Thanks for this. What I've always wondered when seeing these cheaper piezo bridges, is, is the piezo strip just affixed to the underside of the bridge with some tape, and having to get the vibrations once they've travelled through the whole unit, or is it inside the bridge unit proper? Next, if it's just stuck underneath, would it be possible to either fit it beneath the saddles, or even cut a tiny groove in either the saddles or bridge with a hand tool to make the connection and vibration transfer more effective? I've long pondered the efficacy of installing one of these, and was pleasantly surprised, although I thought the difference between both guitars to be quite stark and apparent. The Martin's pup had a lot more character with more resonant highs and depth of timbre, nice work 30 years ago!
Well, you COULD have fooled me! I thought the 1st guitar was the Martin as is sounded acoustic and woody. Guitar #2 was more solid and plucky sounding, typically piezo! Whatever you DID, you did it RIGHT! Well done Curt!
Sounds good, but the Martin tone is definitely richer. I would suggest that a deficit in the frequency response of the piezo pickup, in some frequency bands, could be remedied with even a lowly 3-band equalizer.
I have a HB Amarok 7 strings, and I've been working with this idea of adding a piezo bridge (totally different from the Les Paul, by the way). Thanks for this video!
Id like to do something like this, to my Nashville Casino. But Im not wanting to do any permanent mods to a $3k+ guitar. This gave me some ideas, but what Id really like are small clip on condenser mic I can clip hidden in the F hole, run under the pick-guard, around the back, bundle with my other cable like a snake. The mic to a preamp and then both to an ABY. So I can switch between the two. You did a fantastic job on the video thank you. Gave me some good ideas.
The lavalier mic is VERY common in Gypsy Jazz and Flamenco for the same reason (insanely expensive) guitars. I will say that in my acoustic flamenco group where we are barely even using amplification (just background music for restaurants and breweries) I got LOTS of feedback. That's with the windscreen and the mic on the inside too. Maybe there's a way to do it, but in my experience if you're playing louder than the human voice you're gonna get feedback issues with the lapel clip on mics
I know this video is a year old now but I noticed it looks like you have to bridge in backwards (3:30, 8:38) with the widest saddle slot on the high E and the thinnest saddle slot on the low E
I was thinking the same thing, but not for that reason but because the screw heads for adjusting the intonation are on the pickup side rather than the tailpiece side. Right?
Nice video, and surprisingly your piezo sounds great! Impressive. By any chance can you tell whether the piezo is detachable from the tuneomatic or not. And also the six screws that hold the saddles, are they detachable? *I'm considering to buy one of this, the only thing that matters is I need a roller bridge because I use bigsby vibrato. If they can be removed I might mod it a bit and use it with my current roller bridge. Thanks in advance!
Hey! Great video, i was wondering if it is posible to replace my neck element on the toggle switch for the piezo and use mono out. I have bought a Fishman Spectrum Aura Pre Amp which i want to run into the FX loop of my kemper profiler, the FX loop on the kemper can be turned on and off and my idea is to have a XLR out from the aura for the acoustic sounds
I have doubts about whether a Piezo pickup attached to a plastic pick-guard, replacing a standard magnetic pickup, will capture enough sound vibration to be effective, especially if no pre-amp is used. Magnetic pickups create sound via ferro-magnetic strings vibrating in a magnetic field. Electric guitar bodies need not transmit sound through their material. In contrast, piezo's are either mounted to bridges or saddles made of dense material (metal, bone, etc) or to other material (the tonewood top of acoustic guitars), specifically because these materials transmit sound from the vibrating string well. Alternatively, they are vibrated by being mounted in the path of the sound emitted from the sound-hole of the acoustic. Even if the mount that you suggest does pick up adequate vibrations to be amplified, there is the likelihood that the frequencies pickup will not be "broad-band", making an equalizer to be an added necessity to avoid a muffled sound. Hence, the suggestion is to stick to piezo pickups attached to the bridge. If a tremolo bridge is present, there's no reason why an inexpensive round piezo element could not be superglued or soldered to the underside of the bridge plate (via the spring cavity) and the piezo output could be blended with the output of one of the single coil pickups by adding a special blender pot. This way, in the single-coil switch position, the blender pot could adjust to all piezo, all magnetic or a blend of both pickups.
@@olenfersoi8887 Thanks for your answer, altho not what i meant. I ended up with the following signal path. Gibson ES-335 with the piezö installed, stereo out, into a VoodooLab GCX (I had laying around) that can select which amp and pickup are used, magnetic pups go into a ABCD/Y selector and into my Kemper profiler (so i can switch from my wireless packs to the cable) The piezo is going directly to the Aura DI XLR out. All the switching between amps and kemper is done by a Voodoolab Ground Controller
When I wired the leads to the jack, I wired one pickup to the tip and the other to the ring of the stereo output. The Y-cable I use is labeled "tip" and "ring". If you're not sure, just plug them in - the magnetic pickups will be full volume, the piezo will be very low without a preamp direct box.
Great video! I'm looking at doing this to my ibanez artcore. Can you please confirm if the piezo pickup was wired direct to the output? There is no volume or tone controls for this pickup?
Install complete on my semi-hollow. I took the brave decision to drill down at an angle from under the bridge on the body top into the pickup cavity so the cable is completely hidden. Everything works great. I run the piiezo signal into an acoustic pre-amp pedal and separate eq on my board to balance the signal and take out the quacky tone. I then run both signals into an a/b/y pedal for quick switching. Really pleased with the sound and can't really tell the difference from my traditional acoustic guitar that is fitted with an under bridge piezo. One guitar carry solution for gigs and band practice. Acoustic solos are also much easier to play now. Thanks for this video as I was considering buying a hybrid system guitar; saved me a fortune!
I installed a stereo output jack. I use a stereo to double mono y-adapter. One output is the piezo, the second output are the magnetic pickups. That way I can run the piezo into the soundboard and the magnetic pickups into my guitar amp.
The reason for having two jacks is because of the wide difference in output strength between the piezo & magnetic pickups...hence, the need to pre-amplify the piezo output more than the magnetic. It's not a matter of different styles of jacks...as, unless you have a special poly-phonic pickup, they all have just output wires for the sound & the ground. Hence, jacks aren't supplied with pickups.
If i run a STEREO cable (one side) and the other side ends with 2 mono cables, will there be no problem? I would run both into my helix and be able to switch "real time" from acoustic to electric
For sure, I run a stereo to two mono y-adapter - then I run one cable to my amp, the piezo cable goes into an active direct box into the sound board. Your Helix should cover both nicely.
Excellent video curt!! Guitar 2 was harmonically richer (of course being a Martin)...it did have the piezo quack though...Did you mic the acoustic or does it have an under saddle piezo??? For the money the Kaish unit sounded just fine.
Hi, could you write something more about joining magnetic and piezo parts of circuit. Did you simply join both outputs in one jack? No other separating/balancing circuits?
I don't quite understand... but you could definately continue the mod by dropping the EMG 81, however you'll need a preamp and battery in the guitar as that is an active pickup.
Are you thinking that because he went through the body cavity for the bridge pickup, that he somehow was electronically combining the piezo and the bridge pick together? He was simply using the cavity under the bridge pickup for convenience. The 2 signals (Piezo & Electric) remain separate. You'll notice some guitar makers give you 2 jacks and you have to run 2 cables. Cable 1: goes to the electric guitar amps; Cable 2: goes to the PA. He was using a stereo jack so he could run a stereo cable out and just have 1 jack (again for convenience I'm assuming).
DMSProduktions I’m not sure about that, each saddle had a “wax” drop in the back. There could be crystal in each saddle. Admittedly, I did not take the bridge apart for a closer look.
@@curtjunky Ok, fair enough, it MIGHT have individual elements! After actually hearing it, it may well have, as it sounded a lot more 'acoustic' than did your actual acoustic!
If you look at the back of it, then there are six solder points, one for each saddle. So I am going to take one and unsolder it and hopefully it will then be 6 individual outputs to play with. Maybe I will remember to come back here and update you on it.
You can use a stereo guitar cable. I use a stereo Y-adapter and run the magnetic pickups to my amp, while I run the piezo to an acoustic preamp - then to the soundboard.
@@curtjunky thank you. But without a stereo cable you can switch between both ? I'm having trouble finding a long enough spdt mini switch for a Les Paul.
@@curtjunky As I mention elsewhere, rather than an additional volume control, a blender pot can be adding to combine the signal with an existing pickup, allowing panning between the pickups. This, plus a tiny onboard active preamp in the piezo output is a lot simpler arrangement that having to have second output jack, or having to use a stereo output cable and a second volume control.
Not really, the difference in output between the magnetic and piezo pickups is too large. If you installed a preamp in the guitar for the piezo, then you could blend them into one output.
I've seen someone putting the passive piezo in series with the humbucker, you can hear both and balance them with a bias knob (I think it changes impedance? ) but can't have just one or just the other. Sadly, I can't find it anymore
I know I called it a "Stop Tailpiece" bridge in the video... it is actually a "tune-o-matic" bridge.
Thanks for this.
What I've always wondered when seeing these cheaper piezo bridges, is, is the piezo strip just affixed to the underside of the bridge with some tape, and having to get the vibrations once they've travelled through the whole unit, or is it inside the bridge unit proper?
Next, if it's just stuck underneath, would it be possible to either fit it beneath the saddles, or even cut a tiny groove in either the saddles or bridge with a hand tool to make the connection and vibration transfer more effective?
I've long pondered the efficacy of installing one of these, and was pleasantly surprised, although I thought the difference between both guitars to be quite stark and apparent.
The Martin's pup had a lot more character with more resonant highs and depth of timbre, nice work 30 years ago!
@@onbedoeldekut1515 The piezo is definitly part of the bridge. I didn't try to take it apart, it seems to work well as designed.
I thought the HB was the Martin for sure. Wow, very surprised how good it sounded
Well, you COULD have fooled me! I thought the 1st guitar was the Martin as is sounded acoustic and woody. Guitar #2 was more solid and plucky sounding, typically piezo!
Whatever you DID, you did it RIGHT! Well done Curt!
DMSProduktions thanks! I was honestly surprised as well!
@@curtjunky Well then I'd say, 'mission acomplished!'
Sounds good, but the Martin tone is definitely richer. I would suggest that a deficit in the frequency response of the piezo pickup, in some frequency bands, could be remedied with even a lowly 3-band equalizer.
Really loved your content. The piezo sounds even better than the acoustic!
Sounds great, I thought guitar 1 was the acoustic.
Im not sure why but I love this channel it feels so good and wholesome and it makes me feel at home thank you man
Thanks Curt, great informative video, no gimmicks no silly gags. Looks like my electric is going acoustic too! Cheers from GB 🇬🇧 .
Thanks for the very clear video on how you completed the installation. I'm looking to do this same thing to my Dean LP copy guitar.
I have a HB Amarok 7 strings, and I've been working with this idea of adding a piezo bridge (totally different from the Les Paul, by the way). Thanks for this video!
Hope it goes well, cheers!
Wow you fooled me thought the 1st was the actual acoustic guitar, I have that same tune o matic I haven't chosen what guitar to install it in
Id like to do something like this, to my Nashville Casino. But Im not wanting to do any permanent mods to a $3k+ guitar. This gave me some ideas, but what Id really like are small clip on condenser mic I can clip hidden in the F hole, run under the pick-guard, around the back, bundle with my other cable like a snake. The mic to a preamp and then both to an ABY. So I can switch between the two. You did a fantastic job on the video thank you. Gave me some good ideas.
That sounds like a great idea - love to hear it!
The lavalier mic is VERY common in Gypsy Jazz and Flamenco for the same reason (insanely expensive) guitars.
I will say that in my acoustic flamenco group where we are barely even using amplification (just background music for restaurants and breweries) I got LOTS of feedback. That's with the windscreen and the mic on the inside too.
Maybe there's a way to do it, but in my experience if you're playing louder than the human voice you're gonna get feedback issues with the lapel clip on mics
I subscribed. Please make more mod videos. I like tinkering with guitar stuff too.
I don't think that tooth pick is tone wood. 🤔 it might make your sound splintered
Thankfully I used round toothpicks to round out my tone! 😀
I know this video is a year old now but I noticed it looks like you have to bridge in backwards (3:30, 8:38) with the widest saddle slot on the high E and the thinnest saddle slot on the low E
I was thinking the same thing, but not for that reason but because the screw heads for adjusting the intonation are on the pickup side rather than the tailpiece side. Right?
awesome!!
Is the piezo pickup under the saddles (like sandwiched between the saddles and the tailpiece, or is it taped to the underside of the tailpiece?
If I remember correctly... the piezo is build into the saddle. The piezo is definitely not taped under the bridge piece.
Thanks !
Nice video, and surprisingly your piezo sounds great! Impressive. By any chance can you tell whether the piezo is detachable from the tuneomatic or not. And also the six screws that hold the saddles, are they detachable?
*I'm considering to buy one of this, the only thing that matters is I need a roller bridge because I use bigsby vibrato. If they can be removed I might mod it a bit and use it with my current roller bridge. Thanks in advance!
I would doubt you’d be able to take it apart to modify for a roller bridge. I’d keep looking on eBay for the correct piezo bridge.
@@curtjunky noted
You stumped me man.... shocked actually
How do the piezo sound cranked up? Interesting video by the way 👍
Hi about to do this on my bass that had active electronic on it can you help me ? Thanks
I'm not sure how I can help. Find a local guitar tech and work with that person. Cheers!
Hey!
Great video, i was wondering if it is posible to replace my neck element on the toggle switch for the piezo and use mono out. I have bought a Fishman Spectrum Aura Pre Amp which i want to run into the FX loop of my kemper profiler, the FX loop on the kemper can be turned on and off and my idea is to have a XLR out from the aura for the acoustic sounds
I think that is a very cool solution.
I have doubts about whether a Piezo pickup attached to a plastic pick-guard, replacing a standard magnetic pickup, will capture enough sound vibration to be effective, especially if no pre-amp is used. Magnetic pickups create sound via ferro-magnetic strings vibrating in a magnetic field. Electric guitar bodies need not transmit sound through their material.
In contrast, piezo's are either mounted to bridges or saddles made of dense material (metal, bone, etc) or to other material (the tonewood top of acoustic guitars), specifically because these materials transmit sound from the vibrating string well. Alternatively, they are vibrated by being mounted in the path of the sound emitted from the sound-hole of the acoustic.
Even if the mount that you suggest does pick up adequate vibrations to be amplified, there is the likelihood that the frequencies pickup will not be "broad-band", making an equalizer to be an added necessity to avoid a muffled sound.
Hence, the suggestion is to stick to piezo pickups attached to the bridge. If a tremolo bridge is present, there's no reason why an inexpensive round piezo element could not be superglued or soldered to the underside of the bridge plate (via the spring cavity) and the piezo output could be blended with the output of one of the single coil pickups by adding a special blender pot. This way, in the single-coil switch position, the blender pot could adjust to all piezo, all magnetic or a blend of both pickups.
@@olenfersoi8887 Thanks for your answer, altho not what i meant.
I ended up with the following signal path.
Gibson ES-335 with the piezö installed, stereo out, into a VoodooLab GCX (I had laying around) that can select which amp and pickup are used, magnetic pups go into a ABCD/Y selector and into my Kemper profiler (so i can switch from my wireless packs to the cable)
The piezo is going directly to the Aura DI XLR out.
All the switching between amps and kemper is done by a Voodoolab Ground Controller
Hi. How do you know which cable is for the piezo after you’ve split it? Sorry if that’s a dumb question!
When I wired the leads to the jack, I wired one pickup to the tip and the other to the ring of the stereo output. The Y-cable I use is labeled "tip" and "ring". If you're not sure, just plug them in - the magnetic pickups will be full volume, the piezo will be very low without a preamp direct box.
@@curtjunky thanks for your response. Will be doing this to my casino this week.
Mine has arrived. How do you know which is the pick-up wire and which is the ground wire?
@@stevepurdie3889 If there is an outer wire and an inner wire; then the outer is the ground and the inner is the positive.
Great video! I'm looking at doing this to my ibanez artcore. Can you please confirm if the piezo pickup was wired direct to the output? There is no volume or tone controls for this pickup?
Thanks, can't wait to hear it on a semi-hollow body! True, piezo wired directly to output.
Install complete on my semi-hollow. I took the brave decision to drill down at an angle from under the bridge on the body top into the pickup cavity so the cable is completely hidden. Everything works great. I run the piiezo signal into an acoustic pre-amp pedal and separate eq on my board to balance the signal and take out the quacky tone. I then run both signals into an a/b/y pedal for quick switching.
Really pleased with the sound and can't really tell the difference from my traditional acoustic guitar that is fitted with an under bridge piezo. One guitar carry solution for gigs and band practice. Acoustic solos are also much easier to play now.
Thanks for this video as I was considering buying a hybrid system guitar; saved me a fortune!
@@neilcorbett3843 Awesome! Great to hear it worked so well!
Did the piezo has another output jack that's different than the pickups? Does this works on other 6 string guitars that has a tune-o-matic bridge?
I installed a stereo output jack. I use a stereo to double mono y-adapter. One output is the piezo, the second output are the magnetic pickups. That way I can run the piezo into the soundboard and the magnetic pickups into my guitar amp.
The reason for having two jacks is because of the wide difference in output strength between the piezo & magnetic pickups...hence, the need to pre-amplify the piezo output more than the magnetic. It's not a matter of different styles of jacks...as, unless you have a special poly-phonic pickup, they all have just output wires for the sound & the ground. Hence, jacks aren't supplied with pickups.
Would you know if this would work on a Jazzmaster or Mustang style bridge with whammy bar antics and all ? ? ?
The bridge I found on ebay was definately designed for tune-o-matic, maybe there's a similar piezo bridge out there for your guitar.
If i run a STEREO cable (one side) and the other side ends with 2 mono cables, will there be no problem? I would run both into my helix and be able to switch "real time" from acoustic to electric
For sure, I run a stereo to two mono y-adapter - then I run one cable to my amp, the piezo cable goes into an active direct box into the sound board. Your Helix should cover both nicely.
@@curtjunky thanks! Such a pity that this piezo seems gone from the market! Would you suggest something else like that?
@@RobertoAntonacci try "piezo bridge" on eBay
Really no need to keep saying "see you later" which sounds stupid because after editing it's just one cut connect to the next with no time delay.
@@edmondwong6117 OK, thanks this is my third video. I'll do better :)
Excellent video curt!! Guitar 2 was harmonically richer (of course being a Martin)...it did have the piezo quack though...Did you mic the acoustic or does it have an under saddle piezo??? For the money the Kaish unit sounded just fine.
Thanks! No mic on the Martin, just the under saddle piezo into the BBE (same as the Harley Benton).
Hi, could you write something more about joining magnetic and piezo parts of circuit. Did you simply join both outputs in one jack? No other separating/balancing circuits?
I used a stereo output jack. The magnetic pickups are wired to one output, and the piezo is wired to the other. No blending or balancing.
@@curtjunky Ok, thank You 🙂
I think #2 is the martin
Question what if you had through the neck pick up and kept your bridge pick up like an EMG 81 Let’s just say, will will that work??
I don't quite understand... but you could definately continue the mod by dropping the EMG 81, however you'll need a preamp and battery in the guitar as that is an active pickup.
Are you thinking that because he went through the body cavity for the bridge pickup, that he somehow was electronically combining the piezo and the bridge pick together?
He was simply using the cavity under the bridge pickup for convenience. The 2 signals (Piezo & Electric) remain separate. You'll notice some guitar makers give you 2 jacks and you have to run 2 cables. Cable 1: goes to the electric guitar amps; Cable 2: goes to the PA.
He was using a stereo jack so he could run a stereo cable out and just have 1 jack (again for convenience I'm assuming).
This is a cheap type, with 1 bar of piezo under the bridge. The GOOD 1s have individual saddles of piezo crystals!
DMSProduktions I’m not sure about that, each saddle had a “wax” drop in the back. There could be crystal in each saddle. Admittedly, I did not take the bridge apart for a closer look.
@@curtjunky Ok, fair enough, it MIGHT have individual elements! After actually hearing it, it may well have, as it sounded a lot more 'acoustic' than did your actual acoustic!
If you look at the back of it, then there are six solder points, one for each saddle. So I am going to take one and unsolder it and hopefully it will then be 6 individual outputs to play with. Maybe I will remember to come back here and update you on it.
@@wbertie2604 Sounds LIKE plan!
Ring?))))
geometry has left the chat
Acoustic one sounds better.
No battery?
That is correct. Because I did not install an onboard preamp there is no need for a battery.
Do you need a stereo guitar cable ?
You can use a stereo guitar cable. I use a stereo Y-adapter and run the magnetic pickups to my amp, while I run the piezo to an acoustic preamp - then to the soundboard.
@@curtjunky thank you. But without a stereo cable you can switch between both ? I'm having trouble finding a long enough spdt mini switch for a Les Paul.
@@DoubleSixx a volume pedal in each line will allow you to control your signals.
@@curtjunky As I mention elsewhere, rather than an additional volume control, a blender pot can be adding to combine the signal with an existing pickup, allowing panning between the pickups. This, plus a tiny onboard active preamp in the piezo output is a lot simpler arrangement that having to have second output jack, or having to use a stereo output cable and a second volume control.
@@olenfersoi8887 Please tell me which onboard active preamp you used. Thanks!
I say 'peezo', well we do here anyway!
is this bridge made of zinc? steel? is it magnetic?
No idea, but it is not magnetic (so we can rule out steel).
Is it possible to just have one outputjack and control the piezo vi another volume knob?
Not really, the difference in output between the magnetic and piezo pickups is too large. If you installed a preamp in the guitar for the piezo, then you could blend them into one output.
@@curtjunky i dont wantvto blend just be a le to use one wireless system
Could replace a volume or tone with a push-pull pot and use that to select which system is connected to the jack.
@@evlkenevl2721 Do u have any wiring diagram to do that?
I've seen someone putting the passive piezo in series with the humbucker, you can hear both and balance them with a bias knob (I think it changes impedance? ) but can't have just one or just the other. Sadly, I can't find it anymore
It's neither pi-ei-so nor pai-so, it's pie-zo
Personally i just pronounce it as piezo
I don't remember asking