MOTUnation.com

Hello all! This my first post, but I have been reading these forums for awhile(great stuff!)

Anyways I finally have a question that I don't think anyone else has brought up so I decided to ask it. After a long period of saving up I am finally purchasing my own Upright Bass. I'll also be buying a K&K Bass Max piezo pickup to go along with it so I can record and put it through my bass rig for live applications. Now for my question, I have a MOTU traveler that I use in my small project studio and I was wondering if I could plug the piezo pickup straight into the mic input or if I would need to buy the sperate preamp for the pickup that the company makes.

for reference here is the pickup:
http://www.urbbob.com/bassmax.html

and here is the preamps they recommend for it, along with an explanation why you need it:
http://www.urbbob.com/preamptalk.html

essentially they say it's ULTRA-high impedance(1-2 million+ ohms range).
Now I know that the traveler can handle Low and High level impedance mics and instruments but I have not seen any reference to how it would behve in regards to piezos so I was just wondering if the traveler could record it fine, or if I would need to fork over more money for another preamp specially for the pickup. Any help would be much appreciated.

I'd send MOTU an email and ask them what impedence range their preamps are designed for. This spec is not listed on MOTU's website, so the only way to find out is to ask them.

Some inexpensive preamps have adjustable impedence inputs (the ART DPS-II comes to mind), but I'm not sure if their range is more along the lines of what low-impedence mics want to see. Though, the ART does have Neutrik-style inputs that accommodate both instrument and mic level.

If it were me, I'd probably just go with the preamp K&K recommends. After looking at their site, I get the sense that they're pretty knowledgeable about acoustic bass and their system likely reflects their specialized experience.

I suppose you could order the pickup, try it with the Traveller, and if doesn't work out, order the preamp separately. Though you'll probably pay more by doing so (shipping, etc).

I play upright and find that the pickup alone never sounds right to me.
In conjuction with a mic can yeild good results. I tend to use an LDC 12" - 18" aways from the front and another over the shoulder pointing at the fretboard.
I have and underwood pickup that I like for live stuff, but seldom for recording.

Somebody may be able to answer this question more accurately than I can, but if I'm not mistaken, you'll need to take your piezo into a DI first in order to get your signal from "instrument level" to "mic level", and then into a mic pre.

-jordan

cool, thanks for all the responses! I think I will just go ahead and fork over the dough for the preamp. No sense in doing things half-assed. And builder thanks for the recording tip, I'll try that out as soon as I get all my stuff in.