Why piezo on electric bass is so underrated?

[TrustRod]

Piezo require a pre amp to yield a useful signal. That's why they are less common.

Actually no. And this comes straight from Richard McLish. If you combine 5 or 6 piezos in parallel the impedance changes and it can be used passively. I have a piccolo with a magnetic and a bridge full of piezos and I use a blend just like it was 2 magnetic pickups.

I think one reason people hate piezos is they are often placed under the saddle. If magnetic pickups were only placed right up against the bridge and no where else they would have similar tone issues.

 

[TrustRod]

(I think they only made a BG sound like an upright to the extent that we associate the piezo sound with uprights.)

I agree, I also prefer a magnetic pickup on an upright. In general I do not like piezo saddle tones. From the little experimenting I've done I prefer a piezo under the bridge, or soundboard if it has one.

 

[TrustRod]

I struggled with the "piezo quack" for a long time, trying to tame it with EQ.

I've had success using a small capacitor to ground to roll off all the high end.

 

[Ric Vice]

I own the original Godin Acoustibass with a L.L. Baggs preamp and it's three band eq section. These basses and their new models are
successful piezo basses with chambered bodies. Godin has continued to sell them for many years.

 

[DanDBassist]

I received more View attachment 4418107 compliments on the sound of my Godin A5 than any other instrument since I started playing bass in 1966.

 

[BAG]

I've been wanting a fretless with piezo pickup for some time. Does anyone make an aftermarket bridge for electric bass with piezo saddles?

 

[DanDBassist]

I got more compliments on the sound of my Godin A5 than any other instrument.

 

[HeavyJazz]

If Ernie Ball were to bring back the piezo option on the Stingrays I'd buy one. Had one built in '03 when it was still available and it was killer to have it blended in.

 

[Jefenator]

I've been wanting a fretless with piezo pickup for some time. Does anyone make an aftermarket bridge for electric bass with piezo saddles?

ABM does:
ABM Piezo Brücken
The parts catalogs aren't exactly brimming with piezo buffer & blending components, but they are out there. (Last I checked, Bartolini offered some provisions for that.)
It should be doable, but will probably have more hurdles than a standard magnetic guitar wiring project. (Which kind of answers the OP question.)

 

[jmlee]

I've heard it pronounced pie-zo.
Pumpkin pie-zo, apple pie-zo, cherry pie-zo.

Nope. This is Michelangelo's "La Pietà" pronounced pee-A'-tah. So it's pee-A'-tzo.

 

[Jefenator]

Burn the phosphor bombs, try some other strings. It might sound better and save you a finger replacement.

I'm acclimating to a full-size double bass with stiff action, so no BG strings scare me.
Might be fun to try something different on there just for kicks - like flats or tapes.
OTOH I actually like the distinct vibe of phosphor bronze on the ABG. (Can't try that on any of my magnetic BGs - the pickups won't pick them up!) I can tame things enough with my hands, I never use the onboard graphic EQ.
It would be fun if someone were to offer a flexible silicone set for full-scale ABGs, kind of like playing gut on double bass. (Which I am also experimenting with and enjoying.) That would be another experience simply not attainable with magnetic pickups.

 

[Breeze3]

I have a Musicman Stingray 5 with a piezo , it's a great tool

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I've been wanting a fretless with piezo pickup for some time. Does anyone make an aftermarket bridge for electric bass with piezo saddles?

Graph Tech makes replacement saddles for a lot of bass bridges.

 

[Tim de Martino]

EMG used to make a phenomenal under saddle piezo, the AS93u, for acoustic guitar that I built a bass around back in the 1990s. That system is incredible. They don't seem to make it anymore but a few people seem to still have some lying around. Doesn't need extreme EQ or really anything, it just sounds amazing for bass.

I wonder if that is the one in the NS basses as the rest of the system is EMG. Sounds wonderful, deep but defined.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I agree, I also prefer a magnetic pickup on an upright. In general I do not like piezo saddle tones. From the little experimenting I've done I prefer a piezo under the bridge, or soundboard if it has one.

K&K 4-head piezos are great on any acoustic instrument, and have plenty of output passive. Fitting them under the bridge position gets quite a different tone to an under-saddle pickup.

 

[pingvuiini]

I have kind of gone backwards: my custom KB fretless 5 string uke bass initially only had a piezo pickup by Open-to-Source Sensors™ with an Audere preamp. Naturally this was essential since I was just using rubber Pahoehoe strings, but things sounded great. When Ken was building the bass I asked him about being able to add a magnetic pickup if I ever found a string manufacturer who was willing and able to make custom 23" scale tapes for me, which I did. So the bass has been with Ken for the last several weeks to lower the string action, install a Nordstrand Big Blade 5 pickup, install a new Audere preamp with additional knob and replace the single bone bridgepiece with five individual height adjustable piezo bridgepieces by Graph Tech. I am very anxious to get the bass back and give it a go and play tapes again. Even though the Pahoehoes sounded good, they came with a LOT of annoying idiosyncrasies that I know I won't miss.

 

[HaphAsSard]

"La Pietà" pronounced pee-A'-tah.

Nope. See? Accent's right there on "-tà".
Pyae - TAH
(two syllables, "i" is a gliding "y" sound as in "Italian"; "ae" rhymes with "bay" - best said with a Scottish accent)


As regards "piezo", there is little reason to pronounce it "pietso", unless the fact that a name for piezoelectricity (shortly after its discovery in France by Pierre Curie and his brother Jacques) was suggested by a German (physicist Wilhelm Hankel) is of capital significance to you: in Greek the sound has been "zzz" since the Hellenistic period (it was either "dz" or "zd" before that - the question is hotly debated). IMO "pee-AE-zoe" is close enough.
(In my own language/dialect I say "pyedzaw", myself.)

As with the OP's question, I'm inclined to agree with most anwers above: not widely available for solidbodies + somewhat difficult to do right = easily overlooked.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I have kind of gone backwards: my custom KB fretless 5 string uke bass initially only had a piezo pickup by Open-to-Source Sensors™ with an Audere preamp. Naturally this was essential since I was just using rubber Pahoehoe strings, but things sounded great. When Ken was building the bass I asked him about being able to add a magnetic pickup if I ever found a string manufacturer who was willing and able to make custom 23" scale tapes for me, which I did. So the bass has been with Ken for the last several weeks to lower the string action, install a Nordstrand Big Blade 5 pickup, install a new Audere preamp with additional knob and replace the single bone bridgepiece with five individual height adjustable piezo bridgepieces by Graph Tech. I am very anxious to get the bass back and give it a go and play tapes again. Even though the Pahoehoes sounded good, they came with a LOT of annoying idiosyncrasies that I know I won't miss.
View attachment 4418206

That is an awesomely sympathetic modification.

 

[matante]

just like it's written. Pee-A-zo

One of my pet peeves is how so many English speakers think the letter E is pronounced "A" when the word looks foreign, especially words that are Spanish, French, or Italian. The letter E sounds exactly as it does in the English words Ted, Fred, Bed, Hello, Sell , Tell, etc. There's absolutely no reason come up with an A sound there.

Pee Yet So

Why the "y"?

Nope. This is Michelangelo's "La Pietà" pronounced pee-A'-tah. So it's pee-A'-tzo.

View attachment 4418165

It's pronounced pee-eh-TAH.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

If it requires a battery, I'll pass.