mcgraham Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 For those who have magnetic pickups and piezos, what controls is your bass equipped with to mix the two options? Separate volumes? Anyone got a blend between the two? Simply an on/off switch for the piezos? Or maybe a switch that has options for magnetic pickups only, piezo only and both together? Also, what do people do with eqing the two signals? Is it standard to have a separate eq for each, or just for magnetic and not piezo? Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanSpeeltBas Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 My Turner fretless has a Highlander preamp which buffers the magnetic & piezo pickups. It has master volume, pickup blend, piezo/magnetic blend, and seperate passive tone controls for both magnetic and piezo pickups. It just doesn't get better than that! Current Turner basses have a similar D-Tar Eclipse preamp which has been for sale for retrofit for some time but now it's only available for luthiers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgraham Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Thanks for the input! Anyone else got any experiences? I appreciate that not everyone has a piezo equipped bass but I was hoping for slightly more responses! Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grissle Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I'm interested in this thread to, I've wondered about adding piezo's to my fretless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 (edited) Hey Mark! I have a Bolin NS5 which has seperate controls for mag and piezo. Mag is EMG vol/ bass+treble/mid+sweep. Piezo is Fishman vol + roll off. the Fishman pre has a user adjustable bass boost on the board but not accesable in the heat of the moment. It is superb. Fishman will not sell me one unless I am a luthier and want a bulk amount. I love the sound of the piezo but do not much care for the bass - just a taste thing. The problem is, I cannot find anything which will make the same noise. Edited June 28, 2009 by owen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 My headless has mags and bridge mounted piezos. The piezos are by Graphtec and feed into a buffer preamp. There is a volume control for each side so I can control the over all mix and volume. Ideally I'd like a pair of stacked pans (one for the mag/piezo mix and another for bridge/neck pickups) but its not possible with the MIDI function too. Too many signal paths. I've had issues with the graphtec piezos so couldn't recommend them. The transducers are too small for bass strings and I've had to resort to using exposed core strings in order to get sufficient contact over the saddles. RMC units have a good reputation however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 [quote name='mcgraham' post='524938' date='Jun 26 2009, 03:33 PM']For those who have magnetic pickups and piezos, what controls is your bass equipped with to mix the two options? Separate volumes? Anyone got a blend between the two? Simply an on/off switch for the piezos? Or maybe a switch that has options for magnetic pickups only, piezo only and both together? Also, what do people do with eqing the two signals? Is it standard to have a separate eq for each, or just for magnetic and not piezo? Mark[/quote] I have a Dean Bromberg which has 2 jazz style pickups and a Fishman piezo bridge. There's a 3-way toggle for piezo only, magnetic only or both. There's a master volume on the guitar. The magnetic pickups have a volume control each and there's 3-way EQ. The piezo has a separate volume control but no EQ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skelf Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 (edited) The set up I use in my own basses is as follow. Two mag pickups plus the piezo. The bridge pickup and the piezo are switchable so you can have the following combinations. Both mag pickups or the piezo and the neck pickup. This means that the bridge pickup or the piezo feeds one of the lowpass filters in the pre-amp giving you full EQ over which ever one you choose,it also means that the blend on the pre-amp will work as normal for the mag pickups or the piezo and mag. There is only one mini switch more with regard to controls. I use the Hipshot Type A bridge with the Graphtech saddles and have had no problems with them to date. The only thing I have to add to them is an attenuater because the output from them is really high so I need that to balance the volume between the piezo and the neck pickup. Alan Edited June 29, 2009 by skelf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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