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Double Bass Piezo Film Pickups

#4
Brennan said:
I wonder why they always use unshielded wires for these pickups? I have a "pickup the world" version of piezo film and the wires pick up unwanted vibrations.
Click to expand...

In a high impedance system, coaxial cable may pick up more vibration and movement noise, because it's more capacitive than a pair of wires. Unshielded wires will pick up more outside electrical noice, unless you have balanced inputs.
 
#5
Yea,
I had interesting expierences with the PUTW. The noise from the wire was what killed it for me though (and a piezo mid range thing that I couldn't get rid of) In some situations this PUP sounded really good in others terrible. I fought with it for a while. I think someone is going to come out with a really good film piezo design that is sheilded and well built and noiseless.
The PUTW preamps tho are hand built little wonders. I really dig their micro blender and their line driver is the smallest impedance matching preamp (that sounds good) that i've run across. It is battery opperated which some dislike but it works. Their little blender is the size of a pack of cigs and does the job....Somehow I always use the Solstice though...

Hey Geoff How did you like the revolution?
 
#6
I have a supply of piezo film sensors I got from msi (you can also get some through Dig-Key and you'll need the right type of Mogami cable) and, though I've had encouraging results, there are a lot of hassles to overcome. My Full Circle is so good, I'm convinced there's no cheaper solution that could come close. So, though I may play with the piezos more, I don't expect to improve on the FC.
 
#8
I can't verify right now, but I think I used Mogami type 2784. Basically, you'll need something light weight, flexible, and non-microphonic as possible. That's all I could find and is the same MSI uses on their sensors like their SDT1-028K, which is a good one to try because it is self-shielded from hum by being folded over. (You wouldn't need cable for it if it's long enough, but would if you bought just raw film pieces, and then you'd have to attach the cable too.) I didn't really notice hum, but I didn't subject it to heavy fields like fluorescent lights, either.

I've not tried the cheap piezo buzzer disks. Supposedly they can work, but I don't think that's the way to go. If you're interested, download and read the documentation from MSI. There are a lot of app notes. You can buy direct from them and some parts are avail. from digikey.com.

Remember you'll need a high input impedance (1 Meg may be a little low), and a buffer amp near the pickup would be better.
 
#9
Aleph5 said:
I can't verify right now, but I think I used Mogami type 2784. Basically, you'll need something light weight, flexible, and non-microphonic as possible. That's all I could find and is the same MSI uses on their sensors like their SDT1-028K, which is a good one to try because it is self-shielded from hum by being folded over. (You wouldn't need cable for it if it's long enough, but would if you bought just raw film pieces, and then you'd have to attach the cable too.) I didn't really notice hum, but I didn't subject it to heavy fields like fluorescent lights, either.

I've not tried the cheap piezo buzzer disks. Supposedly they can work, but I don't think that's the way to go. If you're interested, download and read the documentation from MSI. There are a lot of app notes. You can buy direct from them and some parts are avail. from digikey.com.

Remember you'll need a high input impedance (1 Meg may be a little low), and a buffer amp near the pickup would be better.
Click to expand...


Old thread, but I have just got some film piezos, and tried one on my '67 hofner. It sounds really good, perhaps even better than the magnetics. But it would be too much of a pain to install permanently. I had been using the cheap buzzers, and for audio, they are crap. Never got a sound I could work with on the bass. But I may do more experiments with the films, blending with the mags and such.
 
#11
I've tried a PUTW pickup in the past, and I liked the sound of it, but it had major problems with electrical hum. I tried multiple things, shielded cables, a buffer right next to the pickup, but still if the planets weren't aligned just right it sounded like I was playing a bug zapper. Maybe I'm missing something, but they just didn't work for me.
 
#12
Francois Blais said:
This is the DB forum, FYI.
Click to expand...

Ah,yeah, thanks. but I do have two electrics, does that count?

jlmorgan84 said:
I've tried a PUTW pickup in the past, and I liked the sound of it, but it had major problems with electrical hum. I tried multiple things, shielded cables, a buffer right next to the pickup, but still if the planets weren't aligned just right it sounded like I was playing a bug zapper. Maybe I'm missing something, but they just didn't work for me.
Click to expand...

I tried the MSI type one and didn't get any hum, used a radial stage bug piezo buffer. The freq response is incredible. That PUTW thing looks big, a lot of surface area, that might be the problem, I don't know enough about piezos to say
 
#13
I experimented with piezos. I shielded them with a thin plastic shielding which took care of the noise without adding too much thickness. It sounded very good but the resulting pickup was way to delicate to expect to stand up to normal use.
 

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