Double Bass Please help me choose

[bassicsax]

I am about to purchase a pickup for my upright bass. This will be my first one. I have been researching pickups on this sight and many others as well as talking to other players i know, and so far i have it narrowed down to two pickups. I know alot of a pickups sound depends on the bass itself but i was hoping to get some input from those playing similar styles of music in similar settings. The two pickups im looking at are the Full circle and the KK bass max. The type of music im playing is gonna be mostly singer song writer and country stuff with the occasional blue grass or maybe jazz... i will be playing both pizz. and with a bow. my amp is an swr sm900 with a swr 610 cab, and i plan on playing in loud volume settings. So if anybody has any advice or wisdom to share that might help me out with the decision the input would be greatly appreciated.

(my bass is a cheap to medium range carved bass)

 

[bassicsax]

I will not be able to buy a preamp immediately, i dont know if thats a factor but it might be...

 

[fdeck]

"Loud" suggests a magnetic pickup like the String Charger.

 

[bassicsax]

"Loud" suggests a magnetic pickup like the String Charger.

I looked at magnetic but im kinda leaning against it because i would like a better arco sound than im told they typically offer... i think the magnetic i looked at was a krivos or maybe krizos i cant really remember, that and the schaller.... how does the string charger do with arco, i have not heard of it yet...

 

[Stumpy]

I am just starting down this road. I was given a student bass: Upright, early 1960's.

What kind of strings do these use? Gut? ???

I primarily play MTD basses and am learning how to play the dbl bass. Pickups for that bass deal with magnetics, right?

So how does one choose a pickup for an acoustic bass? Like one does for the MTDs?

Hmmm

 

[AMJBASS]

"Loud" suggests a magnetic pickup like the String Charger.

I would second this suggestion. The String Charger works well in loud environments, and is probably one of the better magnetic pickups out there in terms of getting a good sound. I think you might find that magnetic pickups will actually yield a better sound with the bow than a lot of piezo pickups out there.

 

[bassicsax]

The string charger looks pretty cool but its out of my price range for right now.

 

[JtheJazzMan]

I think you might find that magnetic pickups will actually yield a better sound with the bow than a lot of piezo pickups out there.

Which is hard to imagine, because the vibrations of the string are focused on the wrong plane for a magnetic pickup the sound effectively. The sound will be thin and scratchy.

Having said that, many piezos, particularly wing type ones sound awful too. I still wouldnt recommend a mag over them though.

The full circle is in a good spot to pickup up a decent arco sound.

 

[Touch]

I used a BassMax for quite a while. Switched to Full Circle pickups on both my uprights and haven't looked back. I play with a drummer on some pretty loud stages. OK, make that stupid loud stages!

The Full Circle is plenty capable of being used in very loud environments. I also highly recommend FDeck's high-pass filter/preamp. I can't tell you how helpful it is for getting rid of the lowest, lowest frequencies when some chucklehead soundman is cranking the subs and the whole stage is feeding back. There are also some other tricks to getting a string bass super duper loud....search around here for lots of great tips.

Full Circle + HPF/Pre + Loud Stage = Good Times!

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

IMO the Full Circle is the safest option. It just sounds good on different types of basses. I have had it on two and it works well on my old plywood. It helped me play much louder than I ever wanted to with a jump blues band a couple of years ago. Loud drummer, stupid loud guitar and keys. I always put the amp directly behind me and never had any problem with feedback and was able to get a usable tone.

 

[IdealWay]

I recommend the Planet Wing pickup! Check them out

 

[bassicsax]

ok i ended up going with the bass max... i really wanted the fishman, but it would be a little while before i could get it installed (since i dont have adjusters in my bridge), and i needed it for a gig next weekend... and also since it was half the price i can buy a new set of strings also...

now that i have the pickup on the way, i want to start looking at a preamp to buy in a few weeks... so since i dont have any experience with preamps either i could use some suggestions in this area also...
the four preamps im looking at are the fishman pro bass, the lr baggs paracoustic, the lr baggs venue, and the radial pz. I have the used the paracoustic before on acoustic and really liked it, but i have no experience with it on upright. so anybody that has experience with any of these preamps please let me know your thoughts on them...