Piezo Pickups....

[kaputsport]

Does anyone use them? I might be putting one in my Benavente project with some Bartolinis and I was wondering if you guys like, or dislike them, and what might be the benefits of using one in an electric bass...

 

[spade2you]

I have 'em in my Conklin. Are you going fretted or fretless? I dig 'em on a fretless, but don't (personally) find them that useful on fretted basses.

 

[kaputsport]

It is a fretted 4 string project. The bridge I was looking at has one for $50 or so. I thought "What could it hurt???"

Just wanted to know if I would benefit from it.

By the way, I posted this in the pickups forum, so please move all discussions there...

Sorry for the very NOOB move...

 

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

I love my Bongo's piezo pickups, both in my fretted and fretless. They are more prominent on fretless when playing regular fingerstyle, but to my ears they add an special, aggressive touch to slap lines and a beautiful color to tapped notes. If you are unsure about the piezos' sound, Link Removed are some clips of my fretted Bongo HHP, recorded just after I received it. Fret buzz is very noticeable since the bass needed a setup when arrived, but anyway I think the recordings clearly show the different tones you can get from two humbuckers and a piezo bridge.

 

[Marcury]

My main axe (MB2) has only a piezo, I love it. Agree with above it tends to have more effect with fretless. The only thing to watch out for is that they can sound a bit "clacky", I had to adjust my technique to get rid of the high end clack (although you can also eq it out).

 

[spade2you]

Yeah, they require a certain technique to sound good. I found that my Rob Allen basses sound good and don't require much technique adjustment with the nylon flatwounds. My Conklin has stainless steel rounds and has a lot more zing and noise. Oddly enough, my passive tone knob seems to eliminate most of the finger noise. I briefly messed with a fretted Curbow with a piezo system. I was more fascinated by the bass and crazy amount of controls than how it was sounding.

 

[tlcbass]

kaputsport, where did you find a piezo bridge for $50?

 

[syciprider]

They seem to have a more even, full range output to me. My regular pups seem to favor certain freqs. Given that, I can, without dicking with the EQ, get more presence across the board by blending slightly towards it. I also hear a slower attack with piezos which really enhances the mwah of my blank plank.

 

[teej]

kaputsport, where did you find a piezo bridge for $50?

Chopper's Music (on eBay) has them.

 

[superbad7474]

Try Ernie Ball MusicMan, thier peizo systems are great, one of the saving graces of thier instruments in my opinion. If you can find one to try out its definitely worth the time.