Piezo pad under hardtail bridge

[ehdwuld]

So I have some 25mm piezo discs
and I was gonna stick one under the hardtail bridge of one of my headless guitars

What I have planned is a five way switch
Two humbuckers
Standard strat switching for three pickups

While I think the piezo may sound better with the neck mixed in

Alternatively I may mount it under the foam of the bridge pu

What are your thoughts on mounting and or switching

 

[Mincer]

Won't it need its own preamp?

 

[ehdwuld]

My others don't

Cigar box guitars don't

only the dedicated acoustics use a preamp

And some of those don't

Literally two stick on pads and an endpin jack

 

[ehdwuld]

To experiment

One can take a piezo pad from Amazon

They are like $10 for a dozen

Solder a jack on

Tape it to the face of your favorite guitar

Just handling the piezo while plugged in is loud

 

[Securb]

Won't it need its own preamp?

The piezo in my mandocello doesn't have a preamp. However, if I do not mix the piezo with the magnetic pickup, it sounds like ass... in a weirdly good way.

 

[Mincer]

I have a piezo in my Brian Moore, and it needs a preamp (to mix with magnetics), and in my Emerald acoustic which also mixes with a magnetic (passive) neck humbucker.

 

[hamerfan]

Mounting is a bit tricking. A German guitar company called Rockinger recommended this way: routing a bit larger hole , drilling a connection to the pickup route, installing the piezo and filling the hole with wax

 

[ehdwuld]

I would think the bridge would crush the piezo when mounting

in both the headless guitars
the pickups are boddy mounted with foam underneath

I think putting it under the foam may be the best

I have had discussions with someone on the forum a while back
PInk Unicorn Horsey? or some such

and mounting it in the neck pocket caused a lot of handling noise

I think if you have a resonant body and just press it tightly against the body with glue or something
it will work fine

the others I have are the TOM bridge Piezos and they are expectedly bright and twangy
blended with the magnetic pickups it adds a bit of a chorus or 12 string flavor

my question is mostly about the pickup switching

with a five way I can have it at 5 with the neck pickup
I can have it at 1 with the bridge pickup
or I can have it at three and have it with both but loose the two hum that I kinda like

I am leaning toward mating it with the neck

if it were on a strat I would just steal the second tone knob for a volume and roll it in at any time

 

[Securb]

I have a piezo in my Brian Moore, and it needs a preamp (to mix with magnetics), and in my Emerald acoustic which also mixes with a magnetic (passive) neck humbucker.

Both of my Fishman piezos have preamps and sound beautiful alone or mixed. The piezo in the mandocello has a metallic quality, but believe it or not, it sounds weird and cool with a slide. It's not an application I think I would use in a song, but it's fun. When mixed with the magnetic, it sounds much better.

 

[Zerberus]

Mounting is a bit tricking. A German guitar company called Rockinger recommended this way: routing a bit larger hole , drilling a connection to the pickup route, installing the piezo and filling the hole with wax

That works well, but is be optimal, strictly speaking.

The "problem" is that you ideally want a hard surface on both sides, and wax isn´t really hard, nor is foam.. This is so that the pressure changes that the element functions on can be tracked properly and accurately

But at the same time you don´t want to crush the piezo-element, which just tossing it in under a hardtail and feeding the wire along the ground path before slapping on the bridge would probably do.

In a perfect world, you'd want to rout a like .5mm deep cavity to hold the piezo just ever so slightly above the surface of the guitar(we´re talking fractions of a mm) and screw that hardtail on normally. But finding that exact depth would require ssignificant trial an error, and likely be completely wrong with the next piezo element due to manufacturing tolerances

 

[zionstrat]

Okay maybe I'm remembering this wrong since it's been a while since I've done this, but I'm pretty sure you have to have a preamp on a piezo if it's going to mix with a magnetic pup... I forgotten the exact reason, but it's something like the magnetic pup loads down the piezo to the point that it's useless.

On the other handy piezo by itself works fine... You just need a lot more preamp.

So I've done piezos with mags two different ways... First is a preamp to combine them.. there's a lot of them out there..

But the way I actually recommend is either dual outputs or a stereo output so that you can split them..

That way you can treat the piezo more acoustically and the magnet more like a traditional pup.

So it's been a while since I've dealt with the theory, anybody else out there remember more and if I've got it straight?

 

[Mincer]

Okay maybe I'm remembering this wrong since it's been a while since I've done this, but I'm pretty sure you have to have a preamp on a piezo if it's going to mix with a magnetic pup... I forgotten the exact reason, but it's something like the magnetic pup loads down the piezo to the point that it's useless.

On the other handy piezo by itself works fine... You just need a lot more preamp.

So I've done piezos with mags two different ways... First is a preamp to combine them.. there's a lot of them out there..

But the way I actually recommend is either dual outputs or a stereo output so that you can split them..

That way you can treat the piezo more acoustically and the magnet more like a traditional pup.

So it's been a while since I've dealt with the theory, anybody else out there remember more and if I've got it straight?

I've always thought you needed a preamp (and power source) if you mix pickup types. Maybe if you did 2 discreet output jacks you might not.

 

[ehdwuld]

I Am sorry but there seems to be some speculation and misconception here

my Dean Shire came from the factory with a TOM Piezo Bridge and two humbuckers
no preamp
works fine

my Two Ehdwuld custom built Guitars have TOM piezo Bridges and two Humbuckers
no preamp
they sound find

please
the question isnt "will it work"
thats already been answered

its the switching I have questions about

 

[ehdwuld]

Ok so i glued a pad under the bridge pickup

Titebond to the wood at the bottom of the pickup cavity

The body is so light and resonate that I thought this would work great



Like Securb said
Sounds like butt cracbirth out the neck pickup
and then it's mostly neck pickup

Had it on a three five way blade
set up like a three pickup
Piezo neck bridge

Gave up the strap was much louder than the strings

Any movement on the body cause loud handling noise straight to the amp