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Is my realist dying?


mtroun
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I've had a David Gage realist since early 2007. It's been on two different basses over those years but I think it may be on its way out.

I'm experiencing a lot of unusual, hard to describe except 'grindy' noises when I'm amplifying with the realist. It's not particularly noticeable at low volumes but it gets more present as the volume increases. Now to complicate matters, I've only had this problem since having plain gut strings. It's possible that the noise is part of the natural earthiness of the guts, which somehow gets amplified to make an unpleasant sympathetic buzzing.

I've looked at the position under the bridge foot and it looks secure. Because of the plain guts (and before that garbos, I've taken to installing the realist jack under the A saddle. I moved it today as I thought the sound was possibly in the tailpiece, using a combination of cable ties and velcro to attach it back to the treble side of the tailpiece (it won't fit under the loop for the gut G string.

I'm not altogether sure what the source of the noise is. Has anyone had their realist die on them? There are some reports on talkbass of the realist making unusual sounds before it eventually dies but it's complicated by the strings issue in this case, making it hard to tell if it's the strings or the pickup. I don't really want to buy another realist and then realise it's the strings not the pickup.

Thanks for any help.

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I also have a realist that isn't what it used to be. I was getting a dirty background noise through the amp.I noticed it
went if i touched the jack socket and so changed it for a new one.This did help but only to a certain extent.
I have seen other posts while researching pickups saying great pickup but I went through 3 before finding
a good one with a decent output.Mine is also low output which may or may not be relevant but I'm not buying
another just to find out!

I do like the sound of the realist but I've ended up not having a great deal on confidence in it as my only pickup.

That's my twopenneth for what it's worth!

J

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