It seems like I'm having way too much extraneous noise from piezo pickups and need advise on how to correct this. They really pick up every little bump and scrape on the guitar, and need advise on how to dampen this and not totally deplete volume.
My guitar is an Old Crow style with dual piezo pickup with volume and tone control. The piezo's are mounted inside the box directly above and below the bolt bridge affixed with hot glue and hot glue slathered over and completely covering the piezo's.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Chance
Replies
Much obliged for the suggestions.
Thanks,
cmw
If it's twin pickups, check they are not wired in series. I think they should be wired in parallel.
Piezos work differently than magnetic pickups. Magnetic pickups sense the vibrations in steel strings as they move through the magnetic field of the pickup.
Piezos sense the vibration of everything they're attached to. Therefore if you attach the piezo to the box, it will pick up the vibrations (noises) of the box as well as the sound of the strings going through the box.
The way to fix this is to attach the piezo to the strings, but not the box (as much as possible).
So the answer is to mount the piezo directly under the bridge (on top of the box) and then put some cork or another damping type material under the piezo. This way, the most vibrations will be coming from the strings, while the box noises with be mostly dampened out.
This will also help the piezo be louder as it has the physical pressure of the bridge and strings pressing on it.
Sorry, I'm not exactly clear on your suggestions. I'm very new to building cbg's.
Do I mount the pickup in the neck bottom just above the box (countersunk, of course)?
Or, on top of the neck countersunk?