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Double Bass Listen up and guess! Realist Vs Full Circle

Which pickup sound did you like better?

  • The first one.

    Votes: 58 52.7%

  • The second one

    Votes: 26 23.6%

  • Mmmmm, Carrots!

    Votes: 26 23.6%
  • Total voters
    110
  • Poll closed .
#61
Pretty cool test. I've had the realist for a year and a half, and switched to the FC, and it to be much fuller, and more realistic sounding. The folks at David Gage are wonderful people, and I've heard Ron Carter get a great sound with realist, but for me it wasn't my "cup of tea". Brilliant!
 
#63
How about recording and trying to get a good sound out of both, and we can see what sounds better. I think impedance is a bigger issue than we all suspect, and notice that many times when I use different amps and basses that the settings can be very different on different amps to get about the same sound, and try to use an electric bass amp- forget it, you all know how bad that sounds.

I sold my GK too. Some people sound good with them, usually if they are big boomy type players, I just could not ever feel like I was not fighting it.
 
#64
While this was a very cool idea for a thread, I think it might be misleading to someone who may be researching which pickup to buy. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have been using a Realist on my bass for a couple of years now and I've also recorded with it a few times. I can say that the second pickup on Alexis' recorded example sounds nothing like the sound I get with my Realist, at least on my bass which is a 1949 Kay M-1 with Pirastro Obilgato strings. I played a rehearsal earlier tonight for an upcoming musical called "Red Hot & Cole" in which the musicians (piano, bass and drums) are onstage with the the cast. For this gig, like most theatre work I do, the amplified sound of my bass has to be very close to the natural acoustic sound and also allow me to play arco without a harsh tone or noticeable change in volume. I've used several other pickups (Underwood, Fishman BP-100, K&K Bass Max) but the Realist is the first one that allows me to achieve this and I couldn't be happier with it. There's just no way I could have gotten such good results with those other pickups. The Realist gives me a nice tone for jazz combo gigs too. I think the fact that most poeple believed that the Realist was the first pickup shows how different most people's results are. I don't have any connection with David Gage nor do I have a bias against Fishman, but I hope nobody decides to pass on the Realist based solely on this thread.

- Steve

Link Removed
 
#65
My findings with the realist is very similar to Steves. On one hand I was not surprised that the first recording was not the realist, but the track recorded with the realist is not at all what I have experienced using it.

I was i Vienna this summer and played on a nice rented bass with both a FC and an Underwood. On that bass and amplifier the FC was quite natural sounding but too airy, which resulted that I was buried in the mix. So I went with the underwood, although it's very colored and "fast". You can check it out here Invalid Link Removed I also play the tuba, please have patience with the sound man - the mix gets little better after some songs

TD
_______________________________________
Who never has played on a bass with a realist that has not worked well.
 
#68
I have to agree--the first clip sounds more like the realist does on my bass. Never tried a full circle on this bass, though it soundedd gfreat on my old engle. It's hard to say which is better from this. I liked the FC clip a little more, but both of them had strengths and weaknesses and both could have benefited from a little eq.
 
#69
As I said before, I used to love the realist, but I think they've made changes on them and it doesn't sound as good as it used to. I've had this conversation with a few bass players here in NY and everyone seems to agree that the new ones are not as good... On the other hand, I don't "defend" the FC. I just said it has allowed me to get a good sound easily for the week that i've had it. Let's face it, in the recording the FC sounds better, period. Then that's why most people thought it was the realist, because it's gained this great reputation of being the natural pickup and so on... I'm trying to keep all my prejudgements away and just listen.

I have another question for those speaking of the impedance at which the recording was made... You'll have to excuse my ignorance on the subject, but I have no idea neither about how to find out how I recorded it nor how it would affect the sound. If you tell me how to find this info I'll pass it on.

Let me know!


Thanks

Alexis
 
#70
I'm not sure that impedance would matter all that much--both the realist and the FC seem to work well into conventional, low impedance amps in a way that the first generation of piezos didn't.

What other evidence is there that they changed the design/composition of the realist? Is there any visible difference?
 
#71
As I continue to read this thread, along with reading Alexis' web page containing the results, I'm going to once again try to open the can of worms about pickup to pickup variability between pickups of exactly the same make and model - It sounds like that's exactly what Alexis ran into when his old Realist died. And I have to agree with Steve and TD - my Realist sounds very much like clip 1 and my Underwood sounds like clip 2 (although my experiments are still underway).

This question is particularly important to me because I suspect my Realist is about to die - the connection from the foil into the little cable to the jack is separating - and if I can't figure out some way to repair it I'll have to replace it. I might replace it with another Realist IF the new Realists are pretty much the same as the old - and here, old means I purchased this Realist about 3 years ago. If not, maybe I should try a FC.

So, anybody that has used more than one pickup of the same make and model please weigh in here - are they consistent? Or do I need to audition pickups the same way we audition bows - you've got to play every individual one because no two are alike.

Some other observations -
1) my Realist has lots of output, also. It certainly was capable of overdriving the input stage of my Fishman preamp (one of the old three-knob models). It works fine straight into the 1 megOhm input of my iAmp 600.
2) The Digidesign MBox specs online (what Alexis used to record these samples) say the 1/4 inch inputs are Hi-Z. They don't say what the actual input impedance is, but typical Hi-Z inputs are probably 50kOhm (that's been a typical input for an impedance matching transformer). That's kind of low for using a piezo, I think. Typical inputs for piezos are 1 megOhm and up on piezo preamps and amps designed for piezos (and on the GK amp that Alexis uses according to his profile).
 
#72
I don't see why impedance issues should be cited to debase Alexis' experiment. As long as both pickups were recorded under the same conditions....

Assuming the impedance was low for a piezo, the FC still sounded great. Shouldn't that just make it even more praiseworthy in comparison to the Realist?
 
#73
Tbeers said:
I don't see why impedance issues should be cited to debase Alexis' experiment. As long as both pickups were recorded under the same conditions....

Assuming the impedance was low for a piezo, the FC still sounded great. Shouldn't that just make it even more praiseworthy in comparison to the Realist?
Click to expand...

I don't think the intent here is to debase Alexis' experiment at all, just to understand it better so we can correctly extrapolate conclusions about how these pickups might respond in our own applications. I would like to know if one pickup is more sensitive to impedance mismatches than the other (which could make it less useful overall, if one expects to use more than one amp or preamp). That certainly doesn't make the pickup that's more sensitive to mismatches bad; it's just that one needs to know that information to use that pickup correctly.

As far as designing the experiment, Alexis did well in running both under the same conditions as a first cut - we are all discovering much about the performance of these two individual samples under those conditions. A logical extension to this experiment might be to operate each pickup thru a high-quality preamp of known input impedance and record the result - although I'm certainly not suggesting that Alexis has any good reason to do this. He already knows which one is working best for him :)
Mark
 
#74
mesmithnm said:
Some other observations -
1) my Realist has lots of output, also. It certainly was capable of overdriving the input stage of my Fishman preamp (one of the old three-knob models). It works fine straight into the 1 megOhm input of my iAmp 600.
Click to expand...

I've heard other people say this which strikes me as odd becuase the Realist has the lowest output of any piezo pickup I've used. Quite a bit less than the Underwood or Bass Max. BTW I purchased my Realist in 2004 which is after they made changes to the piezo element (the previous element was larger and sometimes left indentations in the top of the bass).

- Steve

Link Removed
 
#75
I just thought of something that may (or may not) have impacted this experiment.

The Full-Circle can be installed with either the elements facing up or down. If they were facing down (threads towards strings) then the realist being under the same bridge foot may have affected the tone of the full-circle.

That being said, I still really like my full-circle.
 
#76
I would also like to suggest that the fit of the realist is crucial in making it sound good. If the bridge foot is not still very flat, covering what it touches of the realist securely, I have heard some squelchy sounds in that case. Fitting well, I have had no problems.

I just think that Alexis's study has good intentions, but is not the most scientific. There are simply too many variables for everyone to chime in with me toos for however many pages.

Even with a well cut bridge, sometimes additional adjustments need to be made to insure the realist fits well.

In my mention of impendance, I just mean that the input levels of the two pickups are different, and there are other differences too.
 
#77
firstly a little background . . .
I started out playing tuba in symphony orchestras in the early '60's, shortly thereafter starting to double on string bass in jazz groups. Changed to full-time electric bass by 1968. Work in LA studio scene in the 70's as an electric bassist/string bassist and the 80's as a recording engineer. I KNOW how the instruments sound, acoustically, and have the equipment (ears) and experience to qualify these pick-ups. I personally, many years ago, used the polytone (there wasn't much choice. use that or use nothing!)
Sooo . . .
let me say that I DID NOT find the 2 samples to be at a similar volume. I'd be interested in knowing which of the two pick-ups was attenuated (turned down) because I had to turn sample 2 down to about 70% of the volume of sample 1 to have them at the same volume, or as I should say, the same percieved presence. I prefered the sound of the 1st sample (as a recording, NOT thinking about what would work better live). I like it when I hear a "natural, open" sound and #2 maybe sounds more like a bass, acoustically, but to me the extreme boost in the 160-180Hz area makes it sound very "thuddy" (which BTW rhymes with "muddy"). Just my dos centavos . . .
 
#78
Steve Boisen said:
I've heard other people say this which strikes me as odd becuase the Realist has the lowest output of any piezo pickup I've used. Quite a bit less than the Underwood or Bass Max. BTW I purchased my Realist in 2004 which is after they made changes to the piezo element (the previous element was larger and sometimes left indentations in the top of the bass).

- Steve

Link Removed
Click to expand...


Mine is older and does leave small marks on the top. It's not very hot. Also on some amps you need to go through a high-impedance pre-amp to get good volume. It's also a little damaged and judgung by the looks of it, will not hold for much longer. If the cable get's loose from the piezo I will send it the gage for reparation. But the sound is accurate and just as good on the bow as pizz. I had a conversation with Mark Rubin a while ago, and he said that the realist he is using is very hot - so, all together there might be an inconsistency regarding the output volume. (Which remind me of the volume discussion on the revolution pu...)
 
#79
Wow, I am really surprised at the results of this thread. I have used the Realist for a number of years. It is the hottest pickup (piezo) that I have used; it easily overdrives my old Fishman Blender. I also have an Underwood and a Bass Max.
Like mesmithnm I thought clip 1 sounded like my Realist Clip 2 sounded more like my Underwood or the Fishman BP100 which I have also tried. Also I am in the market for a new PU and upon first hearing of Alexis test (before the results) I was thinking man, that Realist does sound good.
I have found placement of any piezo makes a huge difference, especially a tight, but not too tight of a fit. I glued a wooden shim to my Bass Max to get an even fit and what an improvement! It went form a mid range honk to a very useable full sound, and much hotter output. I am using it now because I play mostly orchestra gigs and don't want to leave the Realist on. I really have to wonder if the differing results in output are from the fit not a redesigned PU. I guess I will just have to get a new Realist and find out, and if it doesn’t sound good then Try the FC.
 
#80
Alexis, please could you tell us whether your FC was/is mounted 'threads up' or 'threads down'. The latter is supposed to give a brighter sound according to the installation guide.

I was thinking of trying a FC myself so would be interested to know.

I tried the Realist myself a while ago and found that it had a low output & gave a muddy sound (& was also more prone to feedback than other pickups I have tried).

I use a Bass Max at the moment.......

Nice playing BTW.
 

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