Any body here use a Piezo on a Solid Body? I have questions.

[gilded]

Hi Folks,

Most of the time when I play out in my band, I play an electric guitar. On about 15% of the songs, the guitar 'part' would sound better with an acoustic. I'll even bring an electric/acoustic guitar, fully intending to play it, but somehow the switch to acoustic never happens; band is too loud, we are playing songs quickly and there is no time to change out guitars, etc.

So, I've been kicking around the idea of installing Piezo saddles in an Electric Solid Body. I'm trying to put together the features I want for the guitar to have and that started wondering if any body else here has a guitar like this?

Question: Do I really need a tone control for the Piezo sound? I ask because most of the guitars like this that I see have volume and tone controls for the magnetic pickups, but only a volume control for the Piezos.

How about a mid boost for the 'acoustic' Piezo sound? Graph Tech has a pretty cool preamp that combines the Electric and Magnetic sounds together. It also has a mid boost for the Piezo pickup(s).

Any way, drop me a line if you have a thought. HH

 

[taabru45]

Godin has a guitar with that set up. Can't remember the model.

 

[Zelja]

Would the acoustic output go to the mixing board rather than a acoustic amp (I assume you would want a separate output that doesn't go into your standard guitar amp). If going to a board you could have a separate pre-amp I guess where you have some control or just leave it to the sound guy. I am thinking a good pre-amp would make a lot of difference.

If you want to buy a ready made guitar solution, maybe the Hamer Duotone guitars are an option - magnetic pickups & rosewood bridge with the acoustic transducers: http://www.hamerguitars.com/?fa=detail&mid=393

 

[AcornHouse]

Pete Townshend does that with his Strats with a Fishman Powerbridge.
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/guitar/fenderecstrat.html

 

[charliea]

There's an endless supply of acoustic modeling pedals. Why fool with a feedback-prone acoustic when the right tools are readily available?

 

[gilded]

Thanks for all the input!

The Townsend guitar information was really interesting, Acorn. I also appreciate the heads up on guitars and modeling pedals.

Zelja, on small shows I don't have enough channels to spare for Piezo-only use. On large shows, I might. Our dedicated sound man is good, but he's usually doing three things at once and it's a mistake to assume that he will always to raise or lower my 'acoustic' sound to fit into the rest of the band.

Guys, I'm really looking to see if anybody in LTG-land has a solid body guitar with both Piezo and magnetic pickups. If they are out there, I'd like to ask them about what tone controls, if any, they found to be useful with the Piezo.

Thanks again, Harry

 

[kitniyatran]

Fender has made both Teles & Strats with piezo bridges. I've always thought it a cool idea.
I never use tone controls; I don't like cutting out high frequencies, which is what most do. If an instrument sounded too bright or tinny, I guess it would be a solution, but rolling off highs sounds to me like losing the sound's "character", if anyone else understands that.

 

[sfIII]

Harry

I have 3 guitars that do what you want - Fender tele, strat and a Ovation. they all have a volume for the piezo pickup and a stereo out. My favorite way to use these guitars is to plug the magnetic output into a 5e3 amp and run the piezo signal through a Mama Bear processor to an acoustic amp which makes it sound much more acoustic. I can blend the two signals or pick just one on all three guitars. None have a tone control for the piezo pickup

 

[gilded]

Harry

I have 3 guitars that do what you want - Fender tele, strat and a Ovation. they all have a volume for the piezo pickup and a stereo out. My favorite way to use these guitars is to plug the magnetic output into a 5e3 amp and run the piezo signal through a Mama Bear processor to an acoustic amp which makes it sound much more acoustic. I can blend the two signals or pick just one on all three guitars. None have a tone control for the piezo pickup

That's what I need to know, Daddio! Any mid-boost? Do you ever use the blend feature? If yes, on what kind of songs? What ratios do you like?

I am copying a guitar friend in Germany who is a big Steinberger Fan. He added a Piezo System to one of his guitars. Here's a download, if you're interested: http://www.headless-europe.eu/Bernds_Gu ... Piezo.html

I'm going to take an '07 USA Steinberger GM4S model, change out tremelo for hard-tail, run Piezo saddle wires through slots in the tailpiece into a small hole in the pot cavity, add two ganged 25/250K pots (one for volume, one for tone, DPDT switches in each), put a Graph Tech preamp into the spacious pickup cavity. run the EMGs (1 EMG 85 'bucker, 2 EMG SA 'strat-style' pup's) into a 5-way, run the 5-way into the volume pot, run the vol. pot signal to the preamp, run the 6 Piezo saddles into a summing board, run that into the Preamp, use the 2 DPDT switches in the potentiometers to, a) switch between Piezo/Magnetic or, b) turn on/off 15dB mid boost on Piezos, run the EMG's power supply into the preamp, run the preamp with a 9 volt, send the separate P/M signals out through a stereo plug. Tone control are optional for the Piezos!

No fuss, no muss, no extra holes, all part of the Show. Try the Veal and be sure to tip your Waitresses and Bar Tenders! We'll be here all week, unless the 9 volt battery runs down!

HH

 

[Emory]

I have two guitars that came with Fishman power bridges: an Ovation VXT (superb) and a Parker P-36 (solid take on a tele, import, $499 with good gig bag.... how could I resist). I hear graph tech sounds better. I use a stereo cable on both guitars. Love the spread you can get besides the different output. To me the absolute minimum is to use an eq pedal since there is no tone adjustment on the gits. Got a Zoom acoustic pedal which is surprisingly good, and can use with regular guitars for interesting variations. Alone the piezo would never fool anyone in to thinking you are playing an acoustic guitar. For you might just want to wire into a mono cable, although that extra bit of "air" that the piezo adds can start making just mag pickups sound a tad too one dimensional. I love em, in other words...

 

[Maxer]

Godin has a guitar with that set up. Can't remember the model.

It's called the LGX. Fender scale, dual humbuckers, piezo. Three jacks: you can plug it in as a straight electric, an electric/piezo hybrid or as a piezo-only. Very versatile guitar. The acoustic tone is very useful. It's my go-to recording guitar when I want an acoustic vibe without necessarily getting out the real thing. I don't have any experience with other guitars with built-in piezo systems, but Godin gets widespread praise for doing it well. As well, I love Godin necks. Very comfortable. Maybe a bit too flat for some, but I like 'em just fine.

 

[AfterGlo]

I have a Line 6 Variax Tyler 69 Strat style guitar that has three single coil mag pickups and an array of models fed off a piezo bridge. It is a pretty awesome guitar - highly playable, huge range of useful electric and acoustic models, very good in a live mix. There are some issues with palm muting and piezos, as the string vibration can lend some unpleasant overtones to your chunka chunka mojo, but that is remedied by not using the piezo fed models for those parts/songs. From what I've found the tone of acoustic guitar, true or modeled, leaves something to be desired when played through an electric guitar amp, but it can be good enough for most live shows where people care more for vibe than for perfection.