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Is a piezo pickup the “secret” to the upright bass sound?

In a recent article we featured an Ibanez fretted/fretless hybrid where the fretless part of the bass has a piezo pickup. We also mentioned that we carry piezo bass bridges.

Is the piezo pickup the “secret” to the upright bass sound?

The best way to answer that is to say first that nothing sounds like a real upright bass. When you want that low, boomy-in-a-good-way sound, you need a big acoustic bass to do it with.

When attempting to get that sound out of an electric bass, yes it can be done, but it takes the right hardware to do it.

Below you will see  a video of the Veillette Paris model bass, which does have a convincing upright bass sound. But of course they used a proprietary “dovetail” wooden bridge along with specialized construction.

Could you get a sound like this on your fretless electric bass? You can – even on a plain solid-body – but it is suggested that in addition to the piezo bass bridge you use tapewound strings (although stainless steel flatwounds could be used), and learning basic upright playing techniques also helps out quite a bit.

If you are planning on installing a piezo bass bridge, you probably have questions about the electronics, some of which may specifically be around grounding. We can help. Ask us.

The sound of piezo

10 thoughts on “Is a piezo pickup the “secret” to the upright bass sound?”

  1. Can you post a picture of the bottom of a Hipshot Piezo bridge on your website? I would like to know what, if any, special routing is required to accommodate the wires coming off the saddles. Also, is it available in a standard Fender 5 hole mount?

    Reply
  2. No matter how hard everyone tries to get that upright sound, there’s no piezo that comes anywhere near. They all sound fake, thin and clickety i.m.h.o.
    I play a big acoustic fretless bass guitar for over 37 years and after lots & lots of experiments with muffled techniques, strings, piezos, etc… the closest I came to the upright sound is by combining Roundwound el. Bass strings (yes), a good magnetic pick-up in the sound hole under the strings and a microphone inside the body.
    The combination gives a warm full sound without all that click-clack sound of all piezzi I tried… no matter which preamps, nylon strings, etc. I tried over the years.
    My experience. Good luck.

    Reply
    • You are right in some things, but its the matter of personal choice, what and how you want to sound. Point is to create a sound from that clickety :), use that clickety as percusive background. For me , the way is to dig in deep, all other tones that you get by playing it creates that uniqe d.b. sound.
      Good luck man .
      Daniel

      Reply
  3. I’ve been searching for this answer. I found that using La Bella nylon wrapped strings will get you really close, or at the least get you that very fat vintage sound. JMO.

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  4. I recently had a Betts fretless 5 bass built for me and spec’ed it with a Graph Tech acoustiphonic piezo bridge system and La Bella black tape wound strings. Between the normal and dark settings of the acoustiphonic system and the black tapes I can jump between a dark upright sound and a sound that is more like an acoustic bass guitar.

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  5. I have the Graph Tech Ghost Acoustiphonic piezo bridge system on my latest Betts bass. I’m also using Labella Black tapewound strings. Depending on if I’m on the bright or normal setting, it sounds convincingly like either an acoustic bass guitar or an upright with thud.

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  6. I have an old Japanese eb-2 clone and with tapewound strings it comes closer to an upright sound than I’d have predicted. The mudbucker pickup doesn’t capture that sound well so I got a piezo and a buffer/preamp designed for an upright. What I have learned is that the placement of the piezo is crucial. The variation in sound between one location and another is dramatic. It will sound weak and tinny but you shift it a half inch over and it sounds worlds better. Mine is permanently glued into a metal housing that is meant to clamp onto the bridge of an upright. The housing has four posts that form the clamp and what works for me is to place two posts against the bridge/saddle and two on the body. I guess it’s the different vibrations between the different surfaces that greatly increases the vibration in the piezo and the effect is a really nice almost upright sound. I had to experiment for an hour to figure that out, now I have to work out a way to mount it that way. One surprising thing is that placing at the saddle doesn’t sacrifice the deep tone I wanted the way a bridge magnetic pickup does, since the piezo is not reacting to the strings like a magnetic pickup does. My takeaway is that a piezo saddle or bridge makes much more sense than I realized. Mounting ithe piezo near the neck offers no increase in terms of getting a deep bass timbre. Just some food for thought.

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