by Chick Who Tinkers
I use four small piezos straight to jack, no volume or tone. 2 on center under bridge, and one on each side. Super responsive and nice thump when tap it – hand flick makes for beat along with the string playing. Like having a stomp box in your hands while you play.
- Twist 2 black wires together + the other two black wires together.
- Then twist those two doubles together to make all 4 black wires into 1 well connected twist/current.
- Then loop on jack + solder - 1 solder easier than multi.
- Repeat for red wires.
- Hot glue gun to put piezos in place.
Piezo Tip: Reducing "Quackiness" with Capacitors & Resistors
Name: Kirk Bolas
I've experimented with different values of cheap ceramic capacitors and resistors (a basic passive RC network) in order to find a combination of the right values of each that shifts the resonance peak of the piezo' output. The goal was to have a signal the de-emphasized the quackiness of the pickup without making it sound tinny or muffled. The signal is modified before it's "massaged" by any other components. It's not perfect, but it's better than stock sound and cheaper than an expensive preamp. Each pickup is different as is every instrument that it's installed in.
Cable length can have an effect here too. I generally use a 20 ft. cable.
One must experiment with each combination for best results. There's no one-size-fits-all solution.
What's your piezo tip?: I had built a bottle cap piezo pickup, and it kept feeding back. I cut a piece of felt and glued it to the bottlecap pickup, and then added a piece of foam from there to the back side of the guitar. This eliminated the extreme feedback issue on my guitar.
:
Be sure to cover the backside of the Piezo with silicone caulk or plasta seal to keep any ambient noise or vibrations down. Cover very well!
- they are easier to install and
- I like the different characters that different boxes give.
I hand build the Tillman preamp circuit (below) and often put a Twin T notch filter in line on a switch so I can knock off the pokey high frequencies that make overdriven amp settings sound awful.
I did come up with a passive tone adjust that works, but piezos sound so much better through a preamp that I only used it once.
Replies
Another easy one, this fits in a mint tin with the battery,jacks & volume control,use a 16mm mini pot?
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Here’s a layout that will accommodate the “Tillman Preamp”, in fact, it’s a modified version of it? The layout shows it wired through the cbg’s volume pot, it can be omitted for a stand alone unit?
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may i ask why there are two volume pots? you are feeding the output of the first directly into the second in series.. One pot would do the same job..
Master volume effect
I used a square of foam the size of the piezo and glue it to the back side of the piezo after installing it. It helps to reduce feedback.
The tillman preamps work great, but so do regular acoustic preamps, and mounting them in a box, pedal style (as seen on CBN) is awesome. They're cheap and come with a Rod piezo.
I have also found that foam mounting tape works great on both sides of the piezo. Peel and stick!
I have used thin closed cell foam, this also seems to help "movement" noises
I think the best thing you can do is to coat the top of the piezo disc with hot melt glue. I think it reduces feedback and improves tone. Some call doing that 'sandwiching.' It may be the same as what Slow Sough Guitars means by 'potting'
Placement: best: under or near the neck. second best: on the neck.
With disc piezos I tend to mount mine in silicon forward of the bridge and on the low string side.
With rod piezos i sandwich them between the neck and box top at the bridge point. I've done this with disc piezos as well and it works great too. With the rod piezos I cut a small channel where its to go thats not quite as deep as the rod is thick. Gets held in place with a piece of masking tape when closing everything up.
One that I did I recessed the piezo into the through neck and potted it in hot glue. That seemed to do a good job of keeping the squelch down