Double Bass Six Rounds Double Bass Pickups?

[Steve Freides]

I had the opposite experience - I needed one for my wife's school in a hurry so I called, they answered, they sent me a PayPal invoice, I paid it, and it was shipped the same day.

They're a small outfit, working from their home, I believe, so that might explain some things.

-S-

 

[Steve Freides]

I was made aware of yet another cheap option today, a "contact mic"

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I have no idea if it's any good, but I was listening to a fifth grader play through it today and it did the job for his level of playing. (Yes, I ordered one.)

One more data point - I haven't tried this with upright bass yet, but I had an emergency gig on classical guitar - playing in a cafe for 2 hours, needed amplfication, didn't have a pickup, so I used this. Results - pretty awful. It did work, and it wasn't so bad that I didn't use it, which is what they call damning with faint praise. I had to turn my treble almost completely down, same with midrange.

Then my luthier came back from Europe and I got $400 worth of electronics (parts, overnight shipping, and labor which included a setup on the guitar) and, wow, does that guitar sound fantastic now. K&K Pure Classic pickup with Pre-Phase mini-preamp.

This is their bass pickup that is the same general idea - insert into bass side wing - as the SixRounds cheapie we've been discussing.

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-S-

 

[Downunderwonder]

Well, it turned up some time ago and recently I had new bridge, new strings from Bob Golihur fitted by luthier down in the big city. It's a whole new instrument.

I fitted pickup myself and it isn't playing ball, with feedback at various frequencies.

Following the instructions the pickup is in nice and tight. I wound up weighting the lead with blutac and coins to get the low howl knocked down but it's really only lowered it from D harmonic to a less prone open E which still gets going too easily for my liking. Taping it to the after lengths, per the instructions, did nothing.

There's a higher pitched howl which I can avoid by staying away from the amp but it's not the strings, blowed if I know where it's coming from. Any ideas?

 

[christw]

Zombie thread!

I very recently started using my Six Rounds Double Barrel with my folk/newgrass band. I cut back on feedback by using a felt spacer (with the string running through it) on both sides of the 1/4" jack and plastic cable clamp holding it. That kept the jack from resonating against my tail piece.

Originally, they forgot to send that little plastic cable clamp with my order so my 1/4" jack was just dangling and would resonate on the body/tailpiece/etc. Took me way too long to go pick up the 5/8" cable clamp I needed so it just sat unplayed for a year. Oops.

Good news is I'll have a copy of the album I'm currently recording with that particular bass in a few months. We've got my left f-hole mic'd and run that and the Double Barrel through my fdeck (set at 35 hz) through some tube pre. The resulting end mix makes the stock flatwounds sound like I'm playing on gut strings. I guess our recording guy is a big bluegrass fan, who'd have guessed?

 

[Steve Freides]

I had a chance to play with my SixRounds on Saturday. It was a one-rehearsal faculty concert that included Libertango, if you know that piece. The bass player couldn't make the rehearsal and we decided bass was more important than guitar so, nice guy that I am , I brought my upright along and played it, SixRounds Original model into my Acoustic Image Ten2 (series 3) with EQ flat, on the floor and not angled up in the front, about 2 feet to my left, in a middle school gymnasium.

All I can tell you is that everyone thought I/it/we sounded great. No problems whatsoever with feedback or anything else.

For the concert, I went back to guitar.

-S-

 

[Francois Blais]

For those interested, this is the new Six Rounds website, and they now sell a new pickup:
https://www.sixroundssound.com/