Double Bass fishman bp100 + obligato prastro string

bigmatteo

bigmatteo

Aug 28, 2007
69
29
5,171
milano italy
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#1
Good Morning,
i want to know if you use/used, this combination of strings+ pick up on your bass,
because the bp100, is the easy to find DB pick up here in italy, but i want to know your
experience before buy!

i will add it, to my 70's solid wood DB,now with pirastro obligato in 5ths, i play both arco and pizzicato.

Many Tanks in advance

Matteo
 
#2
That pickup was designed to be attached to the bridge with spring clips, which put too much pressure on the piezo crystals and make it sound terrible to many people.

The elements can also be attached to your bridge with glue from a hot glue gun, and I’ve seen bluegrass players use that pickup clipped to the f-holes, which sounds less trebly.
 
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#3
I used this pickup for quite a while. I think there are better options today, but if you do try it, experiment a bit with placement and when you find a spot you like mark it with a pencil and attach with a drop of Super glue. Ditching the heavy clamps will improve the sound both acoustically and amplified, and if need be the elements pop off easily with a thin blade. A lot of great bassists used the bp100 and got beautiful if not MBOL sounds. Fred Hopkins and Red Mitchell are two that come immediately to mind.
 
#4
Obligatos are nice strings. The Fishman BP-100 can sound okay with a preamp that has a high impedance input like the ones Fishman makes, but there are better sounding choices these days including Fishman's Full Circle.

- Steve
 
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#5
In my experience the BP100 requires quite a bit of corrective EQ to get a natural sound.

It can work pretty well for pizz. I wouldn't say the sound is necessarily natural, but if you like a lot of attack, you might like it.

Takes a bit of magic to make it work well with arco...but it can be done. Without appropriate EQ it tends to be very harsh under the bow.

I played primarily Spirocores. The few times I demoed a base with Obligatos I thought they sounded great. My understanding is their usable life is much shorter than Spiros, however I would expect them to work better with the BP100.

Spirocores tend to be fairly bright and so does the BP100. The Obligatos are a bit warmer in my limited experience.
 
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#6
I used Obligato D & G over Spiro E&A for many years. The Obligatos bowed beautifully and had a pretty nice feel to them. I never had any problem with them twisting under my fingers, but I think that's a common complaint for the low strings. I switched because I found them a little bland on my bass.
 
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#7
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#8
I had a BP-100 that I played for about two years along with the Fishman Bass Blender an the Crown CLM 10 mini condenser. The mic sounded so much better that I switched back to a Underwood and then a one of the original Realists. My recommendation is to invest in a different pickup if it’s in your budget. The BP-100 will not sound that great with the bow. A Realist Lifeline a Yamahiko, or perhaps Full Circle will give you a much better sound. Just my take.
 
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#9
yodedude2 said:
what, in your opinion, is a good starting point for e.q. adjustments with the bp100? how about the use of a low pass filter?
Click to expand...

This pickup tends to quack a lot, but I like plenty of air in the tone, especially with arco. So, no I would not run an LPF.

The quack can work okay with pizz for some people, but it makes the bow really nasty. Since I played pizz arco 50/50 I needed both to sound good. If possible I would probably start by cutting the high mids and boosting the highs. To my ears getting the right contour in this frequency range is the most important issue with this pickup. Whether this type of approach works depends on the centers and bandwidth of the tone controls your amp has. Ideally you use powerful EQ like a 31-Band graphic or a parametric, but most bassists don't go that far.
 
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#11
lurk said:
I heard Peter Washington recently using a Realist straight into an amp and he got a wonderful sound.
Click to expand...

I was in New York recently and I heard him at the Village Vanguard where he was playing into a Gallien-Krueger MB 112 combo. Is this where you heard him?

- Steve
 
#12
bassfiddlesteve said:
I was in New York recently and I heard him at the Village Vanguard where he was playing into a Gallien-Krueger MB 112 combo. Is this where you heard him?

- Steve
Click to expand...
No. I heard him at Mezzrow with a pickup band and up in Tarrytown two nights with Charlap's great trio. Someone said he was using those black LaBella strings at the Vanguard. True? What a great player. What a strange right hand technique.
 
#13
lurk said:
No. I heard him at Mezzrow with a pickup band and up in Tarrytown two nights with Charlap's great trio. Someone said he was using those black LaBella strings at the Vanguard. True? What a great player. What a strange right hand technique.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he was using the black La Bella strings. His right hand technique is unusual but he gets a great sound and swings like mad.

I wonder if the GK combo is the house bass amp at the Vanguard.

- Steve
 
#16
The Shadow SH-965 NFX works very well for arco playing and OK for an acoustic pizz sound. The pizz sounds a bit distant, so it doesn’t punch through as good as a Full Circle or Underwood, but you can get some highs (air) that you won‘t get as well with a Realist or Lifeline.

It has a built in impedance buffer, so you need a lithium cell (common type) to power the buffer, but it does life for a long time unless you forget to pull the plug at the battery adapter that powers it.

You can use it with both sensor foils or only one plugged in which gives you a spare one.

The battery adapter may need some (rubber) foam put in to avoid rattling of the PCB inside. No big deal, only four screws to remove.

Better with adjusters since the bridge gets up a bit where the sensor foils are placed. But this is the same for a Realist. The Shadow is rather cheap for what you get. The tone pot is rather useless as it only can drop highs.

I used it with an untypical instrumented tango orchestra where it worked very well.
Not ideal with a loud jazz group when you want to push through. OK if you want to stay in the background.
 
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