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Double Bass Toby Timber's Vektor pick up review

#22
Well I just went thru a PUP crisis of confidence...I always go thru it. I get a month into a new sound and say...wait didn't I like that other sound better? So I took the bridge off and put on the bridge with the Full circle. The reason is that the Vektor can pick up a lot of the high end including the finger and string noise( so does the full circle tho). I have been experimenting with putting different gapping material between the table and the pick up (there is a slight gap under the bridge that must be filled) Some materials like the little rubber disc Toby supplied are very hard to cut down to the right size shim and the density of the shim makes a big difference in how much of the finger noise is transmitted (or so it seems to me)
So I put back on the full circle and it sounds like piezo hell in comparison. It does have a certain compression that is fake but nice, but the Vektor puts out so much more REAL sound. Now the Vektor is not the sound of a mic picking up whats coming OUT of the bass like the AMT but it is mic like but also pick up like, and it does need to be installed with care so that the bridge feet sit perfectly and the gapping material doesn't lift up the feet.
What I found that works the best for gapping material now is the little clear silicone nose pads for glasses. they fill in the gap and have the right pressure but are not so hard that they transmit a lot of finger noise.
I have been playing with trios and duos mostly but the other night I had it roaring with a loud drummer and it has a kind of presence that allows the volume to be lower and yet still be distinct.
Note: you can get this this pup to sound bad...( bad like a stat B) unless you have it installed right and play thru a full range amp/cab (thru the GK it didn't turn me on much)
But when it is dialed in, it is still the best I've tried.
 
#23
I received my package from Toby yesterday. I am willing to do some experimenting as you have but it worries me. How am I going to change the padding material under the pickup? My sound post is currently looser than it used to be since I visited Bill Merchant. He said it was too tight and it should fall over without tension.

Piro, can you describe how you are changing the pad? Are you just loosening the strings on the bass side and then lifting up the foot just enough to do the replacement with some tweezers or something?
 
#24
Naw, I just took the bridge off. There have been a few set ups I've had that were so good I didn't move the bridge at all, but this bass is easy and stable and I know it real well, so I just took the bridge off and figured out how to get the silicone just right. I don't know how Toby shaves those discs down...I just could not get them thin enough and so started looking around for something...I just thought of somethng...I wonder if cork (or the new fake cork), like on the schertler would work? The shims first job in my opinion is to not leave a mark in the top of my bass.(I still have a small indent from that first Realist)
I think that some piezos can make a less then stellar bass sound usable, but I wonder if a pup like this has that effect or the opposite? My bass is full and even and rich (the first one I've had like that) in all registers and the pup reflects that, but if the acoustic sound were problematic, I wonder if it would be a fairly unforgiving pup.
 
#25
The whole idea of this pickup is interesting as it makes contact with the table through the shim but on the other hand it will surely pickup sound through the sides of the pickup that make contact with the bridge. Yet it's not a piezo.

The issue you describe about the acoustic sound is the same as for the Dyn-B I believe. Another question is how would Toby's pickup sound with a plywood?
 
#26
Yea the problem with these type mics is that a lot ofone of the sounds it picks up well is the high end clatter that does not reflect the acoustic sound as it hits your ear. So you have to attenuate those frequencies. I think that the most natural way to do that is to mellow the sound coming in a bit, and EQ a bit. Where the pup sounds most natural to me is when you can hear all of the body warmth but the over emphases on the clatter is diminished. I think a softer buffer with the table makes a difference but you're right that a lot of the sound comes in thru the sides.Also Toby was telling me that unlike the Schertler there is no air space around this pick up, which is a design improvement.
When I was at Berklee Gary Burton told me this story about when he played with Stan Getz. He said that if you were behind Stan, you could hear that his horn was all clanky and buzzy and spitty, a very messy sound. But if you were out in the audience, all you could hear was SMOOTH Getz. Bass is that way too I think, (although much less directional) all the string slapping and buzzes and percussive sounds kind of iron themselves out in the mix. (I still spend all my time trying to play cleaner though)...except if you amplify them too much.
Thats why I went back to the FC for a second, but the FC has it too its just less focused like all piezos.
When are you getting it installed?
 
#27
I dig those sounds myself. They're what adds character to the sound of a DB, and I make no attempt to quiet them down whatsoever. That's what turns me off of magnetic pickups the most. They lose those sounds. Well, that and I use gut strings. Sounds like I'd probably dig Toby's pickup. Except for the installation. Definitely not a do-it-yourself-er like the Rev Solo.
 
#28
Installation will be Monday. The plan is just to flip the existing aluminum bridge adjusters so that the thread is up and to carve to bridge feet. My G side bridge foot already has a shim anyway from some recent work by Bill Merchant - when he went to install the C extension he found the neck was low by a 1/4" on the G side so he reset it and shimmed the bridged. So replacing the feet won't be a bad thing. I did actually order some composite bridge adjusters too but unfortunately they won't get here in time and likely would require a whole new bridge as the shaft sizes are different.

Why does Toby think it is a design improvement to have no air space around the pickup?

Another very important question that I probably should have asked before I decided to try this pickup - is the arco volume excessively/unrealistically louder than the pizz? That's common with any bridge-mounted pickup.
 
#29
Yea I know what you mean about the noises a bass makes being part of the sound, and I like it too, to a degree.
Anyhow I went back and shimmed Toby's little disc in there yesterday (with an exacto) It is critical to get it just right...low and behold Toby's disc works better then mine...but I'll tell you cats something, it is really important to get table contact just right. Anyway the sound is still the best I've had for a PUP.
I really am tempted to buy a LR Baggs gig pro, although I tried something yesterday that didn't work. I replaced the powered socket with a standard 1/4inch and then ran the Solstices phantom to the PUP. It didn't work...no signal. I didn't push it cause Toby said that might be too much phantom for the PUP.
Toby, just said he tried it without any air space and it sounded better and had less feedback.
I'm really curious how it works with a low C and guts. And mixed with an AMT...
 
#30
Hi guys, just a quick one as I still haven't got my computer back online.
Piro, I just use sandpaper to trim the rubber disks, something coarse does the job just fine. We've tried cork and it compresses over time, so you end up loosing signal.
Adrian, the arco sound is nothing to worry about, that's all I'm saying for the moment, you'll hear it for yourself very shortly.
Problem with air space around a pickup or better microphone is, that it picks up other sounds easier and so starts to feedback sooner and at lower volume.
The sound from this pickup is as good or as bad as the sound of the bass, and I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that. Then again, there are good sounding plywoods out there somewhere.
By the way, this pickup is now used on the Vektor EUBs and they sound great with it.
 
#31
Toby's quote: The sound from this pickup is as good or as bad as the sound of the bass, and I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that. Then again, there are good sounding plywoods out there somewhere.


Yea I think this is the final statement about hi fi pick ups. They sound like what they are picking up. Arco sounds utterly fantastic to me.
I played a loud jazz trio gig last night at a fairly big jazz club here in SF using the Vektor into the WW's and it rocked my world. The sound had a presence and depth even with a ferocious drummer (the wonderful Dezon Claiborn) and it was inspiring to play.
 
#32
I did a gig last night and the RCA connection was intermittant. It actually cut out on me during a solo (which was good cause the drummer is a basher...drives me nuts) and it made him come down in volume.
Adrian,
Hows the gigpro working? Do you just run a guitar cord and that carries the phantom or did you rewire?
 
#33
No rewiring. Just a normal cable with 1/4" mono jacks on either end from the Vektor jack to the GigPro input and then another shorter one from the GigPro to the amp. The GigPro comes with the 9 V phantom switched off by default so you just flip the dip switch inside the unit. Works great.
 
#34
Adrian Cho said:
No rewiring. Just a normal cable with 1/4" mono jacks on either end from the Vektor jack to the GigPro input and then another shorter one from the GigPro to the amp. The GigPro comes with the 9 V phantom switched off by default so you just flip the dip switch inside the unit. Works great.
Click to expand...
I once heard that it is better to have a shorter cable between the instrument and preamp, and the longer cable between the preamp and the amplifier. Though I forget why... maybe someone more knowledgeable could chime in.

Sorry for offtopic.
 
#36
The thing with the shorter lead from pick-up to preamp and longer one from preamp to amp only applies to piezo pickups or other high imedance p/us, the Vektor only has a impedance of 2kohm, piezo pick-ups are more in the mega ohm area, sorry, can't find any exact data at the moment. Point is, with the Vektor pick-up it's ok to have a long lead between pick-up and pre-amp.
 
#37
Just to let you know that the Vektor pickup is now offered in combination with the MPM adjusters.
Fitting is much easier and it can be fitted into just about every bridge, even one which already has adjusters fitted.
More details available on request or shortly on my website.
 

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#38
I've just put the Vektor back on my bass after using the Full Circle for six months (they are on different bridges) and man is this a superior pick up. I wish it was a little easier to install cause it aint gaining a lot of followers who want to drill a hole into the foot of their bridge. But it is sure worth it. It's what I always wanted the Dyn B to do for me and only ever got close at very low volume once in a while.
There just isn't anything out there that is like it.
 
#39
...and thus far is only about 3 weeks.

I'm getting a lot of loq-freq hum in the signal. I have my Realist under the G-foot of the bridge as a backup, and when I switch to it, there's no hum. I suspect there might've been grounding issues at the venues I tried it at, but more experimenting is necessary. The tone is excellent, but I need to lick this problem.

Like Adrian, I'm also using the L.R. Baggs preamp which provides the 9V+ phantom power. My pickup was installed by the same luthier as Adrian's, and we both found the pickup output to be very low, requiring cranking the input gain to 3/4and having the output gain on the preamp at at least 3/4.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open. I'm tempted to send the bridge to Toby, but that could take some time and October is really busy with gigs.

Thanks,
Chris
 

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