of someone a while back talking about Ubertar Hexaphonic making individual pickups. I don't know anything about them but you could build a nice wood block that matched the radius of your board to set them in. That would probably look pretty nice. I'd imagine there might be other guys doing custom work who would do individual p.ups too.

 

[clockworkcorpse]

Post a good closeup of the bridge. You can do something to make this work.....piezo elements are not rocket science.

here's the pictures, hope they show enough detail for my description;

the bridge is made up of one aluminum block that has been machined into a slot, and a second metal insert has been bonded in the slot. you can see from the side view what i mean. the piezo elements, i understand there are two per string, are somehow imbedded inside. although something can be seen under the strings, i don't know what i'm looking at.

i have a regular tech i have visited for years, and he has said that there isn't anything he can do about it. i'm willing to try anything, though, as i can make the decision to be forceful with the poor thing. i don't really want to destroy the bridge, as it is currently playable and there needs to be a bridge to make a magnetic pickup work, haha.

so my priority is to get a magnetic pickup installed, but ultimately i would also like to get a piezo going again. if there's something i can do to make this one work properly, then that would be awesome. the preamp is great and functions perfectly, clean bill of health, hopefully if i replace the piezo i can use the original preamp.

oh, the problem with this one is that the sound from the D and E strings is distorted, but the G and A are perfect. again, preamp is not the problem, the tech tells me it is likely a grounding problem inside the bridge.

 

[clockworkcorpse]

Post a good closeup of the bridge. You can do something to make this work.....piezo elements are not rocket science.

oops, correction, that is not aluminum... it's some kind of hard cast substance, extremely light weight. so it's a coppery bronze metal bridge encased in this weird composite...

and yes i recognize my need for hand lotion...

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Ok, your tech is right that would be a bitch to repair......
If you every were inclined to get a piezo bridge going it wouldn't be that hard to make something like this one Steve Azola did for the same bass the Armstrong magnetic was for. Sure Steve's really good and had built a bunch of bridges like this but he did it while I was there and IIRC it only took him about an hour and a half installed.

 

[clockworkcorpse]

Ok, your tech is right that would be a bitch to repair......
If you every were inclined to get a piezo bridge going it wouldn't be that hard to make something like this one Steve Azola did for the same bass the Armstrong magnetic was for. Sure Steve's really good and had built a bunch of bridges like this but he did it while I was there and IIRC it only took him about an hour and a half installed.
View attachment 570631

do you mind me asking what that cost you?

 

[Jeff Bonny]

I'd bought a couple of custom instruments from him and posted a glowing review on The Bottom Line mailing list....this one was on the house. My recollection of how long it took was misleading too because I remember now the piezo elements were already built. Still not that difficult for someone familiar with the technology but probably not especially cheap either. I'd guess $300-500 would be the ballpark. Sorry if I made it sound like it was a $100 job.

Something like this might work well on your bass though. It was huge and meaty sounding and got a ton of volume before feedback. But it was pretty electric sounding and I ended up going back to the original much thinner cello-like bridge with a 1st gen Gage Realist that captured more of the acoustic sound of the instrument. For the sound you're talking about though the magnetic idea is probably a lot cheaper and closer to what you want. I just thought I'd show you this bridge because in a lot of ways it is well suited to the Zeta.

 

[Matthijs]

How close are the dimensions of the bridge heigth wheels to those of a DB? Would a Full Circle or a Life Line fit?

 

[Feral Feline]

Bonnymeister, or anyone else... Would a Biesele maybe fit on the Zeta?

 

[clockworkcorpse]

Bonnymeister, or anyone else... Would a Biesele maybe fit on the Zeta?

can you measure the string spacing on the bass in the picture, or is that a photo from the internet?

the zeta has narrow spacing like a fender, with a narrow neck.

 

[clockworkcorpse]

Bonnymeister, or anyone else... Would a Biesele maybe fit on the Zeta?

I just sent an email off to the maker, I'll post details when I find out. Thanks for posting this pickup, I hadn't seen it before.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

There's also the Invalid Link Removed which seems to be more highly regarded than most mags.

And the totally old school Invalid Link Removed......

 

[clockworkcorpse]

There's also the Invalid Link Removed which seems to be more highly regarded than most mags.
View attachment 570820

And the totally old school Invalid Link Removed......
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I haven't seen either of these in person, but my tech ruled them both out because of thier size; the zeta has the exact string spacing of a fender, so 2" from G to E at the neck heel, 2 1/4" at the bridge. Both of those guys are made for acoustic upright, so the poles are too widely spaced from what I've heard. There is also the issue of depth, so the zeta's body would need to be routed and the pickup inset. Not a huge deal, but if I'm doing a permanent install like that I'd want it to be perfect. I'm sure the schaller would work with modifications, but the poles will miss the strings by a long shot.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

This is probably what should have been the first suggestion but what about just a P-Bass pickup? Back in the late 80's I mounted one on a block hung off the end of the fingerboard of an Ampeg Baby Bass and it sounded monstrous. It's very adjustable to the fingerboard radius, lots of different flavors, lots available including used ones and if for test purposes you stuck it on with wood shims and auto body trim tape (that's what I used to install the Armstrong and it works) it's totally reversible to try.

And if you went with something like these Sentell's or [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] with blades string spacing becomes a non-issue.