Electro acoustic basses

mart

Yes, I'm hoping the pickup and preamp behave; I've had it three years now with no problems, but who knows. Mine is just piezo, and I guess it would be nice to have a blended system. But even as it is, it has a nice distinctive tone. No, it doesn't sound like a double bass, it sounds like ... an electro-acoustic! Mine has an off-centre soundhole, but with a standard design couldn't you fit a regular soundhole pickup?

ICBM

mart said:

Yes, I'm hoping the pickup and preamp behave; I've had it three years now with no problems, but who knows. Mine is just piezo, and I guess it would be nice to have a blended system. But even as it is, it has a nice distinctive tone. No, it doesn't sound like a double bass, it sounds like ... an electro-acoustic! Mine has an off-centre soundhole, but with a standard design couldn't you fit a regular soundhole pickup?

Yes in theory, although you'd be left with a nasty hole in the side where the original electrics were - those can be unreliable too so would be better gone.

I admit I'm probably a bit biased into putting acoustic basses into the catalogue of Satan's Works because my main contact with them is when they don't work! I detest electro-acoustic guitars in general, and I don't know why bass ones should be even less reliable, but they do seem to be. I really don't like piezos in general though - they have a distinctive nasty tone that seems to become more obvious and more annoying over the years. I don't really think they sound much more 'acoustic' than a magnetic pickup - just non-acoustic in a different way. I genuinely prefer magnetics for acoustic instruments. (Although don't get me started on the Taylor Expression system, which is magnetic-based and worse than almost any piezo! ). For bass, I don't think they have any real bottom end - you obviously get the pitch of the note and the boom of the body, but to me there's no power in the tone of the note itself like you get from a magnetic string pickup... maybe hard to explain.

mart

I think I agree with you about the sound of piezos. I think we've become conditioned to hearing that quack and thinking "acoustic", but only by association, not because it is anything like the acoustic sound.

However, just like an acoustic bass doesn't sound particularly like an upright bass, but is an interesting and usable sound, so I think a piezo pickup may not sound like an acoustic, but it can give a usable sound. And I think it actually works better on an acoustic bass than on a guitar.

But I can understand you hating them if you end up spending a disproportionate amount of time fixing them!