Double Bass Vintage Schaller big chrome beast pickup

[james condino]

Last night I played an outdoor gig with my ALCOA and a big chrome old Schaller pickup. Lots of hipster people drinking wildly and making a lot of noise, fading into the night with a beautiful crescent moon. The rest of my setup was my full pedalboard > Acoustic image head> ACME B2 cab, cranked up to a pretty good volume and then a line out into the PA.

Guess what? It sounded just like me playing my ALCOA at a rowdy pub gig, got the job done great, and the onboard volume knob was handy.....also zero feedback issues. Regardless of all the other pickups I have stashed in the shop drawer, this was a great $50 purchase.

 

[Francois Blais]

I have one, but it's very noise-sensitive.
I had to put it upside down to cancel the noise. (I've used 3M "velcro" adhesive)
That said, the tone is very dark.
And when you play in the upper range, the string get closer to the pole piece so it gets louder.
If the pole piece is set high, the string may even touch it.

 

[james condino]

I have plenty of other pickups and given a choice, my KRIVO would have been the first call for this setup, but, like I said, it still sounded like me and not one single tone snob made any mention. When I bring out the big shiny ALCOA, regardless of the tone, I'm usually over run with people wanting to check it out and talk about it...even better when I make it sound good.

 

[james condino]

I switched it out for the Krivo at an outdoor gig Saturday. Guess what? 'Still sounded like me! The KRIVO is definitely a better responding, more modern & balanced pickup, but again, I don't know if anyone in the audience thinks it sounded four times better than the $50 Schaller...

 

[fdeck]

I gigged with a homemade magnetic pickup on my Kay for a few years long ago. One thing I learned is that it's useful to ground the strings of the bass, just like most electric basses, to reduce hum. And it does a much better job of controlling feedback, because the strings themselves are acting as bandpass filters.

 

[james condino]

Perhaps....but the Krivo kicks @$$ so well at high volume without any need for those things. It definitely needs a good preamp to boost the signal. Without one, it is very quiet.