• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass strap-on pickup called the "giffus"

I seem to remember this being mentioned in another post somewhere, I tried doing a search for it but got nada...just wondering if any of you fine folks have seen or tried this thing before ? it's the one Dresser uses....sounds to me like it's a beautiful thing...I absolutely HATE when rehearsal time comes around and all my nice harmonics and microtones get lost... here's an excerpt from an interview of how it's set-up:

Dresser has advanced to a rig that includes two low-impedance pickups (made by bassist/engineer Kent McLagan) built into the fingerboard and a high-impedance David Gage pickup at the bridge, feeding signals into a preamplifier (built by Jim Hemingway). He has the same system installed in both his modern Hungarian bass "with a fake Italian label" and his main instrument, a 1901 Hawkes Professor.
 
I had the good fortune to have some master classes with Dresser this summer and asked him the same question. His reply was, 'Just build your own, it's not that hard.'

Basically the thing is just a magnetic pickup + some sort of jig to hold it over the nut. MD used to bungie the giffus around the scroll and run the cable over his shoulder. I'm thinking of building one myself.

I was amazed by how many 'extended' sounds Dresser could pull out while playing totally acoustic. Great guy too.