NickPini

Bought Shirtlifter (Schertler) stat select yesterday. Slightly complicated to put on, but ok if you've got patience for that sort of thing. Could always get your luthier to do it.. Anyway, sounds f%&£ing incredible. I was worried that it might be a waste of money, but no no no no.. It comes with the pre-A111 too, and seriously, the amount of power you get out of it is ridiculous. Probably not for everyone, depends what you want, but for me it beats any piezzo I've heard by a long long way. Bad points: complicated to put on extra wires and cables (-power supply for preamp, cable into pre.., cable out of pre is female xlr to jack or just xlr if your amp can take one) Honestly though, that's it.. Good points: Extremely good sound -very very natural pizz or arco Preamp A111 is really good. The options for effecting the sound are simple but very effective.. Resonance -adjusts warmth and attac. Bass, treble -big difference between using them and not, but the natural sound without them is great! Obviously it's got Gain and volume.. plenty of juice! Fits onto the bass in a neat and unobtrusive manner. Pickup in the G-string side eye, and the cable clips securely on the tail with no bother. To be honest, I'm still buzzing from the relief that it's actually sounding great, which may not be a good thing if you want to just plug in and go. You have to adjust the cork capsule which houses the mic itself to fit it into your bridge, and once you've done that there's obviously no taking it back to the shop if you don't like how it works on your bass. So it's a bit hazardous, and god forbid you might muck up the installation and be left with a totally useless bit of gear. I'd recommend taking it to your luthier if you're worried about it. I'm pretty busy over the next few weeks so I'll let you know how I fair with it!

Here's a link for eq frequencies: [url="http://www.recordingeq.com/Subscribe/tip/tascam.htm"]http://www.recordingeq.com/Subscribe/tip/tascam.htm[/url] There's a lot of them up if you google it, most of them agree with each other.. Or if you fancy it, there's a lot of really good books on mixing and mastering which'll contain the same information and more.. Basically, the trick seems to be: drop out anything below 50hz unless you're using a sub. Frequencies below this apparently aren't naturally produced much in your bass anyway. These next frequencies are the main ones, due to harmonics or some such complicated thing.. basically, good to boost, but may also be the ones causing feedback so you need to get the right balance of them. (I've been told 800hz is especially prone to feeding back..) Obviously these frequencies depend a bit on your bass. If you've the option of turning down any frequencies in between these, then do. Other wise, if you boost all of them, it's pretty much like just turning the volume up. 50-100hz for fatness 400hz for a bit of clarity 800hz for clarity and a bit of punch. Might want to blend this with 400hz, as they do similar things.. 1.5khz and above for finger noise.. varying degrees of zing, if you know what I mean. Thanks all for your responses! Definitely avoiding the mic solution for now, as I can't afford it anyway.. I did once do a tour where the sound guy used a clip-on tom mic attached to the bridge which worked surprisingly well.. I'm still intrigued to try out this schertler jobby.. I'm slightly worried that if I bought a pickup which was basically the same as the one I have now, just a little bit better and a little bit more expensive, I'd just get frustrated with it in a few months.. I just researched the Vektor -it looks brilliant.. in fact, I'm cursing the fact that you've just presented me with another option! damn damn damn Glad I found this site though, as my girlfriend's sick to the teeth of me waffling on about some review on the new sp34592928.4blah electro static shock mounted pre-pre amp etc etc.

It's a never ending problem isn't it? I'm currently going through the mill of finding a new pickup. Had a lot of advice from sound engineers, bass players and producers. Also some jazz guitarists who've had similar issues with hollow body guitars and feedback etc. Reached a conclusion for my own circumstance, might not be suitable to anyone else.. I do a lot of loud volume gigs, as well as quieter ones. Personally, I need to amplify my acoustic sound as accurately as possible. For pizz, and for bowing. I can't see the point in spending a moderate amount of money on something which you need to effect afterwards in order to re-create an acoustic sound. If you're really after it, you're probably going to have to pay up... A lot of the really top bassists out there seem to blend 2 signals -one mic, one pickup. check out Dave Holland, john pattituci, ron carter, charlie haden, christian mcbride and so on.. A common choice seems to be the realist, blended with and mic by AMT -SP25B (http://www.gollihurmusic.com/product/1472-AMT_UPRIGHT_BASS_MICROPHONE_SYSTEMS_SP25B_S25B.html) or something similar. You send the mic straight to the PA, then the pickup to your amp which then also goes to the PA. That way, you can get all your clarity from the pickup, and your wood/umph from the mic. Unfortunately, that really is a big bill to pay, and you need a sound guy who actually knows what he's doing. What I'm going to try is getting this Schertler stat select pickup, which seems to be rated pretty well, and put it through an EQ pedal -I've found a list of the frequencies you should boost/cut out for double bass when you're recording, and for live to avoid feedback. Another big influence in feedback is the fact that the bass is effectively it's own amplifier anyway -it's that big body that's causing the frequencies to behave like that, so I'm looking into doing what guitarists do, and buying to plugs for the F-holes for those really loud gigs. That [i]should[/i] sort it out. I'll let you know what happens.. xx