Piezo bridge

[Mr. Foxen]

Spotted [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140331641705&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]this[/url] and considering knocking up a bass to make use of it. Do I need a special sort of ouput and is there a typical piezo sound? Is it comparable to a pickup position, or really full range and flat?

[waynepunkdude]

That's realy interesting I may get one of those myself.

[Owen]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='570792' date='Aug 16 2009, 04:48 PM']Spotted [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140331641705&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]this[/url] and considering knocking up a bass to make use of it. Do I need a special sort of ouput and is there a typical piezo sound? Is it comparable to a pickup position, or really full range and flat?[/quote]

You need a very specific type of pre amp. Do a search for piezo on the board and the answer will be there. I should be in bed so am signing off, but if you get no joy drop me a PM and I will dig out the posts for you.

[Mr. Foxen]

I have the DHA preamp on the way, which he mentioned is happy with piezos. Main thing is the sound, I'm hearing trebley, but dunno if that means fullrange (not having the roll off from winding capacitance) or lacking bass.

[Beer of the Bass]

I've thought about trying one of these for my fretless, but have never quite got round to it. I reckon the simplest way to use it would be to wire it to the ring of a stereo jack (with the magnetics wired to the tip) and use a Y-cable to a separate preamp or input of a multi-channel amp. I've no experience with these particular piezos, but most piezos on various instruments I've used are happy with an input of 1 megaohm or higher, and will get thin and midrange-peaky with any less.
As an example of the sound of bridge piezos, check out Steve Swallow, as he has only piezos on his basses and gets a pretty full range acoustic-ish tone. Some people don't like his high end, but I think that has as much to do with his pick style...

[lemmywinks]

I bought one of these a while ago to go on my fretless. Haven't got round to fitting it yet but there's some information on this thread:

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=54202&hl=piezo"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=54202&hl=piezo[/url]

Please let me know how you get on as i'd appreciate as much information as posible. I was just looking for something to blend in with the normal signal and want to keep it as clean as possible


EDIT: Found this simple schematic if you're interested, dunno if it would be suitable for bass. I'm gonna show it to my tech guy and see what he thinks
[url="http://www.scotthelmke.com/Mint-box-buffer.html"]http://www.scotthelmke.com/Mint-box-buffer.html[/url]

Edited August 16, 2009 by lemmywinks

[Kiwi]

Are these of any help?

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=44300&st=0&p=439003&hl=piezo&#entry439003"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...mp;#entry439003[/url]
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=52858&st=0&p=527260&hl=piezo&#entry527260"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...mp;#entry527260[/url]

[Mr. Foxen]

I sent a questionto the dude, fairly sure he doesn't actually know:

[quote]Hi you can wire this to a standard passsive setup and it will work but the piezos are not as loud as your bass pickups so if your switching from pieos to your standard pickups you will get a sound drop thats why people use a preamp to control the levels
Thanks[/quote]

[v8bass]

I put one of those piezo equipped bridges on a fretless BitsaJazz last year , A PITA to get the levels between Mag and Piezo right so after much trial and error ended up using a cheap Artec Buffer to match . The bridge itself is of very reasonable construction and quality so wont rob any tone


A simple wiring diagram last one in the book

[url="http://www.artecsound.com/wiring/wiring_book01.pdf"]http://www.artecsound.com/wiring/wiring_book01.pdf[/url]

And a semi tech article

[url="http://www.bassplayer.com/article/rick-turner-piezo/mar-05/3368"]http://www.bassplayer.com/article/rick-tur...ezo/mar-05/3368[/url]

Sound wise for me its unlike either bridge pos or neck position ( unhelpful sorry ) but it adds a new dimension in terms of tone . A marmite quality but capable of DB esque and semi or electro acoustic tone and beyond for me certainly adds some dynamics into the overall mix

Gary
v8

[pete.young]

This looks identical to the Fishman unit on my Dean B2. I posted something about the electronics in another thread, but basically the Dean preamp gives you a separate volume pot for the piezo to balance the sound with the mag pickups.

The piezo on it's own sounds woody, if that makes sense. V8's description is pretty good. The upper octave sounds like the bass of a classical guitar to my jaded lugs.

It also seems to add some punch to the sound when used with the mag pickups.

I'll try and get some sound samples up once my recording engineer wakes up!

[Spoombung]

[quote name='pete.young' post='577369' date='Aug 22 2009, 09:24 AM']I'll try and get some sound samples up once my recording engineer wakes up![/quote]

That would be great if you could manage it. I've always been interested in thee basses...

[Rich]

The Sei I used to own had a piezo bridge, it had its own volume control but was independent of the tone controls. I found that if I rolled off all the treble on the Bart pickups and turned the piezo up full, it did a perfect impression of an Ovation ABG. It was a great sound, I never had the chance to use it but it would have been perfect in the right song.
I'm thinking about getting one of those eBay piezo bridges for the short-scale Overwater Skool Base I'm (very very gradually) doing up.

[elros]

Bugger. I wrote a nice lengthy response but it got lost.

[elros]

I'll try again. This is the brief version.

Piezo pickups can sound great on their own. Wider frequency response than typical magnetic pickups.

Listen [url="http://hallgeir.no/bass/sound/"]to my sound clips[/url] - the piezo solo clips are in there, read the descriptions.

[elros]

And the buffer is needed for impedance matching only - the levels are often very close to the magnetics (there's a lot of variation between different magnetic pickups, you know).

For my Warmoth build I used a simple one-stage FET based buffer [url="http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/index.html"]based on Don Tillman's design found here[/url]. Works great!

[Mr. Foxen]

I have a mudbucker tele bass on the way, thinking of one of these to give a bunch of new sounds from it, and hide it under the oldschool bridge cover. Is there any tricks other than an active buffer to use it in conjunction with the magnetic pup? Ot am I better off running two outputs? Might be able to rig a socket into the bridge cover.

[elros]

An active on-board buffer is the best solution. A seperate output could work, but it's quite possible that you'd lose low end due to the longer cable run. After all, the piezo pickup is a capacitive source.

[lemmywinks]

[quote name='elros' post='582442' date='Aug 27 2009, 01:56 PM']And the buffer is needed for impedance matching only - the levels are often very close to the magnetics (there's a lot of variation between different magnetic pickups, you know).

For my Warmoth build I used a simple one-stage FET based buffer [url="http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/index.html"]based on Don Tillman's design found here[/url]. Works great![/quote]


How difficult is that to knock up? Also will it fit inside a typical control cavity? I won't be doing it btw!

I know how i'd want to incorporate the piezo in the bass, just the usual passive vol/vol/tone and a seperate volume for the piezo, i want it as simple as possible

Ta
Steve

[elros]

The single-stage FET buffer is very easy to throw up.
And it would easily fit inside pretty much any control cavity. I'll try to remember snapping some photos of mine next time I'm able. Should be in about ten days.

[Mr. Foxen]

Did you lot buy all these? Now the bass for it has arrived they've all gone. Grrr.

[lemmywinks]

[quote name='elros' post='593128' date='Sep 8 2009, 06:05 PM']The single-stage FET buffer is very easy to throw up.
And it would easily fit inside pretty much any control cavity. I'll try to remember snapping some photos of mine next time I'm able. Should be in about ten days.[/quote]


Excellent, cheers dude!

[Mr. Foxen]

Finally picked one of these up. Chunky heavy duty, do need to secure the cable on it as it doesn't seem hard to pull off if you are having trouble positioning it. Bit hard to run the cable into the earth wire hole, if it isn't central. Plus mine came with the wrong sized allen key.

I plugged it into a Zvex Super Hard-on as a buffer, sounded pretty good, but the rough set of strings I slung on for testing had a rattle, and it shows that up really well. Sounds pretty true to the acoustic sound, as the strings were new (discarded due to rattle) it was really bright.

[Mr. Foxen]

Just had a practice with this. Bass is strung with heavy steels, guessing Rotos. I didn't have a buffer made up, so used pedals, plugged it into a bass big muff and a Sansamp VT (my bottom end pedals, the P pickup has a seperate output I route through treblier rig). Both are true bypass I think (overrated, and a pain in this case). The Sansamp seemed to agree best and I get a really thick full range sound, the muff seemed to lose some bottom that it doesn't usually. Really happy with the sound, but need to sort a proper buffer to keep it consistent. I'm scooping all the mids from teh low rig, to provide the bottom end and clean click when I want it, and totally cranking the mids on the driven rig that runs from the magnetic pickup.

[Mr. Foxen]

Uploaded the recording of a jam using stereo outputs mag and piezo. [url="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ILISUHQQ"]Megauploaded here.[/url]