Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roosterman on September 4, 2009 at 10:06pm

Fergus, check out my post about this here;
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/using-piezos-and-magnetic
and have a look at my 'Noise' video. I wired it off the Seymour Duncan diagram for 2 'buckers, 3 way switch, one tone, one vol, but just replaced one of the 'buckers with a pair of piezos wired in series. It works really well, so I say... go for it!
If you need any help, give me a shout :o)

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Permalink Reply by Fergus Morris on September 4, 2009 at 10:32pm

Thanks! I have never messed with this kind of stuff so, should be fun!I should be able to control the volume difference because both of the pickups will have volume pots.

Randy Rooster (Ben) said:

Fergus, check out my post about this here;
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/using-piezos-and-magnetic
and have a look at my 'Noise' video. I wired it off the Seymour Duncan diagram for 2 'buckers, 3 way switch, one tone, one vol, but just replaced one of the 'buckers with a pair of piezos wired in series. It works really well, so I say... go for it!
If you need any help, give me a shout :o)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David L. on September 5, 2009 at 12:40am

Hi,
I have made 3 CBGs with normal guitar PUPs and piezo discs. For the first I used 2 mini humbuckers and piezos to give a 5 way option like a strat configuration with the piezos replacing the bridge pup. The last two used a 3 way and a single PUP plus the piezos. All have worked well with the discs giving a typical acoustic CBG sound, the electric PUP has a typical electric PUP sound (no surprise so far) but the mix of both sounds great reducing the electric sound and letting some of the acoustics to chime through a bit like adding a chorus effect - in all giving 3 different and distinctive sounds.

As the piezo discs cost a few pence only I tend to mix 2 or three together of different sizes as I read somewhere they give different frequency responses (not sure if this in fact makes much difference) and also I can then glue them around the bridge to pick up more sound. Also as I have found the piezo discs easily ping off the soldering if the wires are tugged I always glue the wires down to the top of the disc before handling them and once in a final position add an extra blob of glue on the wires near to the disc.

For wiring diagrams I have always found the ones on the seymour duncan website http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/
to be the easiest to follow. You may already know to use a crocodile clip as a heatsink to protect the capacitors when you solder to stop the heat from frying it (as I've done previously)
Good luck,
and if I can help just post a message.

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Permalink Reply by Fergus Morris on September 5, 2009 at 2:35am

Thanks! That is interesting, what I intend to do is have two pickups (a jazz bass and a p-bass type) which are both have a volume pot each, and a master tone pot (like on a jazz bass), and two piezos controlled by an on/off switch, so that when the piezo is on, you can controll the pickups with the volume and tone pots. I am now more confident that this should work, thanks!

David Lloyd said:

Hi,
I have made 3 CBGs with normal guitar PUPs and piezo discs. For the first I used 2 mini humbuckers and piezos to give a 5 way option like a strat configuration with the piezos replacing the bridge pup. The last two used a 3 way and a single PUP plus the piezos. All have worked well with the discs giving a typical acoustic CBG sound, the electric PUP has a typical electric PUP sound (no surprise so far) but the mix of both sounds great reducing the electric sound and letting some of the acoustics to chime through a bit like adding a chorus effect - in all giving 3 different and distinctive sounds.

As the piezo discs cost a few pence only I tend to mix 2 or three together of different sizes as I read somewhere they give different frequency responses (not sure if this in fact makes much difference) and also I can then glue them around the bridge to pick up more sound. Also as I have found the piezo discs easily ping off the soldering if the wires are tugged I always glue the wires down to the top of the disc before handling them and once in a final position add an extra blob of glue on the wires near to the disc.

For wiring diagrams I have always found the ones on the seymour duncan website http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/
to be the easiest to follow. You may already know to use a crocodile clip as a heatsink to protect the capacitors when you solder to stop the heat from frying it (as I've done previously)
Good luck,
and if I can help just post a message.

• ▶ Reply