Based on your trials...what would you recommend to someone looking for a simple setup? I got the single sensor and love it on my King. I’m thinking to get another on my carved bass.
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Double Bass Yamahiko Double Bass Pickup
- Thread starter Mike Arnopol
- Start date
Yeah man
I’m glad you Had a good response with the +Y/-Y. I have such a unique bass that what sounds good for me isn’t necessarily going to work for other instruments. Also nice that you have the stereo jack I’d forgotten about that..., you and me man. Yes with the extra HPF but once that is worked out the sound is nice huh?
I'm not going to make a recommendation yet. Over the coming months, I have performances in a variety of settings - outdoor, indoor, hollow stages, cement rooms and will be seeing how this works out.
On my previous bass, I had the standard two sensor setup. And soon after, bought the stereo splitter cable so I could adjust the balance and phase. What I found then, was that I liked one sensor flipped in phase but I also liked the balance to favor one side over the other. but I also found that from room to room, I would make adjustments to that setup.
With the new bass and setup, I'm trying to get to a point where I don't need the Felix. I followed Piro into this rabbit hole and came away with a great sound. But I also ended up with a more complicated (and expensive) rig - Felix, Tonedexter, etc. Right now, I'm trying to simplify and I'm hoping the +/- setup gets me close enough to ditch all that extra stuff.
When I experimented with piezo disks I found out that connecting a second piezo disk in parallel degrades the sound quality.
Having an individual buffer for both disks mixed after the buffer restored the original sound quality of a single disk with an impedance buffer.
I also used a switchable phase invention on one pickup (pickups are under the bridge feet of my Clevinger EUB) to check what sounds better and the inverted phase gave a better sound than uninverted.
So experiment with the bridge cable into a single channel of the Felix and both pickups going individually into the Felix.
I bet going in individually with identical settings sounds better.
A double input buffer HPFpre or even two Quick‘n‘dirty buffer connected in parallel at the output should do the job, so an expensive two channel piezo preamp is not needed. (A one channel preamp behind would be a lot cheaper and works as well.) But a cheap double input buffer doesn‘t exist yet, except if you built one yourself.
My own buffer is not ideal because the signal is weak (didn‘t get the best parts to build one), but I plan to rebuild it with the right parts that I got recently.
Not easy because the room in the compartment is very limited and I still need to order the stereo pot for the HPF.
Having an individual buffer for both disks mixed after the buffer restored the original sound quality of a single disk with an impedance buffer.
I also used a switchable phase invention on one pickup (pickups are under the bridge feet of my Clevinger EUB) to check what sounds better and the inverted phase gave a better sound than uninverted.
So experiment with the bridge cable into a single channel of the Felix and both pickups going individually into the Felix.
I bet going in individually with identical settings sounds better.
A double input buffer HPFpre or even two Quick‘n‘dirty buffer connected in parallel at the output should do the job, so an expensive two channel piezo preamp is not needed. (A one channel preamp behind would be a lot cheaper and works as well.) But a cheap double input buffer doesn‘t exist yet, except if you built one yourself.
My own buffer is not ideal because the signal is weak (didn‘t get the best parts to build one), but I plan to rebuild it with the right parts that I got recently.
Not easy because the room in the compartment is very limited and I still need to order the stereo pot for the HPF.
It seems that the least complicated way to use a Yamhiko would also be the least expensive, because the single element version is "plug and play" vs the
additional processing required for the dual element, unless of course you have a Grace Felix, which has two channels and a phase inversion switch. I know that Don Underwood
built dual sandwich versions of his pickup, for Glenn Moore and David Friesen. One of the two layers in side the pickup, was thinner than the other. It was a very full sounding pickup, especially on
the solid body "Oregon" Bass, each of them used to travel with. The original dual element Schertler Stat B had a box that both pickup were feed into. Hubert Liegos builds a version
of that original pickup my friend bassist Willem Von Humbracht owns one. It sounds very nice. My take, it's way easier to use a single element transducer.
additional processing required for the dual element, unless of course you have a Grace Felix, which has two channels and a phase inversion switch. I know that Don Underwood
built dual sandwich versions of his pickup, for Glenn Moore and David Friesen. One of the two layers in side the pickup, was thinner than the other. It was a very full sounding pickup, especially on
the solid body "Oregon" Bass, each of them used to travel with. The original dual element Schertler Stat B had a box that both pickup were feed into. Hubert Liegos builds a version
of that original pickup my friend bassist Willem Von Humbracht owns one. It sounds very nice. My take, it's way easier to use a single element transducer.
What is great about this system is that ... to repeat, one Yama either side sounds great, both sides bridged can sound great, both sides bridged Y+/Y- can sound great, each thru to their own ch on a two ch preamp can sound great. All of em can sound great depending on what you pump it into, what the imp is, is there tube buffering?, what speaker do you play out of?
It is very versatile and modular and works really well additively ( no reason not to buy one and then the other etc) plus the adjusters themselves ( the dummy ones if you get only one) are the best I’ve seen.
Kiyohiko spared no expense in making the best ( look up how much one of those microdot connectors cost if you can find it) pickup system in terms of craft and quality.
And clarity in terms of sound and design principle ( where it is located and modularity) is it qualitatively better then the Full Circle? WayWay better and Kiyohiko didn’t rip off Fishman, it was t’other way round.
Is there some form of phasing when using two? Yes but it kind of flattens the signal out like a HPF ( but with a mid boost) that can be easily overcome with buffering and eq. Another way is to get the +Y/-Y and get the full phat signal and then cut the bass pretty strongly or get the stereo jack and send both to the Felix via a TSR cable and have both options plus eq and HPF and blend ( sounds way good and is a great under used option) IMO the single stereo cord to the Felix where the signals are split and you can blend them (I like 70/30) or route them (send only one if you like to the FOH while you get the more cutting blended) or any number of eq options (notch, radical opposite eq's etc) are all possible and fun to fine tune (considering we all play bass but the instruments and response differ so wildly)
Kiyohiko built a pickup that turns out to be a pretty extensive modular pickup system if you want to use it that way, or want to spend the bucks
It is very versatile and modular and works really well additively ( no reason not to buy one and then the other etc) plus the adjusters themselves ( the dummy ones if you get only one) are the best I’ve seen.
Kiyohiko spared no expense in making the best ( look up how much one of those microdot connectors cost if you can find it) pickup system in terms of craft and quality.
And clarity in terms of sound and design principle ( where it is located and modularity) is it qualitatively better then the Full Circle? WayWay better and Kiyohiko didn’t rip off Fishman, it was t’other way round.
Is there some form of phasing when using two? Yes but it kind of flattens the signal out like a HPF ( but with a mid boost) that can be easily overcome with buffering and eq. Another way is to get the +Y/-Y and get the full phat signal and then cut the bass pretty strongly or get the stereo jack and send both to the Felix via a TSR cable and have both options plus eq and HPF and blend ( sounds way good and is a great under used option) IMO the single stereo cord to the Felix where the signals are split and you can blend them (I like 70/30) or route them (send only one if you like to the FOH while you get the more cutting blended) or any number of eq options (notch, radical opposite eq's etc) are all possible and fun to fine tune (considering we all play bass but the instruments and response differ so wildly)
Kiyohiko built a pickup that turns out to be a pretty extensive modular pickup system if you want to use it that way, or want to spend the bucks
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I’m not sure I could hear the difference in a double blind test. I used a Underwood with both elements for years and to my ears it sounded just fine, until I got the Realist which sounded great, until I got the Ehrlund EAP which sounds fantastic on my bass. Piezo pickups have improved dramatically today the next wave coming soon to a website near you.
To me, a single element pickup is perhaps more dynamic (no flattening outphasing), but also less complex sounding (because of the single point of pickup/amplification). That is for instance what I heard when I tried the Underwood both double and single element. Did not really like any of the sounds. Now I realize I might have dug it with the elements out of phase...
Also, my Barcus Berry clamp is back in the drawer. Sounded promising at rehearsals and at home, when it blended in with the acoustic sound. But at the louder (gig) levels, it sounded too "sterile" to me. Back to the Countryman Omni, and experimenting a little with mic on a stand.
Also, my Barcus Berry clamp is back in the drawer. Sounded promising at rehearsals and at home, when it blended in with the acoustic sound. But at the louder (gig) levels, it sounded too "sterile" to me. Back to the Countryman Omni, and experimenting a little with mic on a stand.
SO if one were to have the two Yamahiko +/- setup, would it be wise to also have the EA Doubler with variable phase?
you wouldn't need them to be reversed then. You could just spin the dial all the way and they would be reversed. But yes. Mike Arnopol doesn't comment much about it anymore, he is the only guy I know who has that, but he said it sounded best phased somewhere between the two. Knowing how PHAT the reversed is I can see that backing off of that would be cool. I'm just not sure if it would be any different from changing the imp or HPF or cutting bass?
It's probably the best phase solution on any amp out there. The Grace Felix just has a simple Phase Reverse switch. Additionally, the new Doubler has a real DI and more power.
I don't think a variable phase is that useful for a two element bridge pickup. The bridge wiggles left and right, so when the pressure gets bigger on one side, it gets less on the other.
Inverting the phase is simple, clear and without unwanted side effects.
But what is variable phase? Which phase? Of which partial/frequency at what amount?
This is not a single parameter by definition. Phase is frequency dependent. Characteristics of a filter not only include the frequency dependent magnitude (which changes the sound) but also the frequency dependent phase delay (which by itself is not audible, but mixing with a similar signal will because of the time delay that leads to amplification and/or damping of frequencies).
There are two possible solutions (at the extreme): use a simple time delay (but very short) for the whole signal to move the phase of the root and each partial by n times being n the number of the partial or use an all pass filter that keeps the magnitude of the partials but move them by different amounts in phase. Constructing such a filter is possible, but making that variable in phase amount might be rather complicated and nothing easy to implement (the EE people here might want to explain it better than me). Doing that clean is hard, if it's not clean it might be not much better than the simple time delay.
It might give the impression that a variable phase control is the optimal solution, but it only gives you more selections than uninverted or inverted. It might give a better result than on or off, but I don't think that in the case of similar but inverted signals like in the case of two element bridge sensors.
In case of a pickup and a bridge the signal at the mic is always later than the one from the bridge because it must travel through the top but more important through the air. But the bass itself is a filter and filters in general move the past of different frequencies by different amounts. The artificially constructed all-pass filter is an extremely special case that does not apply here. So there is already a filter on the bass construction itself, so what would be needed to make it correct is a filter for the pickup which contains the filter function from bass to mic pickup position and the time delay in general. And I think this is what the Tone Dexter tries to analyse and reproduce. I have no idea how far this goes, but think this would be the correct way to do this for the mic plus pickup situation and then you no longer need the mic in performance.
So, before shouting for a variable phase control, first understand what variable phase means and that it might only move a certain frequency by a given phase amount and others by different amounts. How much depends on the solution.
The simple variable short time delay can help with feedback because the delay for the feedback frequency (if it is only one) can be tuned so that it reaches the bass from the speaker out of phase (which means the bass signal and the speaker signal at this frequency work against each other to damp that frequency).
But that's the main use for it, not for inverting a signal of a double element bridge pickup that could be done much easier with a phase inverter.
Inverting the phase is simple, clear and without unwanted side effects.
But what is variable phase? Which phase? Of which partial/frequency at what amount?
This is not a single parameter by definition. Phase is frequency dependent. Characteristics of a filter not only include the frequency dependent magnitude (which changes the sound) but also the frequency dependent phase delay (which by itself is not audible, but mixing with a similar signal will because of the time delay that leads to amplification and/or damping of frequencies).
There are two possible solutions (at the extreme): use a simple time delay (but very short) for the whole signal to move the phase of the root and each partial by n times being n the number of the partial or use an all pass filter that keeps the magnitude of the partials but move them by different amounts in phase. Constructing such a filter is possible, but making that variable in phase amount might be rather complicated and nothing easy to implement (the EE people here might want to explain it better than me). Doing that clean is hard, if it's not clean it might be not much better than the simple time delay.
It might give the impression that a variable phase control is the optimal solution, but it only gives you more selections than uninverted or inverted. It might give a better result than on or off, but I don't think that in the case of similar but inverted signals like in the case of two element bridge sensors.
In case of a pickup and a bridge the signal at the mic is always later than the one from the bridge because it must travel through the top but more important through the air. But the bass itself is a filter and filters in general move the past of different frequencies by different amounts. The artificially constructed all-pass filter is an extremely special case that does not apply here. So there is already a filter on the bass construction itself, so what would be needed to make it correct is a filter for the pickup which contains the filter function from bass to mic pickup position and the time delay in general. And I think this is what the Tone Dexter tries to analyse and reproduce. I have no idea how far this goes, but think this would be the correct way to do this for the mic plus pickup situation and then you no longer need the mic in performance.
So, before shouting for a variable phase control, first understand what variable phase means and that it might only move a certain frequency by a given phase amount and others by different amounts. How much depends on the solution.
The simple variable short time delay can help with feedback because the delay for the feedback frequency (if it is only one) can be tuned so that it reaches the bass from the speaker out of phase (which means the bass signal and the speaker signal at this frequency work against each other to damp that frequency).
But that's the main use for it, not for inverting a signal of a double element bridge pickup that could be done much easier with a phase inverter.
Well all the pickups I’ve owned post Underwood were single element ones. That said, Mike Arnopol helped consult on the design of the variable phase on the Doubler and since I own three of Mike’s cabinet’s, one with the most effective HPF I’ve ever used I’d want to check out the Yamahiko Dual element in combination with the EA Doubler.
Update:
Over the last two weeks, I've been able to try out the new Yama +/- setup in two very different rooms (damped home studio, lively cement church basement)
Set up with stereo cable into two Felix channels resulted in the best sound yet - super clear bright treble, massive and tight bass, great midrange. But since the Felix has per-channel phase switches, you don't need a +/- setup to pull this off. You just need a stereo output cable from Yamahiko to get the separate signals to the preamp. With this setup, I was happy with the Felix set totally flat but with the HPF set higher to tame some of that huge bass.
The bridged setup (stock cable) with the +/-, by contrast sounded decent but dark and mushy in the middle. It had some frequencies I didn't like so much. I ended up scooping some of the mids and boosting the treble a little to compensate. And even after, it didn't feel so clear and articulate as the stereo setup.
I think this observation confirms what @DoubleMIDI routinely says on other threads - that you should buffer each piezo individually before blending signals.
If you're gunning for a simple mono cable > amp setup, the real question will be whether this is any better than a +/+ setup (or single sensor). I can't compare it with +/+... I no longer have my previous +/+ pickup. I was hoping it would sound great because I want to simplify back to a mono cable and possibly ditch the Felix in favor of something simpler like the black box but I'm not there yet.
Over the last two weeks, I've been able to try out the new Yama +/- setup in two very different rooms (damped home studio, lively cement church basement)
Set up with stereo cable into two Felix channels resulted in the best sound yet - super clear bright treble, massive and tight bass, great midrange. But since the Felix has per-channel phase switches, you don't need a +/- setup to pull this off. You just need a stereo output cable from Yamahiko to get the separate signals to the preamp. With this setup, I was happy with the Felix set totally flat but with the HPF set higher to tame some of that huge bass.
The bridged setup (stock cable) with the +/-, by contrast sounded decent but dark and mushy in the middle. It had some frequencies I didn't like so much. I ended up scooping some of the mids and boosting the treble a little to compensate. And even after, it didn't feel so clear and articulate as the stereo setup.
I think this observation confirms what @DoubleMIDI routinely says on other threads - that you should buffer each piezo individually before blending signals.
If you're gunning for a simple mono cable > amp setup, the real question will be whether this is any better than a +/+ setup (or single sensor). I can't compare it with +/+... I no longer have my previous +/+ pickup. I was hoping it would sound great because I want to simplify back to a mono cable and possibly ditch the Felix in favor of something simpler like the black box but I'm not there yet.
I think I'm beginning to understand this, The advantages of using both channels of the Grace Felix, would be that both channels have a phase reverse switch and if you each side of the pickup into Channel 1 and the other into Channel 2 and out through
the two DI's, then the signals don't interact with one another. What I'm wondering is how that works with the amp out into a backline amplifier. If I remember the Felix routing correctly, wouldn't you only get just one side of the Yamahiko. Can somebody
clarify this for me.
the two DI's, then the signals don't interact with one another. What I'm wondering is how that works with the amp out into a backline amplifier. If I remember the Felix routing correctly, wouldn't you only get just one side of the Yamahiko. Can somebody
clarify this for me.
Piezos are very sensitive devices and in some ways act like capacitors. So when two (or more) sensors are wired together and while one is getting compressed (by string vibration) and is generating voltage, some of that voltage is getting absorbed into the other one that may not be getting the same compression at the exact same time.
By sending the separate signals to a two channel preamp, those signals get boosted and then blended together. There's no need to keep them separate after that. So for me, I just blend them and send the blended signal (amp out) to the amp.
The Felix lets you flip the phase of each channel independently. So a + pickup into a phase inverted channel is the same as a - pickup into a phase-normal channel.
The amp out has a switch that sends both channels or just the 'non mic' channel if I remember correctly.
That sounds about right.. as I'm sure it's better than some "others" it's still piezo
My girlfriend has the piano yamahiko, and while it works, a microphone is better sitting inside the piano..
But I guess the Yamahiko is the best piezo option...
Flatback, if you need my girlfriend to translate in Japanese, (maybe for that Japanese discount..$ we all want) just let me know
i would like that Japanese discount !
I really like the stereo setup into the Grace Felix as Maple is using. I used it with the blend knob always favoring one pickup if even just a little...somehow that made a difference. But having the two pickups into their own channel allows for a wide range of sounds from super thick to seriously articulate.
I have been playing with them bridged into the Sarno V8 for nearly a year now and I really love the way the pickups sound thru the V8. One alone sounds fantastic too (either G or E they have different sonic qualities and it is totally worth having both) I also have the Wilson K4 on there and use it too. All the pickups on that are bridged.Just for Kicks I have been trying lately to recreate that electric-y sound I used to get with the Wilson back in the day and it is hard to do with the tube preamp and MAS speaker.
The Yamahiko is just the best pickup out there. Build quality, sensor location, versatility, sound choices, Stereo setup or either side single. It just is.
Into the Grace Felix (the Headway is great too) the choices for use including all the blending options make that setup one of the highest fidelity, most versatile, best sounding,and schlep-able ways to go out and play bass. Not cheap, but I really don't get why so many upright players settle for cheap electronics?
I have been playing with them bridged into the Sarno V8 for nearly a year now and I really love the way the pickups sound thru the V8. One alone sounds fantastic too (either G or E they have different sonic qualities and it is totally worth having both) I also have the Wilson K4 on there and use it too. All the pickups on that are bridged.Just for Kicks I have been trying lately to recreate that electric-y sound I used to get with the Wilson back in the day and it is hard to do with the tube preamp and MAS speaker.
The Yamahiko is just the best pickup out there. Build quality, sensor location, versatility, sound choices, Stereo setup or either side single. It just is.
Into the Grace Felix (the Headway is great too) the choices for use including all the blending options make that setup one of the highest fidelity, most versatile, best sounding,and schlep-able ways to go out and play bass. Not cheap, but I really don't get why so many upright players settle for cheap electronics?
