 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-10-11 11:16
Hi
Does anyone here use or have experience with a barrel (for clarinet) or neck (for bass clarinet or sax) pickup?
If someone has, I'm interested which one you have used, and how it sounds. For example comapred with a good clip-mic like AMT, AKG, Shure, etc. I think some of those pickup give a very trebley tone?
Also intersted to know how they are installed.
Thanks
Nitai
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2009-10-11 11:36
Nitai,
I had a barrel pickup put into a spare barrel about 30 years ago. In those days, you have to solder a pickup nib (I think that was the right word) right into the neck of a sax or the head joint of a flute. Then there was a small belt unit that contained the electronics with output to any amp.
I think the one I had was marketed by King Instruments but was probably a stencil. We were interested more in effects. Selmer had the Varitone which was kind of cool. I don't believe that we were too interested in capturing the accurate timbre of the instrument as much as competing with the electric guitars and bass. There was a huge movement away from acoustic sound during this period.
http://www.saxophone.org/varitone.html
Check out this site and then do some searches for varitone. Some fascinating stuff.
HRL
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2009-10-11 13:30
I had a Barcus-Berry mpc pickup that hummed badly until a wizard added better internal grounding and a balanced connector to the preamp. Like all of these, it needed to be EQ'ed correctly, and your keywork needs to be in adjustment and quiet. This was at the time a $300 experiment that was reasonably successful, but I mostly just play into a cardioid pattern mike like a Beta 58.
With a barrel mike, low E and full B bark out, and the throat tones are much quieter. Barrel mikes work better than anything else in the wind and in high noise environments, and can provide a nice, hot signal if you want to process it.
A lot of Turkish, Greek & Balkan players use barrel pickups. Here are some other sources:
Greek-Turkish-Clarinet store:
http://gtc-music1.com/store/index.php
Pasoana MK 1.0 pickup:
http://gypsyclarinet.com/
Rumberger K1 pickup:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/rumberger_microphones.html
Jim Stoyanoff in Chicago uses these folks pickups (I don't have a web address):
TAP Electronics
96 Aristomenous St
10466 Athens, Greece
Tel. 00301 8670922
Post Edited (2009-10-11 14:31)
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Author: huff n' puff
Date: 2009-10-12 10:26
Hi, Clarnibass......... there has been much discussion on this matter in the Ethnic Clarinet pages. One is ongoing at the moment...... but some time back there was at least one posting about the use of a reasonably good earpiece ( I think it was Sennheisser- not in spellcheck) with excellent results for a fraaaaaction of the cost. Worth a look?...... H n' P.
(Hearing aids are also suggested)
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Author: Kalakos
Date: 2009-10-12 23:11
I should start by saying I have always hated those barrel pickups.
However, a year or so ago I got one of the Poullath pickups (I think he has been a supporter of this site also), and it seems to amplify the sound without taking away all the overtones and nuances of the natural sound, which has been the problem with other brands. It is very close to the sound I get when using a Shure 57 microphone. In fact I usually use both of these together, the Poullath barrel pickup and the Shure down by the bell. An extra advantage of the barrel pickup is that you can use a wireless system and actually be on the dance floor with the dancers (I play Greek folk music by the way.)
I know that any amplification brings in a certain amount of "change" to the sound of the clarinet, but Poullath's do the least harm. Believe me, the fact that I've been using one for the last two or three "gigs" says something, because I always swore I would never use them. He also has barrels available and can drill and install right on a new delrin or aluminum barrel so that you do not have to "deface" an original barrel.
I have no business connection with this product; it is just something I've discovered that seems to work very well.
You can find information here:
http://gtc-music1.com/store/index.php
John Pappas
Kalakos
Kalakos Music
http://www.TAdelphia.com
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-10-14 14:24
I have a Vox clarinet in my collection with a Vox pickup built into the barrel. The instrument is actually a Vito stencil sold by Vox. Haven't tried it out, though, as I don't own an amplifier.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2011-03-05 18:43
Attachment: sop_pickup.jpg (14k)
Attachment: bass_pickup.jpg (30k)
I ended up getting a pickup. Attached photos of the pickup connected to the soprano barrel and bass neck. I'm just starting to experiment with it.
As far as the problems mentioned, it doesn't have any notes burking and no humming problem. High input and no feedback (have tried it in a very loud concert yet), can play and capture very evenly even in a loud area, etc. Very slight louder response at around 130Hz (not a problem with a regular soprano clarinet obviously) but it's a very minor issue.
here is a (pretty random) example. Still need a mixer/preamp with correct input (the one used didn't have it) and maybe get better effects (those are just some free ones with the software).
http://soundcloud.com/clarnibass/1st-pickup-exp
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Author: Wes
Date: 2011-03-05 21:04
The sax neck pickups could affect the way the instrument sounded when not electrified because of the intrusion of the pickup tube into the neck. If one has one on one's sax neck, it would be a good idea to remove it and cover the hole with a small thin piece of metal. Good luck!
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2011-03-06 05:29
Quote:
The sax neck pickups could affect the way the instrument sounded when not electrified because of the intrusion of the pickup tube into the neck.
Mine doesn't intrude into the bore and is more or less leve with the neck wall. It doesn't change the "acoustic" sound at all. I checked the neck before adding this and also have another neck (without a pickup) for comparison. Same for the barrel, it didn't change the tone. It doesn't intrude to the bore with the barrel either.
Quote:
Did you mount the pickup on your bass?
Yes, you can see the photo attached to the previous post showing the pickup mounted on the bass clarinet neck.
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