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Double Bass Yamahiko Double Bass Pickup

Also, I ended up putting a lower gain tube in my Slampegg and now I have more control over the usable range of the input gain.

Aha! Bingo! I switched out the 12AT7 with a 12AU7 and turned the gain down to 9 o'clock on the Slampegg (right before the D strings starts distorting), ditched the HPF PRE and the Redeye and we're cooking with gas now.
I can appreciate not having to run through 4 different preamps to get the tone useable with this pup - we're friends now.

Thanks for your help, gang.
 
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Aha! Bingo! I switched out the 12AT7 with a 12AU7 and turned the gain down to 9 o'clock on the Slampegg (right before the D strings starts distorting), ditched the HPF PRE and the Redeye and we're cooking with gas now.
I can appreciate not having to run through 4 different preamps to get the tone useable with this pup - we're friends now.

Thanks for your help, gang.
I'm frequently running mine through a Particle Accelerator with a 12AT7 and it sounds quite glorious.
 
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I absolutely find a sound difference exiting from the G or E with the bridged. I seem to remember the Yamahiko website saying that as well.

I also never found that it needs more than 1M with my bass which has enough low end for two basses. 10M mushes out the bass end for me, and 20 well forget it haha!

Well, as I mentioned YMMV
I don't know if the elements have a shelf-life, but my are just about 30yrs old. 'Bridged', the sound is basically identical on the gig from E or G. but via a single element, there's a clear difference. I can't speak to any of the new models though as my 4 elements are still going strong.
 
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I think of the Yamahiko as an industrial Piezo, which is what it is: There is no dampening or tone shaping or compression (meaning in this case literally compressed piezos ie Underwood, Realist,etc.) It picks up a huge amount of the sound where it is in the bridge foot picking it up in whatever way it does thru aluminum and wood. So the signal you get out the other side is RAW like the pictures that come out of a Digital SLR. EQ to taste, but also all the weirdness that comes with YOUR bass gets amplified too. There really is no one answer to it. For some basses a RAW pickup sounds TERRIBLE no matter the EQ. For others it works great with some tweaking and for others straight up. Go figure.
 
I think of the Yamahiko as an industrial Piezo, which is what it is: There is no dampening or tone shaping or compression (meaning in this case literally compressed piezos ie Underwood, Realist,etc.) It picks up a huge amount of the sound where it is in the bridge foot picking it up in whatever way it does thru aluminum and wood. So the signal you get out the other side is RAW like the pictures that come out of a Digital SLR. EQ to taste, but also all the weirdness that comes with YOUR bass gets amplified too. There really is no one answer to it. For some basses a RAW pickup sounds TERRIBLE no matter the EQ. For others it works great with some tweaking and for others straight up. Go figure.

That sounds about right, actually. It's not plug-n-play like, for example, The Realist, but once I got over that, I'm getting along great with it.
 
Well, as I mentioned YMMV
I don't know if the elements have a shelf-life, but my are just about 30yrs old. 'Bridged', the sound is basically identical on the gig from E or G. but via a single element, there's a clear difference. I can't speak to any of the new models though as my 4 elements are still going strong.

Excuse please....what do you mean by 4 elements?
 
@Roger Mouton
elements = wheels= pickup
I received two sets (2 elements/wheels/pickups in each set) for my basses.

but after all these years ive basically defaulted to using the single E side (instead of bridged). So the Gside is basically an 'adjuster wheel'.
 
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I’m in!! I had a single sensor (E side) installed yesterday. This pickup is great! It replaced a Realist Lifeline which sounds pretty great too. The Yamahiko is just a clearer, more accurate representation of my bass. It sounds better straight into the amp and with the Sushi Box tube pre (Elementary) in front it’s pretty f*in’ amazing.
 
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