I am planning the construction of my first CBG. I have a Fishman BP-100 pickup used for an upright bass lying around. I was thinking about using that for my pickup. Anyone have any thoughts if that would work? For those that don't know a BP-100, it has two wafer thin pickups connected to a jack. I was just going to tape the wafers to top-inside of the guitar.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Replies
Hi Red,
You can either fix it to the underside of the box lid which is the easiest or even using a bolt you can make a wood wafer on which the bolt sits attached to the top of the lid. This video gives a better idea what I mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brKHopVhqVk.
CB Gitty who sells alot of CBG related items has made a good tutorial on piezos which is worth a read and answers in more detail your questions http://www.cbgitty.com/content/view/35/43/
David
David,
Thanks for the reply! Where is the best location for placing a pickup? You mentioned to the bridge? You mean under the bridge or ....? My bridge will be a bolt so I didn't see how to apply a pickup to it.
Hi red Cucumber,
It should sound good - looking on the www there is an owners manual here http://www.fishman.com/uploads/products/documents/2.pdf
and looking at prices in the UK it retails for $200 on ebay new and on ebay USA a warehouse resealed one is going for $133 http://cgi.ebay.com/Fishman-BP-100-Upright-Bass-Pickup-WAREHOUSE-RE... or a used one for $100 http://cgi.ebay.com/Fishman-BP-100-Upright-Bass-Pickup-All-Accesori...
....so you have yourself some serious hardware.
The best thing to do is plug it into an amp and see if it is working (simple tap test) and if you have any other guitar you could tape it to the sound board and see how you like the sound. The kit looks like a quality item but without trying to state the obvious be wary of the leads snagging (standard piezo disc leads ping off real easily).
Taping to the top of the box will work but you will pick up the noise from the box rubbing against you - bridge mounting will reduce this. Also for fixing many people use silicone to fix or hot glue as it dampens the extra noise a bit and helps with feedback that piezos tend to do - for a pickup worth $100 I would try tape first in case you don't like the sound because then you could still sell it.
Another thought is buy a simple piezo disc and compare the two.
If you build the CBG with it and don't like it you can always change it afterwards so you are in a win win situation - great sounding CBG with a top piezo system or a CBG with an expensive piezo to sell to get cash to buy whatever pick up type you want :O)
Piezos are generally sold with the line it is best with a preamp - try it without first and if you don't like the sound you can always add one later. (ebay is full of preamps for sale).
Regards,
David