What pickup to buy for double bass ?

[Blartfactor10]

For the price the J-Tone cant be beaten, its a great sounding P'UP and very reliable.
You cant get any Piezo to sound like an expensive microphone, thats just physics, but these things come close enough to get you in the ballpark.

[NickA]

for the money (£36 on e-bay!) it sounds like the J Tone won't be beat. Further up the scale, I used a Shadow one for years it was always rather thumpy and then buzzed in the bridge when playing without an amp.

I'd pretty much decided to buy a realist "under the bridge" pickup but the dealer showed me the realist sound clip which clamps onto the bridge like a litte G-Clamp:

1. It's expensive
2. It takes a fair bit of fiddling to get setup correctly (best position and clamp force)
3. On my Trace 1215 amp (not really suited to double bass) you have to knock out a lot of mid frequencies to get a nice tone
4. Through a GK MB110 amp it sounds "like a double bass only louder", lots of nice woody tones and none of that piezo clunk.

BASSically, very good indeed. You could probably better it with a microphone .. and all the fuss that entails. And it did once drop off the bridge mid tune ... but that was mostly my own fault.