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MTD "Marilyn Club"

#83
It's a shame but I must confess I had not enough time to play it.
But I tried the piezzo bridge mostly when playing fingerstyle. The sounds is more acoustic, more woody. The attack is different too.
I have to play more with to post a real advice.
Because of the frets, sounds is still "straight", I'd like to ear this bass as a fretless.
I think it could be interesting to have the advice of some players who have a fretless one with piezzo.
 
#84
Georges Abitbol said:
But I tried the piezzo bridge mostly when playing fingerstyle. The sounds is more acoustic, more woody. The attack is different too.
I have to play more with to post a real advice.
Because of the frets, sounds is still "straight", I'd like to ear this bass as a fretless.
I think it could be interesting to have the advice of some players who have a fretless one with piezzo.
Click to expand...
I've played both fretless and fretted bassess Piezo systems in them.

IMHO the key to using that kind of system in a fretless is to pretty much stay away from its high end, be very careful with its low end, and also have traditional electronics to blend along with them.

The high end tends to be REALLY high, giving you a really brittle clicky attack. Maybe cool for some folks, but I hated it. The lows are HUUUUUGE. That's a great thing to have to capture some attributes of an upright bass tone, but you gotta be careful with those as well. At least in the basses I've played, Piezo systems seem to be almost devoid of any mids. Without compensating for that at the amp, or with traditional electronics in the instrument, it can kill you in a mix.

If you use both the lows and highs carefully, you can kinda' get an acoustic bass guitar like tone, which can be pretty cool, but I found that more novel than useful.

The bottom line is, for me, I'd never own an electric bass that ONLY had a Piezo in it. Ones that have a Piezo AND traditional pickups (like yours), IMHO, are pretty cool.
 
#85
Hi Vic,
You're right, I'd rather having magnetics & piezzo with a balance between these pickups.
I got the best results to my ears with mixing magnetics and piezzo. Playing with piezzo only is strange for an electric bassplayer like me, but my guitar player have a nice sound when he plays with piezzo only (he owns an Ibanez 7string w/ piezzo bridge).
 
#87
Vic said:
I've played both fretless and fretted bassess Piezo systems in them.

IMHO the key to using that kind of system in a fretless is to pretty much stay away from its high end, be very careful with its low end, and also have traditional electronics to blend along with them.

The high end tends to be REALLY high, giving you a really brittle clicky attack. Maybe cool for some folks, but I hated it. The lows are HUUUUUGE. That's a great thing to have to capture some attributes of an upright bass tone, but you gotta be careful with those as well. At least in the basses I've played, Piezo systems seem to be almost devoid of any mids. Without compensating for that at the amp, or with traditional electronics in the instrument, it can kill you in a mix.

If you use both the lows and highs carefully, you can kinda' get an acoustic bass guitar like tone, which can be pretty cool, but I found that more novel than useful.

The bottom line is, for me, I'd never own an electric bass that ONLY had a Piezo in it. Ones that have a Piezo AND traditional pickups (like yours), IMHO, are pretty cool.
Click to expand...

Yup to all this. Which is why I get mad when I see a piezo bridge pickup accompanied by fingerboard only magnetic pickup - the piezo already sounds like that x20; what you need is back-pickup midrange honk brought into the mix to balance the lack of mids in the piezo. Very few luthiers do this. And I sure wish SOMEBODY would bring out a piezo that has been properly EQ'd for bass. The ones in the Musicman are quite good, as are the F bass ones in the Alain Caron model. I'm really curious about the new Takamine piezo pickups with the tube preamp built in. And that crazy hybrid ABG they're building - I would buy a 6 string fretless one of those in an instant!

Georges Abitbol said:
Hi Vic,
You're right, I'd rather having magnetics & piezzo with a balance between these pickups.
I got the best results to my ears with mixing magnetics and piezzo. Playing with piezzo only is strange for an electric bassplayer like me, but my guitar player have a nice sound when he plays with piezzo only (he owns an Ibanez 7string w/ piezzo bridge).
Click to expand...

If you ever hear a nicely miked acoustic, there's still a big disparity. Piezos are a huge tradeoff still, kind of like Neo speakers at the moment; they might be good sometime, but I sure ain't digging them yet.

Cheers,
Cameron
 
#90
Vic said:
The bottom line is, for me, I'd never own an electric bass that ONLY had a Piezo in it. Ones that have a Piezo AND traditional pickups (like yours), IMHO, are pretty cool.
Click to expand...

The Rob Allen basses would change your mind on that one, assuming you wanted a more organic, DB-like tone.

However, I agree that with a 'normally designed' bass guitar, piezo pickups are relatively useless. On a more 'acoustic' instrument like the Rob Allen (who also uses a nice internal preamp with a treble attenuation control and buffering for use with a standard bass amp input), it's warm and growly and DB-like.
 
#92
KJung said:
The Rob Allen basses would change your mind on that one, assuming you wanted a more organic, DB-like tone.

However, I agree that with a 'normally designed' bass guitar, piezo pickups are relatively useless. On a more 'acoustic' instrument like the Rob Allen (who also uses a nice internal preamp with a treble attenuation control and buffering for use with a standard bass amp input), it's warm and growly and DB-like.
Click to expand...
You're right. I've played one of those, and their regular size models, and really dug them.

I'm guessing their specifically designed system, coupled with, and targeted for, their instrument design, solves my "general problems" with Piezo-only electric basses, because it seems pretty different from all the others I've played.
 
#96
Bad pics, but here's my girl:
IMG_2769.gif

IMG_2766.gif
 
#97
Joelc73 said:
Marilyn #46

Invalid Link Removed

I've seen some pretty nice basses... This one is off the charts. It was a custom order for a customer in Europe. I thought you guys would enjoy it!
Click to expand...

Hmm, right, that will be mine. Joel, you may post the first picture here, since you were an integral part of designing it. Cant't wait to have it here!

Europe's awfully hot these days, should I come to the States?
Martin
 
#98
Mack 13 said:
Hmm, right, that will be mine. Joel, you may post the first picture here, since you were an integral part of designing it. Cant't wait to have it here!

Europe's awfully hot these days, should I come to the States?
Martin
Click to expand...

Hey Martin,

I didn't think you hung around these parts...;)

I can't wait to hear your review of #46.

JC
 

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