David Gage The Realist Bass Copperhead

It's a classic.
An immediately usable sound on all the many basses I've tried it on. It's not exactly the just the acoustic sound but louder -it seems to pick up very little high end -but it does work really well.
At low level I've often had people think I was playing acoustically, At higher volumes (or through a big PA system) it doesn't sound as convincingly acoustic (what pickup does though?) but it does provide a usable sound and is resistant to feedback and easy to control. I have colleagues who like to use it in conjunction with a mic and blender for a 'best of both worlds' solution with very good results. (I just can't face all the extra leads/preamp/wire/transformers etc. etc. oh, and having more to carry!)
Not cheap, but then as it should last years also not expensive! Over the years the design has been modified and improved to make the pickup longer lasting and more robust. On the couple of occasions that I've dealt with David Gage they have been most helpful and courteous.

I bought this pickup for my second double bass. I chose it as I was impressed that it did not require a pre-amp. My other bass has a Fishmann P/up, which sounds very thin without the pre-amp. I put this on my bass which is set up for bowing and classical rather than jazz. I have to say that this pickup far exceeds what I was expecting in terms of tone. Beautifully transparent, it make syour bass just sound like a louder version of it's accoustic tone. I usually use an old SWR Baby Baby Blue combo for regular gigs, or a Markbass rig for bigger gigs and I can play at comparitively high on stage volume with no feedback. The only con? Quite difficult to fit... but that could be me. Also, you have to make sure the lead is properly fixed in, but other than that, this is excellent in every way. Highly recommended,

All in all this is the best pickup I've owned (and I've owned a lot). On my bass it's slower to feedback, can get a great bouncy feeling low end elegantly stays out of the way. If you want a smooth high end definition then thats tough, it doesn't have a lot of cut and trying to get it with EQ on a bass amp reveals some wonky resonances (even with the radial piezo pre). DI'd on a recording it's ok, smooth and good lows and low mids but the subs are not too present and theres not much hope of eq-ing in higher midrange if you are after an NHOP style tone. I like how you can be sure there is the correct pressure (something that is left to chance when you use a bridge wing style pickup) but it needs a luthier to fit properly and your bridge will have to be permanently altered. It alters the acoustic sound a little but not enough that it causes trouble for orchestral stuff if that is not your main thing, and when the bass is just walking or holding down the low end at a gig it fits into a mix nicely. Long term I'll probably get a new bridge and a Wilson or Full Circle but I'm certainly getting less hassle from this compared to other pickups in the meantime.

This bass pickup has a very gentle sound. It has very little of that annoying high frequency fretboard fizz that you usually get with piezzo pickups. But it removes that without removing that lovely, woody midrange buzz that's so characteristic of double basses.

It's very well built and it has a very simple and clever way to attach the plug connector to the tailpiece. The cable is very soft and comes with two included black rubberbands to coil up slack.

It was abit of a project to install it, since you have to slack all the strings. And even remove the G string alltogether to fit the plug connector, the string goes through a kind of a loop on the backside of the tailpiece. The pickup also raises one of the bridge feet about 1mm. This changes the angle against the body, and at least in my case, the bridge needs to be trimmed. This is probably best done sanding by putting something of similar thickness to the pickup under a sanding paper on the bass.

It's very importat that there are no gaps between the pickup and the bridge/body, your bass wont sound as good and you'll risk getting some very protruding buzz..

But yeah, a very good buy!