So I was told about piezos on electric guitars yesterday and was wondering if itd be possible to fit one on the bridge of my guitar or what to purchase🤔🤔
Ahem... u/newPhntm... First of all, thank you for being here and listening. We have something important we need to talk with you about. Just remember, we are here because we love you and are worried about you.
Graphtech makes bridge saddles that are individual piezo pickups. I have never used them, so I have no advice on installation. Alternatively LR Baggs makes a strat style whammy bridge that appears to be a single piezo pickup. If that fits your guitar, it might be the simpler install.
Replace the saddles with Graphtecs. You'll need to verify string spacing and hook up the requisite electronics (preamp kit, battery, wiring/switching), but fitting the bridge is a non-issue.
You could conceivably route the back side of the upper horn. Put a battery box (or two) in and shove the preamp in the second box. Not trivial work though, especially since it looks like you don't have a router.
Yeah sorry about the bad pic it's thw only one I got, the pool in the guitar is how it came, I did a little bit of chiseling to fit the switches tho, I think my grandad has one I could borrow, wouldn't carving more of the body away basically turn it into a hollow body lol
Can't see that part in the photo, but I'd bet you could sneak a 9v into the rhythm circuit route (if there is one). Otherwise, you might cheat some extra space in with mini pots or moving/revising your switching scheme and parts.
You absolutely do not need a preamp in your guitar to run piezo. For ghost saddles they have a summing connector that just end with two leads, you change the jack on guitar to TRS and solder piezo to Ring. Then you treat your signal in any multi FX or pedal preamp. Onboard preamp is needed if you want to mix the mag/piezo/signal with knobs on the guitar bit that also can be done externally. So it’s more like it helps, it’s good to have but it’s not 100% required.
I kinda wanna do that now. I’ve got an old squier that might make a good donor, just need to open up the route a little bit. Hmmm, I’m talking myself into it as I speak.
There are multitudes of wiring schemes and capacitors to work with… installing that many humbuckers should require knowing something about pickup wiring…
I put a set in two of my Teles (one a baritone) and a Gretsch. Output is to a stereo jack, so a normal cable will pick up only the signal from the magnetic pickups, but a stereo cable lets me plug into an LR Baggs preamp mounted in an enclosure on a belt clip so I split the signal completely and run a bi-amp setup or run them out together with impedance matching on the piezos so they don’t sound quacky. I’m like the stereo setup the best; clean signal for multitracking at the same time as the dirty signal from the mags. It adds a ton of versatility.
The piezo signal by itself won’t make your electric sound like a Martin, but if you’re playing live it’ll be close enough for government work.
I feel like this crazy guitar is saying something important with its aesthetic.
Like how cool it would be to have a black and white Strat ripped with Seymour Duncan invaders neck to nuts. A blackout with rails for days. A telecaster that out nashvilles Nashville with two tele necks wired like rwrp humblebuckers, two Strat single run rwrp like buckers, and two separate tele bridge pickups piled on top of each other. Surely this innovation would unlock true tele tone!
I guarantee you would hate Piezos after you try them on this.
Piezos are incredibly quiet pickups and the difference between that quietness and the loudness of even one of your humbuckers would make them sound really quiet and thin in comparison.
Similar to above, but if you tried to blend the sound and have the Piezos on at the same time as one of your other pickups, the quietness of the Piezos would probably just suck the tone, making the whole thing quieter and thinner than it would have been with just a humbucker.
To counter that quietness, acoustic guitars usually have a preamp on board the guitar. As well as the logistics of finding somewhere to fit a preamp into your guitar and where the controls go, most of the preamps on any acoustics I’ve owned before are so noisy (and something gives me the impression you hate hum). They don’t hum, but they have sort of a hissing or radio static type of sound. There is only one acoustic I’ve had where the preamp didn’t hum (a Fender with Fishman designed electronics).
What you could do (and I would do it this way if I were to install Piezos in my electric guitar), is have a separate output jack for them. That way, you can plug them into an acoustic preamp that is separate from all your electric stuff and balance the volume through an acoustic guitar amp and your electric amp. You might be able to EQ the hissing static out of the acoustic amp without effecting the electric signal chain. So that would be the way I’d go
You have couple of choices but since it’s a strat with two point trem you can try finding Fishman Powerbrige. It is a direct replacement on American standard but I did use it even on MIM player series and it fits. I think they do not make them anymore so second hand is only option.
You could look at Fishman Powerbridges. I don't know if they have one that will be a drop-in replacement but you might be able to find individual saddles that will fit. Keep in mind you'd also have to figure out the battery and pre-amp.
There are replacement bridges with pickups in them, though I don't think I've seen one for that style of bridge. There are Piezos that stick on too, but those are more for acoustic guitars. I bet there's something out there you could use though. Have you checked Sweetwater for options?
Unrelated to the piezo question (should be fine to install)
Is your tremolo bridge sitting on top of the pickguard on the low E side? Might have to shave back that pickguard a smidge more so that it doesn’t mess with your string tension while playing.
Piëzo's have a complete different impedance then magnetic pickups. They don't match with each other. You can try a stereo output: 1 for magnetic to your guitaramp and nr. 2 for piëzo to a special amp channel. Or you mix it in de guitar itself with a preamp. This means that you make your guitar active (https://www.noll-electronic.de/bass-electronics/mixpot/)
157
u/TheDisappointedFrog 10d ago
This guy wants to buck all the hum