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CBG Pickup - Active or Passive

Posted by PhilUSAFRet on October 19, 2014 at 9:49am in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

I am converting a small child's guitar to a bass.  Using a passive internal piezo disc is simple and cheap.  How well does this work?  Adding controls/eq a lot more work, a little more expense.  If I go passive, will I wish I'd have installed electronics?  How well do the passive systems work?  They seem to work well on my ukes, but require a pre-amp/eq with some amps.  I have a Peavy 60W 12" amp.

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Replies

  • John van der Valk October 19, 2014 at 3:28pm
    Yes indeed Phil , I have just arived at the conclusion that piezo pickups on my builds sound fine if the strings are strummed "open", but as soon as the glass bottleneck slide makes contact with the strings , then the sound diminishes by half the volume ....oh well , after all ..they are CBG's .But from now on I'm using magnetic coil pickups called KQ-3 , as in my latest Jack Daniels guitar .The sound is waayyy better ,and good for using with effects pedals .Where i live , the KQ-3 's are even cheaper than the piezo's , by at least 3rd of the price .
  • Will King October 19, 2014 at 11:06am

    I assume that you are using flubber strings.  For all of my basses, even the steel string ones, I have used an active (9V battery powered) pre amp with a rod piezo under the saddle.  The first one I built with weed whaker strings, I used a disc piezo direct to the 1/4" plug, but the sound was too low, so I put in the active preamp with the rod piezo and this corrected the problem.  Have fun!

    • PhilUSAFRet > Will King October 19, 2014 at 12:48pm

      Actually, to reduce cost and tuning machine problems, I was going to use Elixr coated super light bass strings.  This little guitar is pretty flimsy. Thinking of gluing a reinforcement plate under the bridge.  As it is, I have to install an end black as there isn't any.  Guess I'm going to have to use the pre-amp then.  Thanks

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