Up until this week I've been pretty focused on changing the look of the bass and making it a little easier to play. But, I had a sudden flash of low howling feedback… back in 2007 I sat in with Snd on Snd for a show. For one of our practices I decided to use this bass and simply placing your finger on the A or B on the E string created an insane-all-consuming howl. The problem was volume—going up against two big (and loud) guitar cabs and drums in a small practice space.
I started looking at how feedback works and what I gather is this:
A piezo translates vibration into sound. Feedback happens when a loop is created. So, as I understand it, when I play an A that signal goes out to the amp via the piezo pickup, then the amp amplifies the signal, and the piezo picks up that amplified signal creating a loop. The piezo pickup is receiving the signal to send and the sent signal. Clear as mud?
I think the way to solve this is to dampen the piezo's ability to pickup an external signal. I look to semi-hollow construction, which uses a solid core with acoustic or chambered wings. I think creating a core and beefier skeleton will solve the feedback issue—starting to work that out:
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