Double Bass "Padded Cable?"

[Ric Vice]

It was overloading the input stage on a Headway EDB-1 preamp, not the amp.

I had exactly the same experience with the Realist into the Headway EDB-1. It dosen't seem to be a problem with any other pickup like the Full Circle or Revolution Solo II. I could barely turn the volume on Channel 1 up before it started to feedback. The David Gage solution may not be an ideal one but it's far less complicated and cheaper than the other option that James mentioned above.

Ric

 

[Steve Freides]

The Fdeck gadget is so useful and so inexpensive, it gets my vote as worth a try because, even if it doesn't solve this problem, it will solve some other problem in the future.

(I now use mine with my acoustic/electric _guitar_ that I play through a bass amp - the benefit to the sound is quite clear to everyone who hears it both ways. Note to self - it might not be necessary through a guitar amp that doesn't have the ability to produce really low stuff, but it sure does help in this situation.)

-S-

 

[James Gibson]

I had exactly the same experience with the Realist into the Headway EDB-1. It dosen't seem to be a problem with any other pickup like the Full Circle or Revolution Solo II. I could barely turn the volume on Channel 1 up before it started to feedback. The David Gage solution may not be an ideal one but it's far less complicated and cheaper than the other option that James mentioned above.

Ric

This is what Littler from Headway told me in an e-mail. We were in correspondence about possibly inspecting/modifying my EDB-1 via e-mail for some time.

During this period, he attended some conference for manufacturers of sound products (amps/preamps/etc.) and had heard from several other company reps that they had received feedback from their customers about the Realist gaining-out the front end of their products. In turn, he contacted me and Gage about it, and he said the people at Gage are apparently offering a modified, attenuated version of the Realist to rectify this problem.

The Realist I have is fine for all my other gear except the Headway pre, so I didn't want to swap it out. At the same time, I didn't want to mod my Headway, incase I want to use a different pickup with it or sell it in the future.

I brought this problem up months ago in this forum and a fellow TB'r (I forget who, but thank you so much) advised me that Gage sells this padded cable. I really love the sound of my Realist, so I'm not getting rid of it. The cable works, I keep it in my bag with the other cables I use, but it's designated for use only with the Headway.

 

[MR PC]

The Realist is basically a piece of piezo film, some cable, and and an output jack. It would be a pleasant surprise if those parts cost more than ten bucks wholesale. The padded cable option is an afterthought to deal with a poor design.

 

[teleharmonium]

I have to say, if the Realist has higher output than other passive piezos, this a positive feature, not a negative one. That allows you to use less preamp gain and ultimately get a cleaner signal.

It's not like there is some standard db or voltage referenced specification for a piezo signal that the Realist is exceeding. If they have a way to make better contact from the bass to the piezo, or a piezo that is more efficient than most others, why should they have to dumb it down by throwing away output ? Output from a passive source is the best, cleanest part of a signal chain that there can ever be. It's all downhill from there.

I appreciate that this means that a user of this pickup will have a greater challenge in matching it up to a preamp. The same sort of thing applies with certain high output condenser mics or with high output magnetic pickups. That's just the way it is.

Sometimes you have to do your homework to understand how gear will interact and what the reasons are. There's no guarantee in pro audio equipment that everything will play together perfectly without requiring the user to learn anything or deal with any limitations. The more specialized the equipment, the more you are expected to know.

 

[dangerherring]

This is my first post!
Just got a headway edb-1 and am having trouble with my realist overloading it's input channel 1. A nerdy gear-modding guitarist friend just made me a box to use as an attenuator (in the place of a padded cable). He accidentally put the capacitor in series instead of parallel. What effect will this have? Do I need him to fix it to be in parallel?

Also - just got the dpa-4099b - wondering what people's experience is with powering it with the 18V phantom from the headway?

thanks!