I realized I enjoyed that sound because I was hearing the sound of acoustic bass in the room mixed with the amp...but for looping it was a different story.
I am not a Standup bassist. But, being a recordist for a long time now, I do have a lot of experience with nearly every pick up system. I share this observation. In general, pick up systems sound better in the presence of amplification. A great deal of the warmth is due to amplification resonating the sound board upon which the pick up is placed. Send this same signal to a looper and the result is pretty darn disappointing-- even with high end pick up systems like realist or schertler.
I am interested to know if any bassists have explored the DPA clip on stringed instruments mics (4099.) This mic really liberated my acoustic looping-- the returning loop sounds like the input-- which sounds great! IMO, This mic sounds incredibly natural on guitars, fiddle, mandolin, etc.. And, it rejects feedback admirably. Interested to know how it works on a larger bodied instrument... any bassist tried it?
Daniel
Apr 21, 2011, at 8:59 AM, Todd Matthews wrote:
I tried to like the realist and it sounded great playing through an amp. I realized I enjoyed that sound because I was hearing the sound of acoustic bass in the room mixed with the amp...but for looping it was a different story. If I listened to the sound of the Realist through my headphones monitoring my loops it sounded awful. Just hearing the sound of the realist pickup without the acoustic sound of the instrument in the room was pretty bad. Since I only send the pickup through the looper (mic goes FOH) that's not the tone I wanted repeated over and over :) I guess every bass will be different too so maybe it wasn't the right fit for my instrument. I forgot to mention all my comments are bowed related. Sounded great to me monitoring with in-ears if I was just doing pizz
-Todd Matthews
On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 10:48 AM, David Grego
<tubaczar98@hotmail.com> wrote:
I've used the REALIST pickup of years. Recorded "Blues Clues" with it in combination with a mic (for room ambience) and the Broadway musical "Chicago" for 12 years using this pickup. Switching between Pizzicato and Acro has little change in amplitude completely w/o EQ. It sounds the most natural in clarity of any pickup I've tried (I've tried too many over the years to mention) and at any anticipated/expected instrument dynamic. I also use it on my Mondobass and Cello Banjo (tuned to a bass) with excellent results. ~David
