Magnetic pickup for me?

I have tried many pickup types, including conventional magnetic ones, piezos in the bridge wings etc, but the Barbera I now have is the best by far for tone and for loud volume without feedback. I have played some pretty loud jump blues/ rockabilly with that sucker. Do a Web search for Barbera and you'll find their site easy.

 

I use a String Charger in conjunction with a Gage Realist piezo; I have a tiny K&K mixer/preamp attached to my tailpiece. I keep just a bit dialed in with the piezo to get a bit more definition as I get above D on the G string, but in rooms from hell I'll dial it in almost 100%.

The String Charger sounds really nice in the upper registers (kinda like Ron Carter's metallic growl) but in lower registers it sounds thin compared to a piezo.

You can't use gut strings and rockabilly slapping doesn't translate well because the pickup won't pick up any of the fingerboard noise like a piezo will. It also doesn't work well for bowing. The pickup does come with an input jack (RCA!!!) for a piezo pickup but it doesn't let you balance the two in volume, so I found it pretty useless.

The main reason I use it is feedback control, while it's not perfect it still is much less susceptible to feedback than any piezo will ever be. Most of the guys who use DB in arena rock settings (like Lee Rocker, the guy with Big Bad Voodoo Daddies, etc.) use magnetics for this reason. For playing DB in a loud rock band situation, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

The P bass pickup off the end of the fingerboard is a common trick (this is what Lee Rocker uses) and might save you significant money over the String Charger. On the other hand, it will require some experimentation to get right; the S.C is fine out of the box. It costs $$$$$$ because it's handmade in small quantities, I'd bet if it was mass produced it would cost about $75.

 

There is a new magnetic pickup, made by Lace for Moses:



I got one a while back (that's my pickup above, on the dining room table), and now have some on order, and expect them any day. They do handle arco well. They come with a lengthy wire, no unconnector; I'll have string jack mounts available to solder to them soon.

 

Barbera is an impractical choice in this situation. You're talking about a custom-made bridge with the piezos inlaid, at a cost of $600+. The bridge, and, therefore, the entire system, is unusable on another bass unless you're extremely lucky. This is a rental bass, and I assume entry-level quality.

I used Barbera for many years. It's great. But over-priced and non-transferable between basses.

My custom K&K, courtesy of (All Hail) Bob Gollihur beats the Barbera hands down, at a fraction of the cost. Tranfer from bass to bass takes about 10 seconds.

 

This I gotta hear!

The reason I always figured arco works poorly with a magnetic is the bow keeps the string from moving a lot...compare the amount of string motion when bowing to when playing pizz. Less motion over the pickup means less signal. How does Lace get around that?

Bob, how about a ballpark price...both Bisele and String Charger are in the $300 range!

How does it mount to the fingerboard?

 

I am not certain that the amount of string motion is the problem - I can tell you that I got good arco response from the Linear pickups I first had on my EUB, and was very surprised - first time I ever got decent arco response from any magnetic pickup. This pickup can be attached by Velcro according to Moses; I haven't tried that yet but will shortly.

I believe I willing be selling it at the discounted price of $133.

 

I've mounted a p-bass p\u on a upright to eliminate feedback...and while it did that job pretty well,it made my urb sound like a giant p-bass(but thinner on some notes..due to pole piece location) and no slap sound for the rock-a-billy stuff(BTW..I own a K&K rock-a-billy p\u)..I was just wondering how this Moses p\u sounded?...is it p-bass like or is it more "natural sounding" like a piezo..(if Bob G. sells it...it must be pretty darn good)this p\u looks like the answer to all feedback problems,and at $135 I could saved myself a lot of headaches when building a mounting bracket for the p-bass p\u.I ask you all to give me your input on this p\u..thank you in advance

 

To my ears the Moses seems more transparent than the two p-bass pickups I've experimented with. The precision bass pickups seemed thicker and a little muddy in comparison. The Moses has very clear and uncompressed sound - doesn't sound like a bass guitar, but it isn't a piezo type of sound, either. I temporarily mounted it on my homebuilt EUB and played one gig with it, and liked the clarity and how it did capture the full length character of the string. This was with my EUB, the Moses pickup about three inches from the bridge, run through a K&K Dual Channel preamp. I plan to permanently mount it to my EUB as soon as I slice some wood and prepare it to cover the holes left by my Linear Pickups experiment.

BTW, while I'm sure it's probably not a Rockabilly concern, the Moses does great arco - it's just about the same level as the pizz. I'll be making up a seat of the pants technical drawing with specs of the pickup and posting it on my site.

 

I supplemented my bridge mounted K & K Double Big Twin with a pair of EMG Select P-Bass (passive)pickups at the base (bottom) of the fingerboard. I chose the EMGs because they employ blades rather than pole pieces and therefore eliminate dead spots. The sound from the EMGs is very good for Blues and other songs where an 'Electric Bass' tone is preferred. The EMGs and the K & Ks are run through a mixer that facilitates the 'sound' selection. If I knew how to send some pictures to this site I would gladly do so.

 

the Moses mag p\u sounds like it's right up my alley..now I just need some scratch to get one...would like to hear it mixed with my K&K rockabilly p\u...best of both worlds