I am going to build a gourd UBass with a skin head. I think I need a preamp. Where can I go for that. Also with a skin head I don't want to put a hole thru the skin and the only access once the head is on is thru a soundhole in the gourd. Any thoughts?
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Hey Barry, good to see you on here. Good advice from JL. I'd experiment with the piezo on the through brace and on the inner gourd body too. I'm thinking the gourd itself might vibrate more than the dowel but that's just me guessing. The external pre amp mentioned simply uses the one you ordered mounted to a box and the piezo jack would plug in to it. Depending on your gourd's shape - some of mine are pretty flat on the bottom - the pre amp could be mounted there but then the player's belly button might mess with the controls! I'm interested to see what you come up with.
you know I'm beginning to wonder if an onboard preamp is going to be right because of the size of hole I will need to make to fit it. Is there an external box that uses and in and out that isnt $100+ ?
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/easy-diy-pre-amp-makes-p...
Here's the homemade one Shane S posted I think it's the same link as the one JL posted above. Should be pretty easy to do.
Hmm, it'd be cool to mount it in a seperate gourd rather than a cigar box just to keep with the gourd theme!
great idea. I wonder if I could take the one thats coming and use it in a small cannonball gourd...about the size of a shotput. I just hole the electronics arewnt to complicated. I can solder but thats it.
the electronics are easy, 1 input jack - cut the piezo wire and solder the leads, 1 output jack.
That would very likely work.That's about where I'm at with electronics - I can solder, I can wrap a wire with elec tape and just 2 days ago learned how to use a multimeter. Hopefully you checked out the video link which makes it pretty clear even for those of us who are way more comfortable with good ol' acoustic stuff.
Assuming there is some sort of through-neck/brace inside the gourd, a piezo should work fine glued to that instead.
for pre-amp, this is a perfect use of Shane's external pre-amp design.
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/easy-diy-pre-amp-makes-p...
drop a cb gitty preamp into a cigar box, route an in-jack to the piezo of the input side, output side jack to the amp, you're set.