Posted by G.S.Monroe on October 26, 2012 at 11:00am
Split "A" style construction, body, neck, sound, and back boards are Ancient "Sinker" Cypress, fret-less fingerboard is red cedar. Piezoelectric buzzer pickup mounted recessed into the soundboard under the string course in mag pickup fashion. Piezo Buzzer modified by cutting a slot across the plastic cover to expose piezo element to all 3 strings.
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I often will shroud the underside and mounting points with some form of foam rubber sheeting, this one has bits of an old mouse pad as a gasket to help with softening "body noise".
Well that makes a lot of sense. Maybe I'll try it on a future build. I wonder if doing your way will overcome my current problem -- when I coat the piezo in hot glue within a bottle cap and then hot gluing that to the sound board -- resulting in attenuated mid- and high-end response (requiring me to boost the mid and high end at my amplifier). I'm still a bit of a novice with piezo pups, having sworn-off them a couple years ago when I wasn't able to isolate the piezo enough to eliminate fretting and handling noise. But my current technique with the hot glue and bottle cap does a good job of isolating the fretting and handling noise, but at the expense of mid- and high- end frequency response.
Piezo elements are basically microphones, jack a bare piezo into an amp and speak into it... you will hear your voice. Blow on it...you will hear the wind. Which would be the more logical place to mount a mike? Adjacent to the sound source, or behind a barrier? When you mount a piezo on the neck, you pick up the neck sounds, on the bridge, the bridge sounds, on the soundboard, the soundboard sounds, under the strings, the string sounds, across the room...the room sounds...each has a different tone.
Unlike magnetic pickups, piezo pickups work by sensing the vibrations of the soundbox, not the strings, so I don't think "exposing the piezo elements to all 3 strings" will buy you much. Correct me if I'm mistaken.
Comments
I often will shroud the underside and mounting points with some form of foam rubber sheeting, this one has bits of an old mouse pad as a gasket to help with softening "body noise".
Well that makes a lot of sense. Maybe I'll try it on a future build. I wonder if doing your way will overcome my current problem -- when I coat the piezo in hot glue within a bottle cap and then hot gluing that to the sound board -- resulting in attenuated mid- and high-end response (requiring me to boost the mid and high end at my amplifier). I'm still a bit of a novice with piezo pups, having sworn-off them a couple years ago when I wasn't able to isolate the piezo enough to eliminate fretting and handling noise. But my current technique with the hot glue and bottle cap does a good job of isolating the fretting and handling noise, but at the expense of mid- and high- end frequency response.
-Rand.
Piezo elements are basically microphones, jack a bare piezo into an amp and speak into it... you will hear your voice. Blow on it...you will hear the wind. Which would be the more logical place to mount a mike? Adjacent to the sound source, or behind a barrier? When you mount a piezo on the neck, you pick up the neck sounds, on the bridge, the bridge sounds, on the soundboard, the soundboard sounds, under the strings, the string sounds, across the room...the room sounds...each has a different tone.
Unlike magnetic pickups, piezo pickups work by sensing the vibrations of the soundbox, not the strings, so I don't think "exposing the piezo elements to all 3 strings" will buy you much. Correct me if I'm mistaken.
-Rand.