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Lightwave or optical pickups and tracking

#2
I don't know the answer and you won't find many people who have even tried the lightwave pickups around here, but I can tell you that the best way to improve tracking is to use flatwound strings. With those, the fundamental is stronger and there are fewer harmonics to confuse the pedals.
 
#3
Optical pickups supposedly deliver more inherent fundamental/bass response than most, if not all, magnetic pickups. If that is indeed the case, more fundamental = better tracking.

Also, +1 to Danny. I've been dreaming of an "ultimate tracking bass" for a little while now with an extended graphite-based body (a la BassLab L-Bow design) for maximum fundamental resonance and sustain, flats, multi-scale neck (fanned frets), and optical pickups.
 
#4
I have a Spalt Magma 601x -- six-string fretless with lightwaves. It has a piezo hex pickup, so midi tracking is really excellent. On the other hand, it's also an awesomely built bass with faux 36" scale and incredibly low action, so that probably helps. IMO it tracks significantly better than a self-installed GK-3B pickup I have in one of my other basses.

It's a super-hot active, so keep in mind how a pedal reacts to a buffer. I don't have any traditional octave pedals, but it freaked out my Blue Box and FX25. My Whammy IV actually dealt with it quite well.
 
#6
I use a Roland GR-20. It took a lot of trial and error with working out individual string height and sensitivity on the unit.

Another headache was getting the internal gain trimpots adjusted correctly for each individual string so that I was hearing a clean output that matched the output that was going to the GR-20.

You'll never get tracking on the low b-string that doesn't have at least a 1-cycle delay (unless you set up a really good guessing algorithm that can pick up the correct pitch at less than a cycle), so yeah, there's limitations to how good a fast-attack synth off the midi trigger will sound, but I'm very happy with my setup. I just have the unit drop the pitch an octave if I really want that synth note. Otherwise I use slow-attack sounds.

I know you've probably heard this before, and I mean no disrespect, but how well these units track comes down to playing technique. As good as the pickups get, you can't dig in on the strings without getting poor tracking and false triggers on other strings. You HAVE TO play light, precise, and close to the bridge.
 
#8
Swimming Bird said:
You'll never get tracking on the low b-string that doesn't have at least a 1-cycle delay (unless you set up a really good guessing algorithm that can pick up the correct pitch at less than a cycle), so yeah, there's limitations to how good a fast-attack synth off the midi trigger will sound,
Click to expand...
That's the problem with all pitch to MIDI with bass.
Unplayable latency.
It's not pickup related though, it's physics.
 

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