Posted by Tom Lauten on December 18, 2014 at 11:57pm
Hi everyone.
I'm building a bass ukelele (the kind with rubber strings). I have chosen a rod piezo under the saddle. I want to add a a Tillman preamp plus a tone and volume pot set up to get the most out of this classically upright bass sounding instrument.
Should I wire the preamp in BEFORE the tone and volume of after?
What values do you suggest for the pots and tone cap?
I read a lot of conflicting information on these specs... 25k-500k pot values is a pretty big range!
I'd really appreciate some practical advice. Thanks.
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Hi Tom, A piezo pickup puts out more signal than a magnetic pickup. As the Tillman preamp has a gain of approx x3, you may find it distorts early. Having said that I would put the vol and tone controls after the preamp.. A piezo pickup has a very high capacitive output impedance in the order of 10Mohms so your pots will be of that order to work before the preamp.
I recently built a bass uke from a child's guitar about 3/4 size but used a preamp/pickup with 4 band equaliser from eBay like this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Band-EQ-Equalizer-Piezo-Pickup-EQ-7545R... . This works very well and I have even gigged with it using a homemade amplifier and 8" speaker in a small flightcase.
If you need any help let me know
Regards Tony.
Tom Lauten > Tony HarkerJanuary 2, 2015 at 11:00am
Thanks Tony.
Yeah, I have pretty much decided to put the pre amp before the tone and volume. Unfortunately, in terms of that kind of equalizer, I'm making a solid body bass so there is no room. I'm going for a good tone control instead.
Replies
Hi Tom, A piezo pickup puts out more signal than a magnetic pickup. As the Tillman preamp has a gain of approx x3, you may find it distorts early. Having said that I would put the vol and tone controls after the preamp.. A piezo pickup has a very high capacitive output impedance in the order of 10Mohms so your pots will be of that order to work before the preamp.
I recently built a bass uke from a child's guitar about 3/4 size but used a preamp/pickup with 4 band equaliser from eBay like this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Band-EQ-Equalizer-Piezo-Pickup-EQ-7545R... . This works very well and I have even gigged with it using a homemade amplifier and 8" speaker in a small flightcase.
If you need any help let me know
Regards Tony.
Yeah, I have pretty much decided to put the pre amp before the tone and volume. Unfortunately, in terms of that kind of equalizer, I'm making a solid body bass so there is no room. I'm going for a good tone control instead.