SR5H Piezo Talk

[nervous]

Having never owned or even been exposed to a piezo equipped bass I have no point of reference what one should sound like. I have yet to take mine out to hear at volume through an amp so all of my playing and practice has been with my usual iPod practice app through headphones. But I have enough experience with this setup to know the good and bad.

So my first question is if the piezo pickup system would normally sound a bit 'hairy' or distorted/overdriven. It's now sounded that way with two different set of strings so it's not the new strings. New battery has been installed. First was good but just eliminating that from the equation. No change from that. I have tried two methods in reducing the piezo output. First reducing with just the white master output with no difference and second by reducing all the blue individual string outputs and compensating with the white master. No change. So at this point I have to think this is the normal sonic state of one of these. For reference the piezo output is balanced to the magnetic pickup and the magnetic pickup has no such overdriven or distorted sound.

What sort of sound should I expect from the piezo side of things?

Thanks

 

[Golem]

..................

What sort of sound should I expect from the piezo side of things?

Thanks

Much depends on your EQ and its relation to playing style. I have
many piezo MMs and I play normal fingerstyle, and I EQ typical to
that style. I sometimes EQ kinda extra brite for snappy latin style
riddms, so I know that with a briter EQ piezos can sound kinda
scratchy and become vulnerable to being overdriven.

With a fingerstyle EQ, the piezo contribution can be wooly or deep
or richly middley [depending on EQ and right hand technique]. No
impolite noises in that style. For the snappy latin stuff, I back out
most of the piezo and favor the MM PU.