Help with pickup/pre-amp etc

[PhilSpectone]

Hi folks - I recently and very happily bought a lami bass and have started on the road to transition - and really enjoying myself! I'm taking up any opportunity to play from joining irish sessions and a ukulele jam I've booked myself some lessons and practicing regularly.

The bass had pickup fitted that I know to be a Shadow SHSB2. This was postion under the bridge, between the feet and the top of the bass. This looked completely wrong as the rounded shape of the pickup was stopping proper connection between the bridge and body of the bass, although it sounded OK plugged in (without a pre-amp). I have a violin maker mate who took the bridge off and re-positioned it. (He has also offered to re-do the finger board, re-position the sound post and set the bridge up properly - the action is a little high).

The Shadow website is a bit vague about how the pick-up should be fitted other than by fitting it wedged between the bridge wings - unfortunately the gap hear is too wide for the pick up.

Meanwhile I bough a Fishman Model B pre-amp from a well known internet bidding site. I positioned the Shadow pickups on the underside of the bridge near the strings - a la how the fishman pick-ups (which look quite similar). I plugged into my old Roland Cube Bass 60 and off I go. (I'm feeling a bit confident in this as I was playing on Friday on the same bill as one Herbie Flowers who has one of these which he has used for his db for 35 years and still likes it - on that particular evening he was lending it to his guitarist - Chris Spedding!)

The problem is that the resulting sound, whilst reasonably pleasing, isn't very loud and I've got to have the amp up to 10 and the pre-amp likewise to make a reasonable noise. I'm a bit unsure if the tape holds the Shadow tightly enough to the bridge, however if I hold the pickup tighter to the bridge, things quickly get very armeggedon like.......I'm not that keen on buying the Fisham Felt U Clips as you can only get then from that German website and seem a bit expensive at £20 for a couple of glorified bulldog clips but could be wrong....

My questions are -

[list]
[/list] Should I put the Shadow between the bridge wings? If so what should I pad it out with?
[list]
[/list]Bob G recommends using mini-clips to fit the pick ups on but it doesn't work too well - should I go for the Felted U Clips?

[/list] On this site I've read of people recommending all sorts of pick-ups but I've never heared of anyone recommending the Shadow - is it a pile of poop?
[list]
[/list] Is the pre-amp OK for the job?
[list]
[/list] What is likely to be causing the drop in volume?
[list]
[/list] I'm getting quite a lot of string noise from the bass, it lessens when shelving the treble on the pre-amp but obviously there's a cost to this at the top end - any suggestions?
[list]
[/list] What do you think of the amp? Is ut an oldie but goldie or do I need to put my - gulp - hand in my pocket?
[list]
[/list] My violin making mate has said he would do the set-up work for a mates-rate of £120 - combined with £100 worth of lessons in the new year - should I ditch all this worrying about the amplified sound and concentrate on this? (I think that I know the answer to this one...)


Many thanks for reading this - I'm really happy to get people's views!!

Phil

[BassBod]

OK, first thoughts. The Fishman Model B is a good unit, does the impedance buffer thing, has a nicely voiced eq circuit - should enhance your sound. Might not add huge amounts of gain - that's not really what it was designed for.

I've used the Fishman BP100 for years - one reason is its superglued to my bridge. That made a huge improvement to its sound - the clips work, but the fit is really critical, and in my experience it always moved around a bit, and that always changed the sound. Mo Clifton glued it on ten years ago, and its still there, and sounds the same.

For fitting pickups in the wings (like the Underwood?) its normal to use veneer, glued to the right sort of thickness, or sometimes cork, or shims of maple. Again the fit is critical - too tight and you can ruin the elements, not tight enough and you won't get a good or consistent sound.

String noise - my old Fishman pickup has loads of it. Obtrusive on its own, but tends to disappear when playing in a band context, and with (quite) a bit of treble reduction. I think its pretty normal for any pickup that resides at the top of the bridge??

I think my advice would be a visit to a really experienced luthier (someone that fits lots of pickups) or go for another design of pickup - the Realist is pretty easy to fit, and you could never complain of finger noise....you might even miss it.

best of luck

BB

[BassBus]

I don't have any experience with the pickup you have but I use the Shadow SH950 which is very similar to the Underwood, ie it slides between the wings of the bridge. It did not fit tightly on one side when I put it on so I just used some card and I get a great sound from it now. I used the Realist before that and it stopped working properly so I switched to the Shadow. I have used the Fishman as well and as BassBod said it is very trebly.

Some pickups work better on one bass than an other so it can sometimes be a case of experimenting. My Fishman sounded a whole lot better on my Stentor than it did on my first DB which was crap.

The set-up price you have been quoted sounds about right from the prices I've heard. That can make a big difference to the sound of the bass. Lowering the action will also make the bass much easier to play but might reduce the acoustic volume slightly.

Hope you enjoy playing the instrument. If you can put up with the hassle of carting it around you should have great fun. Be prepared for all the usual jokes that go with it, 'that's a big guitar', 'you'll have trouble getting that under your chin'.

[teej]

Hi Phil, I'm not sure that this will help you much, but if you don't mind I'll put it out there in case it helps someone else reading this thread.

I've got the underwood pu, which fits very nicely on my bass. I had problems with the fit on earlier basses (or rather, their bridges) and this is what I used to do: I'm not a regular smoker, but enjoy a fat cigar a couple of times a year - the kind of cuban one that comes in a metal tube. Inside these the cigar is wrapped in a sheet of wafer thin wood, and one or two layers of this stuff did the job for me every time. I carried an empty cigar tube with the wood rolled up inside it with all my other gigging stuff. But it sounds to me like you're experiencing a much bigger gap than this. I guess the principal remains the same - stick with wood.

I use a fishman preamp too (pro-eq platinum bass), and love it to bits. My amp is a mini-brute, and i'm not wild about it. Mostly I just go into the pa (yamaha stagepas 500) via the preamp. That gives me a very natural sound. But then I don't have to compete with a rock-style drummer or a screaming axe hero guitarist (and I hope you don't either).

I think the set-up will be the most useful spend - I'm hoping I can fit one in in the brief lull before my first day's work in the new year, but I'm very much afraid it's going to be too tight.

Well, all the best, enjoy that bull-fiddle...

[ardi100]

I read somewhere that sax reeds were good for a shim to pad out the gap.

[guyl]

+1 on the critical fit thing. Had similar problems with the tiniest pickup movement making a massive difference to sound and output. Can be difficult to avoid if you're putting a cover on and off the bass regularly.

"Shims" are the way forward - cork from a wine bottle is easy to cut to correct size. The cigar wood sounds very classy! Don't pack it too tight though, because this kills sound and stops p'up working properly.

Also, the very small signal that comes from these pickups can be prone to other issues that affect signal loss. Perhaps it would be worth investing in a quality lead - as short as you need. You could even change your 1/4" jack connector for a phono or locking xlr type connection to reduce signal loss at that critical point.

I don't think you'll get hard and fast answers to your questions because every bass is different. You might have to experiment a bit!