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Double Bass Preamp for mixing pickup with piezo

Michal Herman

Michal Herman

May 31, 2013
242
141
#1
On my DB I have now Schaller magnetic pickup mounted by previous owner.
It has good sound, but it's magnetic and I feel lack of "wood" in my sound. I am thinking about getting additional David Gage Realist piezo pickup and mixing these two signals.
How would you recommend to do such mix? - I need it for live playing purposes.
Special preamp with two channels? - Which one?
Or maybe two preamps and then some stuff only to mix two signals? - DI BOX?

Any advice will be appreciated.
 
#2
I suppose the obvious choice is a Headway but I use my two channel Clarus. You can input two jacks or two XLRs or one of each. Plus you can send 48v phantom power back if one of the inputs is for a mic. A bit expensive initially perhaps but it'll pay for itself in terms of versatility.

As a plan B, you can feed a second signal through the effects return on a single channel amp via an outboard preamp for eq, I understand, although I've not tried this approach.
 
#8
Michal Herman said:
On my DB I have now Schaller magnetic pickup mounted by previous owner.
It has good sound, but it's magnetic and I feel lack of "wood" in my sound. I am thinking about getting additional David Gage Realist piezo pickup and mixing these two signals.
How would you recommend to do such mix? - I need it for live playing purposes.
Special preamp with two channels? - Which one?
Or maybe two preamps and then some stuff only to mix two signals? - DI BOX?

Any advice will be appreciated.
Click to expand...


Szalejot,

There are many preamps that can mix two signals, I've had the experience of playing basses with the Schaller Pickup and found it not to be to my liking. Rather than invest in both a Realist and a pre, I'd
suggest just mounting the Realist and seing if that will give you the sound you're looking for. Unless you're playing extremly loud I'm not sure the Shaller would even be necessary. Just a thought. I see no particular
advantage in blending a magnetic pickup with a piezo, other than sheer volume. Just my take.

Ric
 
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#13
Michal Herman said:
Ric,
What preamp will you suggest for realist pickup?
Click to expand...

Szalejot,
Well, depending on what amplifier you are using, you might not even need one. Before I would suggest something, might I ask what you're expecting to spend? I've used the Headway EDB-2 and had very good
results, combining it with a Realist. It's a full featured device that will allow you to blend to signals, but it's $364.00 here in the U.S. That may be out of your price range.

Ric
 
#14
The D-TAR Solstice preamp is a descendent of the Raven Labs PMB series master blenders (I still use a PMB-1). They have the great advantages of EQing, phasing, and even adding effects to individual channels while offering 10MB input impedance for the piezo. Not much else out there that will do all that with such low noise and high fidelity.
 
#15
Ric Vice said:
might I ask what you're expecting to spend?
Click to expand...

Now I am using Behringer Adi21 ($30) so almost everything will be an upgrade ;-)
I would like to close in $200 for preamp. It does not have to be high end and I am only looking for matching piezo impedance. I am using MXR equalizer after preamp in my pedalboadr chain, so I do not really need EQ in preamp.
 
#16
You might get a little mixing desk and add a HPFpre for the piezo in front of one channel. That way you can either mix a magnetic pickup or a microphone with the piezo that way. Set the input sensitivity to instrument or line (but not microphone) for the piezo, since they usually have a larger voltage amplitude (but need a low resistive load otherwise the voltage breaks down in a distorted way).
But it needs some more space than a two channel preamp.
 
#17
Michal Herman said:
Now I am using Behringer Adi21 ($30) so almost everything will be an upgrade ;-)
I would like to close in $200 for preamp. It does not have to be high end and I am only looking for matching piezo impedance. I am using MXR equalizer after preamp in my pedalboadr chain, so I do not really need EQ in preamp.
Click to expand...

It's going to be difficult to find a multi-channel preamp without an EQ. That sounds a little oxy-moronic to me. I don't think those mini mixers will match impedance for the piezo.

If your budget is about $200, then keep your eyes peeled on the classified ads here. 200 bucks can get you a pretty nice preamp used.
 
#19
Eric Hochberg said:
This might work for you

Invalid Link Removed
Click to expand...


Yes, and to be blunt, it's a nicer unit than the K&K (though the K&K would be fine, too.)
And here's a nifty trick: The Schaller most likely (almost all of them do) has a TRS output jack; they just happen to use them (the "ring" contact is unused). So if you really wanted to be clever, you could rewire your new pickup's signal wire onto the ring contact of that jack (ground connection is doubled up with the Schaller's ground contact) and use a TRS cable from the pickup to the new preamp, using a TRS input jack (the LR Baggs Mixpro, the K&K Dual Channel Pro ST, the DTAR Solstice all use/can use this connection) so you have one cable from the bass to the preamp. Of course, for the Mixpro, you can also use a splitter cable if you don't want to do anything permanent...
 
#20
Mark Gollihur said:
Yes, and to be blunt, it's a nicer unit than the K&K (though the K&K would be fine, too.)
And here's a nifty trick: The Schaller most likely (almost all of them do) has a TRS output jack; they just happen to use them (the "ring" contact is unused). So if you really wanted to be clever, you could rewire your new pickup's signal wire onto the ring contact of that jack (ground connection is doubled up with the Schaller's ground contact) and use a TRS cable from the pickup to the new preamp, using a TRS input jack (the LR Baggs Mixpro, the K&K Dual Channel Pro ST, the DTAR Solstice all use/can use this connection) so you have one cable from the bass to the preamp. Of course, for the Mixpro, you can also use a splitter cable if you don't want to do anything permanent...
Click to expand...

Mark, that's interesting, something I didn't know about the Schaller, which used to be pretty popular here in St. Louis. Tommy Kennedy even used one, although I'm not certian what he uses currently. Before the Underwood and Realist were developed, there were several magnetics. The Toby and a four element
pickup designedk by Paul Tonengies that I used to own. Those pickups were actually better sounding than the Barcus Berry Silver Bar or a Polytone. These days I think there are better options, but that's just my take.

Ric
 

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